Onslaught

Dazzle Camouflage

It seems Wingard is angry. He’s angry about something. What exactly is not clear. But this is one angry movie. It’s an expression of rage.

It’s also a return to Wingard’s low-budget horror roots. Having directed the highly entertaining and relatively family-friendly big-budget Godzilla vs Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Wingard bowed out of the next Kong adventure on account of some sort of scheduling conflicts (rather than those troublesome creative conflicts).

With his attention free, he co-wrote Onslaught with frequent collaborator Simon Barrett. The result is much more akin to The Guest and V/H/S while also leaning in (hard) on grindhouse aesthetics.

Horror. Violence. Action. Exploitation. Blood. Lots of blood. Grainy imagery. Low budget.

The 1970s sensibilities of the style and experience sparked the imaginations of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, but their efforts layered on artery-clogging amounts of thick, oozy, steamy nacho cheese. Wingard has gone for a coarsely ground Parmesan instead.

It’s such an exciting start. A couple characters are introduced before the opening credits set the stage, introducing so many of the ideas that bounce around and across and through the screen. There’s vintage footage of the rise of fascism. But there’s also the advancement of robots.

U.S. presidents are quoted.

Richard Nixon: “The U.S. has not had a full generation of peace.”

George W. Bush: “The war is over.”

Harry Truman: “All the things we believe in are in great danger.”

Headlines present the jarring news from decades ago: U.S. welcomes Nazi scientists.

Wow.

But then the broad-stroke characters settle in and all those ideas shift from a roar to a whimper. All within 90 minutes as the story devolves into a major disappointment chock full of missed opportunities.

Trailer Trash

As Onslaught plays out, the story itself is the least interesting aspect.

In short: a classic quirky German mad scientist is working in a remote U.S. military test lab under the foot (literally the bare foot) of some sort of German madame. Well, perhaps they’re husband and wife. He’s Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens) and she’s Hanna Kammler (Rebecca Hall). They’re both… Well, they’re both an acquired taste.

Their test project is a trio of super soldiers of the “they should already be dead” variety. One’s called Cockroach because he was shot 48 times and yet he lived. One is called Cry Baby because he shed tears while killing 17 innocent civilians. The third is called the Butcher because he went from being a hand-to-hand combat expert to picking up a fetish for fine cutlery.

They no longer feel pain. They control their heart rate. They tighten their muscles to become impervious to sundry attacks. Their eyes glow like Jawas. And forget those robots and automatons scene in flashes during the opening credits. It’s all about the rebuilt humans here.

Given Onslaught is set in modern times, it’s a little jarring to see all this effort go into an old-school concept like a super soldier. Those employment aspirations in theory have gone the way of the typical IT job: lost to the advancement of automated technologies, long-distance combat conducted via remotely controlled drones, robots, AI and what-not have replaced the need for most in-person, on-the-ground combat.

But. Okay.

Those three soldiers escape their lab and wreak havoc on a dusty, remote trailer park.

That’s pretty much it.

Well, there is one more thing.

The lead trailer park manager is a woman named Celeste (Adria Arjona). She’s balancing a problematic relationship with her ex and raising her daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), with the typical concerns: deadbeat tenants and chainsaw-wielding super soldiers.

Turns out Celeste is a military veteran with an odd back story about getting into an organized fist fight with another (much bigger) soldier. It’s a mechanism that ties her story into the story of the super soldiers, but it’s not particularly effective. And, as the posters promote, while fighting those super soldiers, she loses an eye. But she’s tough. Cover it with a bandana and she’s good to go.

Pumpkin Practice

With such a limited, straightforward story, Onslaught draws its interest through lots of disparate ideas, great quotable dialogue and some cool visuals. It’s primarily the filmmaking itself that makes it watchable. In that sense, it fits in perfectly with this summer’s emphasis on the “real.” With Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey as the pinnacle of practical, real-world filmmaking, there are also the early summer successes of Backrooms and Obsession. Even Spider-Man: Brand New Day hopped on the “we’re practical, too!” bandwagon.

Wingard has gone back to those roots of low-budget, practical, on-set effects and more classic filmmaking. In that sense, it’s fun to watch.

But it’s the narrative content benefiting from those techniques that’s problematic. It’s a hodge-podge that never gels as it crosses streams with grindhouse and Road Warrior while also tossing in a score by Matthew Pusti that sounds a lot like John Carpenter’s musical sensibilities.

The movie starts with the anticipation of a major meltdown of some sort. There’s the time (7:04 AM) and then the seconds count down from 11 hours, 41 minutes, 54 seconds.

Occasionally, the countdown clock is updated.

Countdown to what, though?

Such a mechanism raises the expectations.

But, as the clock ticks down to 20 seconds and then, finally, the “event,” it’s a disappointment. Those super soldiers prove to be not so super, particularly when confronted with chainsaws. The same chainsaws they brandish on their merciless path to grisly mayhem.

The sad part is – as a complementary bookend to those opening credits – the end credits scroll features follow-up headlines that further underline the themes intended to be exploited during the previous 90 minutes. Domestic terrorism. Conspiracy theories. Missing person posters. A sex club raid. Headlines declaring the termination of an investigation into a convenience store massacre, finding no foul play. Assertions the Windy Oasis Trailer Park community fled the country.

There was so much in those 92 minutes. But it doesn’t add up to much. It lacks haunting reverberations accompanying people back to their cars.

It lacks punch.