Onslaught
Review by Mark Woodring
Normally, a film about genetically engineered super soldiers would be easily classified as a sci-fi film, a la Universal Soldier, but this one seems to want to lean into the horror genre’s aspects…
Interesting.
Let’s talk about if that’s true and/or how well they pull it off (or fail to).
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below, then listen as he and Ryan discuss the film further. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
92 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard
Directed by Adam Wingard
Synopsis:
When a rogue squad of genetically engineered super soldiers break loose in the desert, a badass Army sniper must unleash hell to protect her young daughter.
Well, after watching Onslaught last night, I have to say… it’s not very good.
Yeah, I’m going to spoil some stuff for you. Trust me; it’s for your own good.
Onslaught doesn’t know if it’s a sci-fi or a horror movie, although a chainsaw and a huge cleaver figure prominently in the final third of the film. I still think it’s a sci-fi, if only because the whole thing is kicked off by a third generation Nazi scientist.
I went back and looked at writer/director Adam Wingard’s filmography, and I had to go all the way back to 2011’s You’re Next to find a project of his that I enjoyed.
His Godzilla/Kong films were nearly unwatchable for me.
The script here is atrociously incomplete. We open with a surreal sequence between Dan Steven’s nearly-albino German scientist and his wife (Rebecca Hall, criminally underutilized, even here). There is foot licking involved.
We get a scene of Adria Arjona shooting ferociously at jack o’lanterns in the desert, with flashbacks to her (presumably) final mission overseas, firmly establishing both her PTSD and “bad-ass” credentials. She has guns: lots of guns. She even has guns she isn’t legally allowed to possess due to… things.
Her ex-husband unexpectedly drops their daughter off of the trailer park in the middle of the desert because… reasons.
Uncomfortable mommy-mode: activated.
We’ll never see her guns again. Chekov loses.
There’s a quick run-through of barely established residents of the trailer park.
Most are non-factors from here on out.
A shadowy figure visits the hidden lab to evaluate the doctor’s project, bringing six genuine bad-ass soldiers with him to go against the super soldiers. You can guess how this plays out.
By the way, if you tell someone your super soldiers can regulate their own heartbeats, how do you act when all three of them go into cardiac arrest immediately after killing their six “target” in the exercise?
The biggest problem with Onslaught is that it desperately wants to be a John Carpenter film. Even the score is evocative of Carpenter’s films, but it falls well short because this isn’t a Carpenter film.
In the end, it boils down to one thing: only John Carpenter can make a John Carpenter film.
The corollary to this is, of course, that John Carpenter films can only be made by John Carpenter (I’m looking at you, Zack Snyder and your Escape From New York).
Heck, we don’t even wind up with a higher budget Iron Sky in terms of campy Nazi fun.
Wingard can go back to making giant monkey movies and shorts for the V/H/S franchise, but Onslaught is an absolute mess, so you can feel free to miss this one.
Onslaught fights its way into theaters Friday, September 4, and stars Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Eric Wareheim, Reginald VelJohnson, Michael Biehn, Blake Kennedy, Alex Pereira, Drew Starkey, Rebecca Hall, Jacob Scipio, Leon M. Brown, Dave Campbell, Tyler Hall, Jasper Keen, Abby Townsend, Sara Minnich, Maurice Green, and Christon Calloway.
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