Onslaught

by Mike McGranaghan

There was a period in the early 1990s when the notable cinematic brawlers of the day started putting a sci-fi twist on their beat-‘em-up B-grade action pictures. Jean-Claude Van Damme made Timecop and Universal Soldier, Rutger Hauer did Split Second, Dolph Lundgren unleashed I Come in Peace, etc. Onslaught is a throwback to those somewhat cheesy works, but it’s better made without losing the exploitation appeal.

Director Adam Wingard cut his teeth on inventive horror movies like You’re Next and the reboot Blair Witch. Then he “went Hollywood,” bringing a few personal touches to the big-budget Warner Bros. productions Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. He nonetheless had to remain within studio-mandated parameters. With Onslaught, Wingard returns to his roots, granting himself permission to go as wild as he wants with frequent collaborator Simon Barrett’s screenplay. The fun he’s having pops off the screen and into the audience.

The plot is a riff on the old “super-soldier” concept. Demented scientist Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens, made up to resemble Mr. Burns from The Simpsons) has created three such super-soldiers, who kill indiscriminately. As he explains, “that’s all they know.” When those three murder machines escape from the lab, they make their way toward a trailer park where single mom/former Army sniper Celeste (Adria Arjona) is pitted against her ex in a custody battle over daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy). Not one to go down without a fight, Celeste teams with fellow veteran neighbor Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson) to eliminatre the intruders.

What follows is a ton of bloody carnage. Some of it is played for thrills, some for dark laughs. This isn’t the kind of film where Celeste simply shoots a bad guy multiple times; no, she gets hold of a chainsaw and absolutely pulverizes one of them. The violence is staged with over-the-top flair, the fast-paced editing and stylized cinematography providing it with energy akin to a roller coaster or a really good haunted-house ride. It’s a weird quality of the motion picture format that, if you elevate it just enough, violence that would be horrific in real-life becomes semi-cartoonish, allowing the filmmaker to wring excitement from it without feeling offensive. Onslaught hits that note perfectly, injecting a shot of adrenaline right into your eyeballs.

Wingard and Barrett are smart enough to give their story a touch of humanity to make the violence mean something. Celeste is a classic Mama Bear who brings out her military training to protect Daisy. I suspect that, even if she were childless, her desire to beat the super-soldiers would be no less fierce. She’s a character who has fought to make a name for herself in a field dominated by men. The character isn’t going to go down doing anything but swinging. Adria Arjona (Hit Man) convincingly brings out that intense personality.

Onslaught runs a tight 92 minutes, keeping the action lean and mean. Mixing a realistic custody drama with science-fiction based mayhem yields entertaining results. Throw in delightfully eccentric performances from Dan Stevens and Rebecca Hall (as Kammler’s equally deranged wife) and you’ve got a hardcore action flick with offbeat appeal.