Onslaught, 2026.
Directed by Adam Wingard.
Starring Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Eric Wareheim, Reginald VelJohnson, Michael Biehn, Alex Pereira, Drew Starkey, Jacob Scipio and Rebecca Hall.
SYNOPSIS:
When a rogue squad of genetically engineered super soldiers break loose in the desert, a badass Army sniper must unleash hell to protect her young daughter.
A film should never be begrudged or looked down upon for having modest ambitions and executing well exactly what it sets out to do. As such, it’s not necessarily a surprise that director Adam Wingard’s Onslaught (which takes place in the same universe as 2014’s The Guest, once again written alongside regular collaborator Simon Barrett) successfully delivers visceral grindhouse violence and thrills with a grim sense of humor. To be upfront, it’s nowhere near as exhilarating as that film and merely works with a vaguely similar premise rather than expanding upon this fictional world in any meaningful way.
However, it does try, with Dan Stevens (returning as a different character) and Rebecca Hall playing a duo heading up a top-secret project genetically experimenting on dead U.S. soldiers, with Drew Starkey also present as a fixer of sorts, eventually called in to monitor and clean up the situation left behind by the mind-controlled super soldiers without directly interfering with them. It’s also trying to be more than an action-forward slasher (with an electronic score from Matthew Pusti, appropriate for the subgenre), attempting social commentary on ex-soldiers injured and left behind, with enough justified paranoia regarding their government that they comfortably live in a trailer park by choice with access to a litany of assault rifles for protection. That’s without getting into the requisite PTSD aspect, or that the battle-fallen are the test subjects, brought back to life as indestructible super soldiers.
In some truly inspired casting that will hopefully open more doors for her in the genre, Adria Arjona’s ex-soldier Celeste is armed to the teeth and regularly practices shooting in the New Mexico desert every morning. She is also a mother to her young daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), whom she wasn’t expecting to have for the weekend, not checking her messages from her separated ex-partner, who has urgent work plans and decided to drop her off at the trailer park, unable to get a sitter. Agitated by the situation (not by her daughter, to make a key distinction), Celeste is further perturbed when she learns that he will be relocating with Daisy after filing for full custody, which he will most likely win.
From the mad scientist determination of Dan Stevens’ Hans Kammler (because apparently, even his characters in Adam Wingard movies must now be bizarro European weirdos) to see his hard work come to grisly fruition, Drew Starkey’s oddball government contractor Cyrus, who hangs out at underground dominatrix dens when not on call to clean up a mess, Michael Biehn’s Baylor ready to shut down the experimentations unless he sees results (the character’s entire presence feels superfluous, as if only to provide a recognizable 1980s face to go with matching the nostalgic presentation of the chaos), and the previously mentioned family dysfunction, Onslaught, simply put, never comes together. It ends on a “that’s it” note, and that includes the blood-splattering violence, which, in fitting John Carpenter fashion, is slowly and steadily escalated, but here it feels a bit too short a burst of sustained intensity. Sure, it kicks ass, but that aspect is also over almost as quickly as it begins.
The crucial saving grace here is that this is a style Adam Wingard understands proficiently to a science. Operating under a chapter-like structure while using a ticking clock that counts down to something unknown, the first half is wisely more about establishing characters across the trailer park and the research facility, with time jumps throughout the day. Eventually, the super soldiers break free from containment, subsequently with all hell breaking loose, with “mommy grabbing her guns” and “saving lots of bad words” to protect her daughter and small, unified community, perceived as disposable. Chainsaws also pleasantly and grotesquely come into the equation.
Working with cinematographer Oren Soffer, darkness is capitalized on with several wide-angle shots of the three super soldiers (played by Alex Pereira, Dave Campbell, and Tyler Hall), all of whom are given nicknames by Hans relating to their behavior as a soldier when they were alive and in control of their cerebral functions, standing beside one another in formation, with the only light coming from their night vision. Cloaked in layers upon layers of tactical equipment, they aren’t necessarily fast-paced, which seems counterproductive to the entire concept, albeit resulting in jolts of terror and eruptions of death (a mass murder inside a gas station is one such road stop, setting up their cold-blooded capacity to kill unflinchingly). And while the film is never reliant on jump scares, the few that are here are cleverly inserted (one of them comes while processing a throwaway joke).
Nevertheless, once the super soldiers reach the trailer park, a barrage of decadently gory action unfolds alongside eye-popping kills and a spotlight for Adria Arjona (it works best when strictly operating under the throughline that moms are the real super soldiers) in the genre. The result is less a film that marks a signature performance and more a calling card for consideration in future projects. Onslaught is a retro throwback that certainly kicks ass; it never quite lives up to the title in the action department, unfortunately, doing so by overloading with characters and proposed thematic ideas that never coalesce.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
