Review: ONSLAUGHT is a Simple Yet Chilling Return to Horror For Adam Wingard

With Onslaught, filmmaker Adam Windgard puts the monkey back in the box and reconnects with his gnarly genre roots. Mr. Kongzilla returns to his You’re Next and The Guest glory with what he calls a spiritual sequel: violent, conspiratorial, and indie-gritty. Onslaught is a throwback to John Carpenter, Universal Soldier, and blind rage slashers as a hybrid kill-em-all flick that unleashes the Wingardian horror fans revere. It’s the lesser of his murder-happy trilogy, never living up to numerous wacko promises, but Wingard’s back to getting wild without studio notes, and for that, we’re grateful.

Dr. Hans Kammler (a balding, mad German scientist played by Dan Stevens) thinks he’s developed the perfect super commandos. Take broken war veterans, remove their consciousness via cranial lobotomy, and reprogram them into psychotic, feel-no-pain killing machines (like The Butcher, played by Brazilian MMA star Alex Pereira). But when Dr. Kammler’s savage subjects escape from containment, Hell comes to a New Mexico trailer park. Resident manager Celeste (Adria Arjona) draws on her ex-military sniper skills to mount a counter defense, determined to protect her daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy) from the soulless brutes assassinating everyone in sight.

Wingard directs from yet another Simon Barrett screenplay that starts captivatingly weird. Stevens looks like a Nazi Ebenezer Scrooge (that European “Paint It Black” cover goes hard in the background), who is introduced by getting on all fours and licking his wife’s high-heels like a good boy (Rebecca Hall as his dommy mommy). Drew Starkey plays a professional cleaner who’s high on MDMA after his private BDSM club visit is interrupted by Kammler’s blunder. Eric Wareheim portrays a nincompoop sheriff who might as well be out of a Tim & Eric sketch. It’s all very bizarre at the onset and highly entertaining, yet by the end, Onslaught is never as collectively zany or indulgent as these earlier glimpses insinuate.

Arjona is our clear “Final Girl” from the beginning, with her background tying into a larger commentary about soldiers haunted by PTSD flashbacks, and how the government manipulates both serving and retired ranks. Wingard doesn’t shy away from tragic wartime themes, particularly about how conflicts break nearly all those involved, but his finale abandons weightier impacts. Barrett’s ideas build a world torn from 80s and 90s VHS actioners where experiments go awry, and the hero has to kick all the asses, yet the third act’s payoff is woefully underdeveloped. Plenty is made of Kammler’s G.I. Michael Myers mercenaries only for the titular onslaught to be over before it starts. It’s like Wingard fell in love with his film’s hook before plotting everything out, and relies on bullet-peppered tropes to see everything through.

That said, Onslaught is an enjoyable enough ride. The sum of its parts is serviceably amusing, even if they sell the action-horror vibes short. Arjona is easy to sympathize with as a troubled yet trying single mother, while fighter mode brings the badass out in fistfuls. It’s a film that leaves us wanting more, and yet we still get a larger-than-life chainsaw weapon (Mandy style), Reginald VelJohnson as the lovable trailer park elder, bursts of gratuitous violence, and Wareheim’s doofy shenanigans. Wingard wants to go full bananas, but settles for Grindhouse Lite. Perhaps the sign of having to work within constraints, since the experience feels thin even at a manageable 93 minutes.

Style goes a long way for Onslaught, which is down-and-dirty. Composer Matt Pusti pulls off a rousing Carpenter impression with his sinisterly synthy score, while Oren Soffer’s cinematography soaks in the sun-scorched deserts of Albuquerque (where shooting occurred). Wingard uses that middle-of-nowhere vibe to accentuate the fears of a community fending for itself, unaware of the classified facility located miles north. An arid, small-town America environment carries a wonderful The Last Stand kinda gimmick, because who doesn’t love when neighbors band together against a common evil?

But Onslaught can’t help but present as stifled. That’s the prevailing complication. Wingard and Barrett hang on idiosyncratic details and invest in Celeste’s world only for not all that much to happen. The underlying evils connect to a very valid disdain for our current Cheeto-colored government, sensationalizing our reality where the National Guard and ICE departments are used to intimidate, attack, and kill American citizens. And yet, while there might be catharsis in Celeste’s inevitable encounter with Kammler’s braindead military demons—their beady glowing eyes slicing through midnight darkness—the movie just sorta ends.

Onslaught is one of those middle-of-the-road movies that earns the positive nudge because when it’s fun, it’s really damn fun. It’s corny, nutty, carnage-packed, and a loving ode to brutal beatdown flicks that ruled syndication on channels like TNT and USA in the 90s. As Wingard’s reintroduction into non-franchise material, our boy has come home and is welcomed with open arms. The Guest might do action better, and You’re Next is a superior home invasion thriller, but Onslaught still earns its praise as a simple yet still effective fight to the death.

Movie Score: 3/5