Sometimes you really can’t go home again. Adam Wingard made his name on a pair of gritty thrillers that became cult favorites, You’re Next and The Guest, both being pretty awesome. He took a diversion into big budget land with the Monsterverse movies, but has since taken a breather and returned to familiar territory with Onslaught. Don’t get me wrong, this is a move I support, but not if the results are going to be this disappointing, a promised full-velocity action flick that fails to deliver in just about every way.
So how do you mess up a movie like Onslaught, which boasts the incredible Adria Arjona as a military sniper taking on a trio of escaped super soldiers bred to kill? Well, you do it with an amateurish screenplay by Simon Barrett and poorly shot PG-level violence. It’s clear what Wingard is going for here, a kind of grindhouse-style invasion flick crossed with a slasher horror. The trio of elite killers, escaped from a secret government compound, even come armed with chainsaws and machetes, like the spawn of Leatherface and Jason Voorhees.
But…man, these guys are a joke. We learn early on that they are all former war criminals, enhanced and given an unstoppable thirst for killing by an old Nazi scientist played by a scene-chomping Dan Stevens, almost recognizable with his white hair and bald scalp. They decimate an entire squad of armed soldiers in a bloody test run, overseen by Michael Biehn’s government spook. Even then, Wingard pulls back from showing the worst of the carnage, but at least then we’re left to assume that he’s saving the best for later.
Arjona plays Celeste, who between struggles with her ex-husband over custody of their daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy), is also clearly a damaged woman dealing with PTSD from her military service, which we get frequent flashbacks to. Now she manages an off-the-grid trailer park full of misfits, including the always-great Reginald Veljohnson as Josiah, an aging Vietnam War vet who doesn’t mind dispensing a pearl of wisdom or two. It’s a role for Arjona that she elevates beyond Barrett’s lackluster writing, showing both vulnerability and mama bear ferocity in equal measure.
In other places, you wonder what the heck Wingard and Barrett were thinking. For instance, Drew Starkey is poorly used as Cyrus, a killer and off-the-books clean up man introduced as someone who can bring some much needed comic violence. When we first meet him, he’s in the midst of a major drug binge while being serviced at a BDSM club. He’s called to investigate the super soldiers and clean up the scene if necessary, even though he’s high on 100mg of pure MDMA. This guy should be trippin’ balls throughout the movie, but other than the occasional flash of weirdness, it barely registers. The character is just a waste. In other places, the script introduces emotional connections to Celeste out of nowhere, likely for shock value, and they fall flat.
It’s a such a bummer because there’s stuff to like here. Clearly aiming for a John Carpenter-esque tone, Onslaught delivers gritty visuals and quirky nostalgic tunes. The vibe is post-apocalyptic, shadowy stuff going on around every corner. One wouldn’t be surprised if we learned the world was destroyed outside of Celeste’s trailer park. There’s an attempt to build in a bit of lore, too, in hopes of turning this into a potential franchise.
Onslaught’s trio of goons, one of them played by MMA fighter Alex Pereira, stalk the trailer park looking menacing with their glowing eyes (Are they Furyans like Vin Diesel’s Riddick?), but that’s about all they do. There are only a couple of major setpieces and the biggest one in the final act is the most disappointing, with the super soldiers looking more like clowns who defeat themselves rather than true threats. It’s unfathomable how soft this stuff is. Super soldiers vs. resourceful war veterans who are most comfortable in a war zone than at peace. This shit should write itself, but Onslaught misses the mark badly and if this is what Wingard is going to be giving us, perhaps making another King Kong/Godzilla movie is what he should be doing.
Onslaught opens on September 4th.
