'Onslaught' review: Adam Wingard returns to his roots but stops short of total mayhem
- Nate Adams
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
Courtesy of A24
Taking a much-needed reprieve from the Godzilla and King Kong sandbox to reconnect with his grungier, low-budget sensibilities, director Adam Wingard delivers another fastball down the middle with “Onslaught,” a hyperkinetic, synth-blasting action slasher that does not always mesh as well as he might have hoped, but nonetheless recaptures some of the style and bravado of his early career.
Look, I get it. You have to get your bag, and the indie-to-blockbuster pipeline remains a well-traveled path for filmmakers with larger ambitions. Still, it is refreshing to see Wingard return to the kind of lean, scrappy genre filmmaking that put him on the map. Watching a director scale back after becoming accustomed to massive studio budgets can yield mixed results, as filmmakers such as Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, and Neill Blomkamp have demonstrated, but this brisk 92-minute thriller proves Wingard has not completely lost touch with his roots.
Not that “Onslaught” is a slam dunk. Far from it. This is an ultraviolent meditation on the lingering trauma of war, filtered through a story about genetically engineered super soldiers unleashed upon an unsuspecting community in the New Mexico desert. The movie is sometimes too gleeful about its carnage for those heavier ideas to resonate, yet also too restrained to become the full-throttle bloodbath promised by its title. It is not for the faint of heart, and some of its imagery is deeply unsettling, but Wingard approaches the material with the swagger of an ’80s action movie. Regular collaborator Dan Stevens has a lively supporting role as a crazed German scientist, while Drew Starkey gets plenty of mileage out of playing a debauched government fixer abruptly called into action.
At the very least, “Onslaught” looks and moves like a real movie. Wingard has clearly taken what he learned while working within the confines of a major studio system and applied that polish to a smaller endeavor. At its best, particularly during its blood-soaked finale, the film is cooking with gas. The problem is that it reaches its crescendo just as it finally appears ready to cut loose. You can almost feel Wingard holding himself back, teasing the moment when the entire production will erupt into absolute mayhem without ever quite reaching that apex.
The setup is nevertheless inspired. Egotistical scientist Hans Kammler, played by Stevens with the delightfully unhinged energy the actor brings to these eccentric character roles, has created three prototype super soldiers he describes as “the human equivalent of a heat-seeking missile.” When an experiment goes awry, these unstoppable killing machines descend upon a nearby trailer park managed by Celeste (Adria Arjona), an Army sniper and single mother living with PTSD. She is already struggling to care for her young daughter, who was abruptly left with her by an ex threatening to pursue legal action for custody, before a trio of genetically enhanced killers arrives on her doorstep.
The opening credits show Celeste staring down the barrel of a sniper rifle and blasting jack-o’-lanterns with remarkable precision, so there is never much doubt that she will rise to the occasion. Arjona carries herself with enough grit and conviction to make Celeste a credible action hero, but the screenplay could have given her more dimension and placed her in livelier situations before transforming the final stretch into an “Evil Dead”-style chainsaw homage. Her trauma is meant to connect her to the larger questions Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett are raising about soldiers conditioned for violence and then abandoned by the institutions that shaped them, but the movie rarely slows down long enough to develop that connection beyond its most obvious contours.
The super soldiers themselves present a similar problem. Giving them guns may make tactical sense, but it robs the slasher premise of some of its tactile brutality. A masked killer stalking victims with a blade is inherently more frightening than another heavily armed combatant mowing people down from a distance. One soldier, appropriately nicknamed the Butcher, occasionally remedies that deficiency by attacking people with a meat cleaver, offering flashes of the gnarlier movie “Onslaught” might have been had Wingard pushed the premise further.
Starkey adds another dose of gonzo energy as a drug-loving, S&M-obsessed miscreant pulled into active duty while high on MDMA, allowing for a few welcome laughs amid the carnage. His performance fits the movie’s playful streak, although it also reflects the tonal imbalance that keeps the darker material from cutting as deeply as intended. Rebecca Hall and Stevens are similarly entertaining in their brief appearances, but both characters vanish before their eccentricity can make a lasting impact. Wingard is determined to keep the movie tight, and he does, though its supporting cast is colorful enough that a few additional minutes might have helped rather than hurt.
It is also a pleasure to see Reginald VelJohnson playing Celeste’s next-door neighbor, a Vietnam veteran whose presence offers another connection to the lasting wounds of military service. His casting also serves as an affectionate nod to the heyday of the action movies Wingard is so clearly trying to emulate. These touches give “Onslaught” personality even when its influences and ambitions never completely fuse into a satisfying whole.
Despite never quite living up to its title, “Onslaught” has enough bravado to remind us why Wingard became such an exciting genre filmmaker in the first place. Reuniting with Simon Barrett, who wrote “The Guest” and “You’re Next,” allows him to rediscover some of the attitude and resourcefulness that earned him those major studio opportunities, even if the result feels more like a reintroduction than a complete creative resurgence. There are undoubtedly more blockbusters in Wingard’s future, but let us hope “Onslaught” reminds him never to forget where he came from or how much fun he can have when he is willing to get his hands dirty.
Grade: B
ONSLAUGHT is now playing in theaters.
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