The folks of Windy Oasis Trailer Park are sitting ducks when a military experiment, Project X: Soldier Neural Enhancement, goes too well, and three super soldiers set out to find and kill more targets. Cue on-site manager Celeste (Adria Arjona), a mother and veteran with all the mental weaknesses that were engineered out of the three ideal combatants. They don’t stand a chance. “Onslaught” (2026) is for hard core fans of Eighties action, horror, sci-fi films who are tired of the glossy sheen that contemporary movies and television series treat the era. No, Eighties entertainment was exploitive with blood, boobs and brawn, and if you were lucky, you got a kick ass woman in the James Cameron vein as the protagonist. Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett, the team that made “A Horrible Way to Die” (2010) (in the queue), “You’re Next” (2011) (YES), “V/H/S “segment “Tape 56”(2012), “ “V/H/S/2” segment “Phase I Clinical Trials” (2012), “The Guest” (2014) (YES), “Blair Witch” (2016) (eh) and “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” (2024) (meh) among many others [“Autoerotic” (2011), “What Fun We’re Having” (2011), “The ABCs of Death” segment “Q is for Quack” (2012)], are back in fine form and ready to paint the desert town of Moriarity red with atmospheric lighting and blood. Thank God that Wingard turned down “Godzilla x Kong: Supernova” (2027) for this one. He chose wisely.
Arjona is perfect in the role as a self-treated PTSD plagued veteran who is still (illegally) preparing for a war that was not supposed to come, but is ill prepared for civilian life, especially motherhood. Her daughter, Daisy Jane (Blake Kennedy), already has a routine to handle the anxiety of being in her mom’s unstable home, but of course, in movies like “Onslaught,” the audience knows that she has the perfect mom like Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) or Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) under the circumstances. If “Onslaught” was filmed earlier, it is the kind of role that Michelle Rodriguez would not even need to audition for. Unlike their other twenty-one neighbors/tenants, including but not exclusively local police chief, Kovacks (Eric Wareheim), Lily (Abby Townsend) and Arlo (Jasper Keen), avid launderer Tremaine (Christian Calloway), and wood sculptor Teddy (Maurice Green), Vietnam vet Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson, “Die Hard”) is one of the few people who can coax more than a growl from Celeste.
Meanwhile, not far away, a bunch of German accented scientists are experimenting in a leased underground US Army military base. Watch “Onslaught” to figure out the relationship between Hanna (Rebecca Hall) and Hans (Dan Stevens). Their boss is the Board. Who? Maybe there will be a sequel, but it remains a mystery. Hall and Stevens costarred in the 2024 “Godzilla X Kong” together, but this is way better. Ever since Stevens got people to lust after him in “Downton Abbey” and “The Guest,” he has resolved to run in the opposite direction, and he succeeds here in a truly repulsive, repugnant role. The mythology of the characters is based in history but has not been overly referenced in popular culture. Hint: “Dr. Strangelove” (1964), “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014), “Hunters” (2020) (in the queue), and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (2023). The three super soldiers are not sufficiently individuated to distinguish while watching the movie, but if you watch the trailers, it gives away too much about the thread of the story that appears from soup to nuts. The Butcher (Alex Pereira) is in the middle and the leader. The Crybaby (Tyler Hall) wears a skeleton face covering, and when he was alive, he cried while killing everyone. The Cockroach (Dave Campbell) carries the chain saw and is hard to kill, but not as hard as you would think. When they exit the facility, Cyrus (Drew Starkey, “Queer”), is called in on his night off to clean up after them.
Set around Halloween if the Jack o lantern targets are accurate time markers, “Onslaught” occurs in twenty-four hours complete with a countdown to……. There are three locations where all the action happens: the underground facility, a gas station/convenience store, and the trailer park. You may want even more action though the movie does not skimp. Composer Matthew Pusti’s soundtrack is amazing, and a great reason to see in the theater is so that you can dance in your seat. A synthesizer delight. The flashback scenes are shot in black and white, and editors Adam Avery and Josh Schaeffer are seamless in continuing the action from the past to present and vice versa to avoid landing a NC-17 rating. All the violence, none of the consequences. The opening and closing credits fill in a lot of narrative holes for the eagle-eyed movie goer who can absorb information in the blink of an eye. Occasionally the story makes mistakes, but signing a waiver seems prudent because who does not make a mistake: back doors in cop cars are usually locked; the perfect soldiers leave a survivor (sloppy); and a flat-top griddle was not hot and sizzling in the gas station scene. Also, some may feel cheated that mama’s guns do not get more use. The final showdown may feel abrupt, and the strict ones may feel the resolution is a bit pat as opposed to a double tap or linger for one last jump scare like “Carrie” (1976) or “Friday the 13th” (1980). Adjust your expectations. We’re greedy, but the runtime is perfect. Always leave the audience wanting more.
“Onslaught” is a delightful homage to the best films of the genre. Wingard uses a John Carpenter-esque narrative pacing then the positioning of the trio before they strike is characteristic of Carpenter’s staging of sieges prior to the melee. The soldiers’ eyes have a reflective layer, a tapetum lucidum, which enables them to see in the dark, but it also feels like a reference to the “Terminator” franchise complete with a cameo from Michael Biehn. One framed photograph in Celeste’s home feels like it could be a Cindy Sherman-esque homage to “Aliens” (1986), specifically Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) posing with any of the men that she served with. The soldiers have the bulk of a Jason from the “Friday the 13th” franchise, but the chainsaw antics from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974). The trio as a unit gives a very “Mad Max” vibe, especially given their vehicle of choice. The black and white flash back scenes feel more contemporary like “Warfare” (2025), but the mythology screams “RoboCop” (1987), but instead of treating a fallen cop as Frankenstein’s monster, the mad scientists used soldiers.
If “Onslaught” has a theme, it is a harsh critique of the US government’s morality when it comes to the military (“they just can’t stop fucking with us vets”) and exploitive treatment of its citizens. Wingard embeds a patriotic admiration for the downtrodden regular folks and the veterans. Tell former President Obama to skip this one. As the story approaches the denouement, the Butcher gets humanized as if on some level, he understands that he has been harmed and in a twisted way, is counting on Celeste to save him. In the end, it also makes a point that Christopher Nolan did not get when making “Dunkirk” (2017). You cannot win a cultural war on the big screen if filmmakers use the enemy’s tactics. There is a disgust, disavowal and revulsion of dominant caste supremacy embedded within the story’s fabric. The deformed experimenters bet on bulky men with no conscience, pain, reservations or human connections whereas Celeste is a mess even at her best, but her pain and overcoming it makes her unstoppable. Are people going to hate the movie because a woman is the protagonist as is the latest trends in movies? They should not, but to each their own. If this team reconvened and kept making variations of the same movie, I probably would not complain. It is like mother’s milk to me after spending a childhood watching as many movies as I could on WPIX on Channel 11 in Manhattan.
