Onslaught (2026) Review

When an experiment to create a trio of genetically engineered super soldiers goes catastrophically wrong during a combat simulation and the soldiers escape, their path of destruction heads for the trailer park where manager Celeste (Adria Arjona) has unexpectedly received a visit from her ex-husband who drops off their daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy). It’s handy that Celeste is an ex-Army sniper as she’ll need all of her military training to protect her daughter from the lethal threesome…

After various forays into big studio movies, Adam Wingard is back into territory marked with less eye-watering budgets. Specifically, Onslaught takes place within the same universe as 2014’s The Guest which should both pique the interest and potentially set the alarm bells ringing for fans of that movie (yes, I am one of those people). It even boasts Dan Stevens as part of the cast, although it’s not much of a spoiler to say that David has not returned to wreak further havoc as that piece of information is revealed almost instantly.

Set over the course of twenty-four hours and beginning with a countdown to an unnamed event which is then returned to every so often as zero becomes closer, Onslaught hops back and forth between the scientific military experiment and the various folk who inhabit the trailer park, including Die Hard alumnus Reginald VelJohnsen as Josiah, also a veteran and someone who isn’t likely to die straight away because a) he’s given slightly more character focus that the remainder of the support and b) he’s Reginald VelJohnsen.

Over at the research facility there’s also action movie royalty in the form of Michael Biehn as Baylor, who’s overseeing the test exercise in the hope that he can take a positive report back to his bosses. Given the synopsis, it’s obvious how that’s going to go and the kill-crazy triumvirate, nicknamed The Crybaby, The Cockroach and The Butcher, set to work on wiping out everyone in their path. Until they encounter Celeste, that is.

Or perhaps that’s how it should have gone because Celeste is rescued not once but twice in her early skirmishes with the enemy and spends a good deal of the movie’s second half holed up in various trailers until one of the bad guys blasts or smashes their way in. Also, considering the efficiency with which the bad guys murder dispose of folks in the first half, they generally can’t shoot for shit in the second half or, if they do find themselves with a guaranteed kill, run out of ammo at that vital moment.

To break up the mayhem, or to occasionally add to it, the plot sporadically switches to an investigation headed by Cyrus (Drew Starkey), a fixer whose services are called upon at a particularly delicate moment of downtime and after a hefty dose of drugs. As entertaining and as darkly humorous the Cyrus subplot is, it often feels as if it comes from a different movie than the one that’s playing out in the trailer park and although Onslaught is chock full of ideas this has the ultimate effect of fully developing too few of them.

The action is proficiently staged, there are squishy bullet squibs aplenty and a smattering of gore but by opening out the world of The Guest much of the fun interaction from the predecessor has been lost, reducing much of it to line ‘em up, shoot ‘em down. I’m not saying that isn’t fun but it doesn’t seem to reach for much beyond that. The showdowns between the few survivors and the super soldiers is surprisingly brief and the ultimate face-off promises much but is over startlingly quickly.

This is not to say Onslaught is lacking in entertainment. The tale rarely pauses for breath and Arjona is an engaging heroine but to hook this story into the world of The Guest can only invite comparisons and this quasi-follow up doesn’t possess any of its sly humour. There are few genuine shocks either, other than a standout sequence of carnage at a truck stop. From there, it moves from sobering to slightly silly and ends with a decision which is inconsistent with the behaviour shown by a specific group up to that point of the movie. It also wrings some more screen time out of Rebecca Hall, who is not only criminally wasted here but is also saddled with a faintly ridiculous accent.

It’s unlikely you’ll be bored watching Onslaught. It races along with little regard for detail and winds up as a Carpenter-esque siege action pic of sorts, albeit with extra chainsaw violence. It has its fair share of crowd pleasing moments and Matthew Pusti’s buzzing electronic score is excellent as are the frequent needle drops. However, from a filmmaking team with this much talent, the bar had already been raised sufficiently for me to have the left cinema enjoying what I’d seen but wanting much more. The beautifully backlit baddies are fun but, as with many of the concepts introduced here, they’re lost in the overall shuffle of a crowded screenplay.

Movie Rating:

Onslaught trailer