It now seems almost like an unwritten rule: If an indie director delivers a hit with audiences or critics, the reputation of the big blockbuster cinema is usually not far away. At some point, however, most people are drawn back to their roots – away from rigid studio requirements and towards their own artistic DNA. Adam Wingard has also been on this journey. Especially with “You’re Next” and “The Guest”, he created modern genre cult films, only to finally say goodbye to heavyweight spectacle cinema with “Godzilla vs. Kong” and the sequel “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” after medium-sized projects such as the remakes “Blair Witch” and “Death Note”.
With “Onslaught,” Adam Wingard is now baking smaller, but more blood-soaked buns again – and at the same time concludes a trilogy that the new film is supposed to form together with “You’re Next” and “The Guest.” However, one should not expect any major overlap in content apart from the mention of obscure military experiments. The relationship between the three titles is more of a spiritual nature: they all pay passionate tribute to the horror and action cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, which was less concerned with subtle nuances than with atmosphere and excess. “Onslaught” also fits in seamlessly here – and is particularly impressive with a sound design that really rattles from the first minute.
To make life really difficult for Celeste (Adria Arjona), you need not just one, but three killing machines!
After a military experiment goes wrong, a unit of genetically modified super soldiers cuts a path of destruction through the American countryside. The three highly dangerous warriors have been programmed to attack anything and anyone who gets in their way. Meanwhile, former sniper Celeste (Adria Arjona) tries to come to terms with the traumatic consequences of her deployment abroad. The fact that she continues to train her skills despite everything soon proves to be life-saving.
Because the three super soldiers are heading for the remote trailer park where Celeste now lives. When danger is right on her doorstep, she must confront her past and use all of her deadly skills to save herself and her daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy) to protect. A merciless fight for survival begins…
You eat burritos with your fingers!
When we watch Celeste at the beginning shooting pumpkins in the desert and tearing them into thousands of pieces, the cinema seats immediately shake! Every shot echoes through the hall with tremendous force – at least as long as the cinema dares to turn up the sound according to specifications; Otherwise, it’s best to complain directly. But even that only gives us a first taste of what awaits us in “Onslaught” – especially in terms of screaming chainsaws, roaring truck engines and – as usual from Wingard – wonderfully flat synthesizer arrangements. But before “Star Wars” heroine Adria Arjona switches into Sarah Connor memory mode to protect her daughter, “Onslaught” first takes the time to illustrate its characters and the realities of their lives.
Part-time mother Celeste likes to leave the washing up to her daughter, but in return she gives her the really important life lessons: you eat gas station burritos with your fingers, not with a knife and fork! In general, the description of this microcosm in the dusty wasteland works because Adam Wingard strikes a grounded tone here and observes closely. It shows a group of people who have already experienced violence, but at the same time know very well that they have to be prepared for new dangers at any time. Celeste’s shaking hands didn’t really need any further explanation, but instead of relying on that, “Onslaught” prefers to provide an over-stylized black and white flashback to past horrors of war.
“Die Hard” icon Reginald VelJohnson is in the cast as a Vietnam veteran – and of course he has a fully stocked weapons cabinet.
“Onslaught” always loses its grounding and sense of rhythm when it turns to the larger supporting characters. These are drawn in such a demonstratively eccentric way that their oblique manner becomes increasingly tiring. Dan Stevens gets to play a German again after “Cuckoo”. Mad scientist give, this time with glass eyes, half-bald and dressed in white like the head of a cult. In his first scene, he submissively licks his wife’s (Rebecca Hall) mules for breakfast before setting off to the secret experimental complex to the sounds of Karel Gott’s “Red and Black.”
Here Adam Wingard looks so blatantly towards cult that an unpleasant feeling of postmodern pastiche arises – as if one had been transported back to the cinema of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The situation is similar with the sophisticated government official Cyrus (Drew Starkey), who has to be picked up from a BDSM party in a church setting and is then mainly concerned with showing off his whimsy. When he finally grabs a bottle of water from a blood-stained refrigerator and downs it in one gulp, the supposedly quirky coolness finally turns into embarrassing.
Booming genre cinema!
“Onslaught,” on the other hand, is always best when it focuses on Adria Arjona or lets the three bloodthirsty super soldiers Butcher (Alex Pereira), Cockroach (Dave Campbell) and Crybaby (Tyler Hall) off the leash, who mercilessly slaughter their way through everything that stands in their way. In addition to the first demonstration of the killing machines, which, as expected, goes completely out of control, what remains particularly memorable is the attack by the animalistic trio on a gas station. Wingard completely foregoes any musical accompaniment and allows the rampage to emerge solely from a background noise of pure horror: booming shots, people screaming for their lives – and a cleaver that repeatedly comes down on a body.
Here “Onslaught” reveals its proximity to slasher cinema with great relish and even goes a whole lot further than the thematically comparable action thriller “Universal Soldier”, in which Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren were once sent into the anti-terror fight as reanimated super soldiers. When the three killing machines finally arrive at the trailer park, Wingard stages them with the brutal brutality of an Uber Jason from the interstellar “Friday the 13th” carnage “Jason X”. One of his obvious favorite images is the fog-shrouded trio, armed with a hatchet, chainsaw and rifle, ready for the next bloodbath. Only the golden glow of her eyes breaks through the darkness.
The three killing machines are ready to dismantle anything and anyone that stands in their way.
In the last half hour, Wingard concentrates so consistently on the essentials that “Onslaught” almost becomes a genre reduction stripped back to its most basic level. Celeste’s fight for survival doesn’t require any further interruptions and is instead supported by an incredibly atmospheric audiovisuality that one would have wished had been similarly consistent throughout much of the film. To bursting drums and crashing riffs, the trailer park is reduced to kindling. When the massive bodies of the super soldiers crash through the thin walls with brutal force, every impact has the same effect Jump Scare.
Conclusion: As a homage to the action and horror cinema of past decades, “Onslaught” is convincing as an atmospheric genre cinema, especially thanks to its powerful sound design and its uncompromising moments of violence. Unfortunately, Adam Wingard lingers too often on his eccentrically drawn supporting characters, whose whimsy not only becomes increasingly tiring, but also seriously slows down the rhythm of the film. “Onslaught” never seems well-rounded, but rather like a passionate, wildly diverging hodgepodge of ideas.