The conflict in Iraq may go on for years, but it appears the end is nigh for Hollywood’s ponderous, heavy-handed treatment of the war on terror. That’s because most new movies about the subject this season are lowbrow and cringe-inducing comedies.



Over the next few weeks, theaters will be screening far-out fare such as an Osama bin Laden documentary by the maker of “Super Size Me”; an absurdist slam against merchants of war featuring John Cusack; a zombie soldier flick with XXX star Jenna Jameson; a stoner movie about Guantanamo Bay; and a Sept. 11 parody — yes, parody — made by Uwe Boll, a little-known filmmaker often ridiculed as the worst director in Hollywood since Ed Wood.



Just how off-the-wall is the genre getting? Over the past six months, filmgoers have been turned off by overearnest snoozers (“Lions for Lambs,” “A Mighty Heart”), low-budget losers (“Redacted”) and far worse.



With the arrival of a half-dozen comedies, however, the post-Sept. 11 movie has quite possibly reached a new low.



Consider Boll’s “Postal,” opening nationwide May 23. Touted as a “shock comedy,” the film begins by depicting the Sept. 11 hijackers making moronic comments about the paradise that awaits them. The film is likely to offend just about everyone with its premise that includes “a gang of bosomy commandos [who] face off against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in an epic battle that will determine the fate of the world.” Since its opening cockpit sequence was first promoted on YouTube last May, it has been viewed more than two million times.

Starring Zack Ward of “Transformers” and Kids in the Hall comic Dave Foley, the self-described “outrageous political and social satire” also features Larry Thomas as bin Laden (he portrayed the Soup Nazi on “Seinfeld”) as well as Verne Troyer, the dwarf best known as “Mini-Me” in the Austin Powers series.



Boll, a European director-screenwriter whose specialty is adapting videogames for the big screen using no-risk German tax shelter funding, has made more than a dozen miserable movies, from “BloodRayne” to “Alone in the Dark.” While directors John Waters and Todd Solondz have both proven that offensive films can be outrageously campy and artistic, Boll is, at best, an unfunny hack.



While Boll’s film is being independently distributed, others are being handled by major studios, including the stoner sequel “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” a New Line/Warner Bros. release. A dopey update of ’70s-era Cheech & Chong-style drug humor, the new story line finds the potheads headed for Amsterdam before running afoul of airport security and getting shipped off to Gitmo. Following their escape, the Homeland Security fugitives wend their way through the South, eventually landing in Texas where they meet President Bush.



“We really don’t think Guantanamo Bay is a joke,” says Njambi Good of Amnesty International USA. The human rights group has no plans to protest the film, though members will gather outside movie houses distributing handbills about real-life torture and rendition practices.



Two weeks after the film’s April 25 debut, Amnesty will tour a full-scale reproduction of a Guantanamo cell in Miami, Philadelphia, Portland, D.C. and Los Angeles. So far, there’s been no talk of cross-promoting the tour with the movie. “Because of its [pro-drug] content, this is not a film Amnesty can partner with,” says Good. “But we’re encouraging activists to do some tabling outside of theaters.”



If “Harold & Kumar” seems patently ridiculous, it’s high art compared with “Zombie Strippers,” an R-rated gore comedy starring veteran porno queen Jameson. Opening this week for a limited engagement before being released on DVD, the nudie horror film revolves around a top-secret military lab in which scientists have developed a new virus to revive slain soldiers as zombie warriors, allowing them to continue fighting in Iraq. After a mission to stop the zombies goes awry, one infected soldier breaks into a subterranean strip club, where he bites the headliner and sparks an orgy of flesh-eating among both patrons and dancers.