Adam Wingard returns to his trashy genre roots with ‘Onslaught’

SEPT 12 — It’s always nice to see a filmmaker return to their trashy, low-budget roots after a stint with the major studios. 

For the better part of a decade, Adam Wingard has been somewhat lost inside the corporate machinery of Hollywood’s franchise industrial complex. 

While his Godzilla vs. Kong entries were undeniably slick, big budget spectacles (and a whole lot of fun in their own special ways), they inevitably lacked the mean-spirited ingenuity, efficiency, and blood-soaked thrill of his early work.

Which is why Onslaught, which opened in Malaysian cinemas just last week, feels like such a breath of fresh air, especially when released just as the summer movie season ends. 

Stripping away the CGI giant monsters, Wingard goes down and dirty again with a modestly budgeted, lean and mean genre entry. 

It is clearly Wingard going back to making the exact type of films that made his name in the first place — sturdy, efficient, and wonderfully gory siege cinema — cut from the exact same cloth as You’re Next and The Guest.

In fact, comparing Onslaught directly to The Guest reveals just how much Wingard thrives when he operates within self-imposed boundaries. 

The Guest succeeded because it took a simple, archetypal narrative, that of the mysterious stranger invading a family home, and injected it with relentless John Carpenter-esque dread, retro 1980s neon-soaked aesthetics, and a deliciously unhinged performance from Dan Stevens.

Onslaught functions on a very similar frequency. Swap out the quiet suburban house for an isolated, run down trailer park, and swap out Dan Stevens' super soldier for a trio of escaped, genetically modified super soldiers, and you have a film that plays almost like a disguised remake, reboot or even a sequel to The Guest.

Official posters for Adam Wingard’s action thriller ‘Onslaught’, starring Adria Arjona as former army sniper Celeste. — Picture via A24

Like all good siege films, Onslaught is an unabashed love letter to Carpenter, specifically his eternal classics Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape From New York, with a healthy dose of James Cameron’s The Terminator thrown into the mix for good measure. 

Wingard captures that precise 70s/80s genre cadence — an isolated setting, a ticking clock, and an unstoppable force pounding at the gates — with perfect ease.

Where The Guest had Dan Stevens effortlessly charming and terrifying us in equal measure, Onslaught hands the emotional heavy lifting to Adria Arjona. 

Fresh off impressive turns in Andor and Blink Twice, Arjona is a total badass lead here, and will remind Wingard fans of the similarly badass lead performance by Sharni Vinson in You’re Next. 

She plays Celeste, a former Army sniper trying to keep her life together, with a raw, grounded physicality that makes every tactical manoeuvre and brutal exchange feel earned.

Having said that, Stevens isn't left out of the fun. Reuniting with Wingard 12 years after The Guest, Stevens flips his role from mysterious anti-hero to outright villain. 

He has an absolute blast chewing the scenery as the wild, mad scientist figure behind the super soldier project, and I loved every second of his performance. 

It’s the kind of uninhibited, gleeful work that reminds you why genre cinema can be so much fun when actors completely commit to the bit.

Yet, amid all the flying limbs and bullet riddled walls, the film's most delightful surprise is young Blake Kennedy as Celeste's daughter, Daisy. 

Instead of playing the typical screaming child who exists purely to be rescued in most movies, Daisy is written and played as a proper, polite little lady. 

Her pristine manners in the middle of absolute carnage inject a subtle, quirky and pitch-perfect element of comedy into the proceedings, giving the tension room to breathe.

If I had to complain about at least one thing, it would have to be the final stretch. 

Onslaught builds up such a fantastic momentum during its first two acts that the final battle between Celeste and the last surviving super soldier didn't feel quite as epic or brutally difficult as what some fans might expect from a true final boss fight. 

Some might even call it anti-climactic, that’s how underwhelming that final boss fight was. 

Were parts of it censored because of extreme violence? It could be, but I can only find out once the film is out on digital, so as of now, it’s a wee bit underwhelming for my gore loving tastes. But that’s just me nitpicking.

Overall, Onslaught is a very solid piece of genre entertainment, especially during that remarkably exciting buildup, that proves Wingard is still at his absolute best when he forgets the studio green screens and goes back to basics.