Title: Onslaught
Director: Adam Wingard
Cast: Adria Arjona, Alex Pereira, Dan Stevens, Eric Wareheim, Reginald Veljohnson, Michael Biehn
Where: In theatres.
Rating: 1/2
Review
Adam Wingard’s Onslaught knows exactly what sort of movie it wants to be, and therein lies both its charm and its limitation. It is a lean siege thriller dressed in horror clothing, with a military experiment gone catastrophically wrong depositing three engineered killers at the doorstep of a trailer park. Celeste, a former Army sniper nursing her own scars, finds herself protecting her young niece and an assortment of neighbours who would ordinarily be more concerned with rent, cigarettes and petty squabbles than survival.
Wingard, working with Simon Barrett, is clearly conversant with the grammar of exploitation cinema. The film knows when to accelerate, when to let a body hit the floor with disagreeable force and when to puncture the tension with a mordant gag. Yet its dependence on familiar genre machinery becomes increasingly conspicuous. The military conspiracy, damaged veteran, sinister scientist and faceless killing machines are all serviceable components, but very few acquire enough individuality to escape their archetypes.
Beneath the mayhem, however, lies an interesting idea: what happens when the machinery created to protect a society is turned against the people it was designed to protect? The notion gives the film an uncomfortable contemporary edge, although the screenplay rarely digs deeply enough to make that unease linger.
Actors’ Performance
Adria Arjona gives Celeste the necessary toughness without reducing her to another action heroine who appears miraculously indestructible. Her physicality is convincing, but it is the quieter signs of damage that make the character more interesting. Reginald VelJohnson brings warmth and weary humour to Josiah, lending genuine affection to an otherwise conventional supporting role.
Dan Stevens clearly enjoys himself as the theatrical scientist, while Drew Starkey’s government fixer provides intermittent comic relief but feels dramatically underused. The three super-soldiers are imposing enough, though their lack of individual identity makes them more efficient threats than memorable characters.
Music and Aesthetics
The film wears its affection for vintage genre cinema rather proudly. The visual language favours darkness, industrial spaces, practical gore and sudden bursts of carnage. The sound design gives the action considerable punch, while Matt Pusti’s electronic score adds an appropriately nervous pulse. At times, though, the retro styling becomes so conspicuous that one can almost hear the filmmakers checking off their influences.
FPJ Verdict
Overall, the film remains a competent piece of genre filmmaking with enough bite to satisfy action-horror devotees, even if it never quite sinks its teeth into the questions it raises.
