‘Onslaught’ Review: Adam Wingard Goes Back to His Low-Budget Horror Roots With a Brutal, Retro Slasher

Adam Wingard has had a rather unusual career trajectory, even by the standards of American filmmaking. He started out making genre films within the framework of the so-called mumblecore movement, of which he was a part, and which, many years ago, spawned a handful of low-budget independent horror movies. From there, he moved on to more commercially oriented genre fare, including a sequel to Blair Witch, before making the leap to big-budget filmmaking with Godzilla vs. Kong and its sequel. Now, with indie horror back in vogue, Wingard has secured the backing of A24 to stage something of a return to his roots: a brutal, militarized slasher that is essentially a killing machine fueled by references to genre classics from the ’70s and ’80s.

Onslaught is almost parodically simple in its setup. It follows Celeste (Adria Arjona), a military veteran who served in some Middle Eastern conflict and now lives with her young daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy) in a dusty, isolated trailer park. Celeste suffers from PTSD (her hands occasionally tremble when she’s about to pull the trigger), but she’s armed to the teeth and prepared for the apocalypse, making her something of a distant cousin to Sarah Connor in The Terminator sequels. She has a handful of eccentric neighbors (Eric Wareheim, Reginald VelJohnson), a troubled relationship with her ex-husband, and a healthy dose of paranoia that, as it turns out, is entirely justified.

Meanwhile, in what initially feels like an entirely different movie, an eccentric German scientist (Dan Stevens) is involved in a bizarre sadomasochistic relationship with his wife (Rebecca Hall) while running a secret facility where genetically engineered super-soldiers are being developed and tested. These hulking creatures are designed to kill without remorse and without regard for whom they might be killing. But the experiment goes horribly wrong, and the monsters break free from their masters, hitting the road with some kind of sinister agenda. And not too far away, of course, is Celeste, ready to take on whatever comes her way.

From The Terminator and Assault on Precinct 13 to the countless home-invasion thrillers that followed, from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Evil Dead and just about any slasher featuring seemingly unstoppable creatures that refuse to stay dead, Onslaught wears its influences proudly. Everything about it is designed to evoke a retro thriller: the framing, the locations, the synth-heavy score, the overall visual aesthetic. And it never strays from that approach. There’s also a man (Drew Starkey) lurking behind the scenes, whose main concern seems to be covering up the evidence rather than dealing with the actual threat. Beyond that, it’s pretty much one bloody confrontation after another. There’s not much more to it.

In fact, the impression the film leaves is that this is merely the opening chapter of a potential franchise, an origin story for a new series built around Celeste and whatever elaborate mythology may be lurking beneath the surface. Onslaught hints at a much bigger story, operating on the familiar premise that the government is lying to us and keeping the truth hidden (which, in this case, happens to be absolutely true), but never bothers to explore it. Instead, over a brisk 90 minutes, it settles for delivering a retro mash-up of action thriller and slasher horror that old-school genre fans are likely to appreciate far more than newcomers. If all goes according to plan, the bigger productions will come later.