One Of 2024's Scariest Movies Isn't Horror – And It's Ripped From The Headlines
"War Game" isn't what one might consider a typical horror movie, but thanks to its subject matter, it's one of the scariest films you're likely to see in 2024.
Two years after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, a collection of current and former U.S. intelligence agents, Army veterans, defense specialists, senators, and high-ranking advisors meet near the U.S. Capitol to participate in a secret national security exercise overseen by a non-partisan veterans organization called Vet Voice. With concerns running high that the next real-life insurrection could involve members of the active duty military, this unscripted exercise was concocted to see how the federal government might respond to a contested presidential election in 2024, and another attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2025. This time, the loser of the presidential race openly calls for rebellion by encouraging military members to ignore orders from the President and take up arms against their countrymen. It's January 6 on steroids.
Is the United States ready for that? What kinds of decisions would need to be made in the situation room if such a scenario were to occur? With the participants assigned to various roles (example: the governor of Montana portrays the President of the United States), directors Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber take us inside that room to witness how it might all go down. A timer is set for six hours to see if democracy can be saved, or if the insurrectionists will overrun the country.
An alarming scenario
The movie begins with unnerving footage of Army veteran Kris Goldsmith and Marine Corps member Chris Jones traveling through Washington, D.C., openly clocking landmarks as potential targets and plotting a series of attacks. "This is going to be the most high-vis area," one says as they cruise past a high-profile target, "so this is where we're going to want people seeing U.S. troops gunning down patriotic Americans." It's chilling because of how real it feels — how real it was in 2021, and how real it could easily be again next January. Here, it's just an exercise: In the eponymous war game, Goldsmith and Jones are acting as key members of the fictional insurrectionist group known as the Order of Columbus, a far-right Christofascist organization who supports the losing presidential candidate and are leading the fictional insurrection.
As the clock begins to tick down, their team floods the social media zone with calculated disinformation, recruiting more members to their nefarious cause and completely controlling the narrative. Meanwhile, the team consisting of the "President" and his advisors sift through their options and try to figure out how to respond to this treasonous attack. There are no jump scares here, no ghosts or ghouls or zombies — just a frightening real scenario, and people doing their best to try to figure out how to handle it.
The room where it happens
The participants have experience that spans the last five presidential administrations, and while they're all worried about threats to democracy, some people in the situation room do not take the threat of extremism within the ranks of the military as seriously as others. One of the most unnerving aspects of this situation is the knowledge that if (when?) the next insurrection happens, members of our active-duty military will be participating on the wrong side. The film offers an empathetic understanding of how such radicalization can happen, given the disillusionment soldiers have over our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how little the country seems to care about veterans once they return home. But while some of the people involved understand the rise in extremism, they seem to struggle with finding the best way to deal with it once it happens. One of the primary takeaways from this film is just how crucial it is for our leaders to be surrounded by the right people in high-pressure situations; watching this documentary makes one hope that some of the most level-headed participants here actually end up in the real situation room should a plot like this ever break out again.
Without spoiling how the exercise pans out, when we look back on "War Game" at this time next year, hopefully, the whole thing will feel like an unnecessary precaution. At best, maybe it'll seem like a prequel to Alex Garland's "Civil War." But at worst, it might seem like a prophetic prediction of a terrifying reality — one for which we should have been much better prepared. In hindsight, this could end up being the scariest movie of the year.
I spoke about this on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which covers the best movies we saw at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Check it out below:
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