‘Onslaught’ Is Pure Retro Mayhem

There are few things more satisfying than a classic Hollywood squib. That burst of ketchup-red blood exploding from someone’s chest signals that what you’re watching is hardcore while simultaneously reassuring you it’s just a movie, with all the behind-the-scenes magic that entails. It’s an art Hollywood has lost as of late, now that action movies tend to render their blood digitally or just pretend it doesn’t exist at all in PG-13 blockbusters. Thankfully, the squib renaissance is in full force in A24’s new action-horror thriller Onslaught, which pays homage to late 1970s slashers and early 1980s action movies by deploying more blood packets than even Michael Myers could stab in a night.

It's in service of a film that (pardon the pun) explodes with memorable images, from a trio of masked super soldiers calmly commandeering a semi-truck cab to a pissed off mom going full Ellen Ripley to protect her daughter. As provocative, evocative pastiche cinema, Onslaught is a blast. It allows director Adam Wingard to shake off the IP expectations of his Godzilla vs. Kong franchise and return to the grittier territory of his earlier cult horror films You’re Next and The Guest. Still, despite the bloody sugar rush of fun, it’s hard not to notice that Wingard’s latest collab with screenwriter Simon Barrett somehow has less substance—and less feminist credentials—than the retro grindhouse flicks it’s honoring.

That starts with its “final girl” Celeste, who’s played by Andor star and future DC superhero Adria Arjona, one of the most exciting actors working today. There’s intriguing texture to her introduction as a messy, gun-obsessed combat vet and single mom who now manages a rundown trailer park because it’s the only place she feels safe. Unfortunately, despite copious black and white flashbacks to her wartime experience, the movie never moves beyond that initial character sketch to actually get inside her head. The disjointed opening act initially seems like a storytelling necessity as the film cuts back and forth between a day in Celeste’s life and the secret experimentations of weirdo mad scientist Dr. Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens), who has created the trio of terrifying super soldiers who will soon invade her trailer park. As the film keeps finding other side characters to focus on, however, it eventually becomes clear that Wingard just doesn’t care about his central heroine very much.

Or at least he doesn’t care about her beyond the cool iconography she can provide when she’s wielding a shotgun or grabbing a bloody chainsaw to protect her adorably precocious daughter (Blake Kennedy). While the fun of the final girl trope traditionally comes from watching a woman cleverly think her way out of impossible situations, Wingard largely has fate and male allies rescue Celeste in between the moments she’s standing her ground in “Get away from her, you bitch!” fashion. He evokes the cheer-worthy highlights of Pam Grier and Linda Hamilton without the connective tissue that made those ’70s and ’80s heroines so great. In that sense, Onslaught often feels more like a collection of compelling images than a cohesive, satisfying film.

Thankfully, a lot of those images are very, very cool, which covers a multitude of sins in this kind of 92-minute thrill ride. Pulling from a mix of John Carpenter and James Cameron, Wingard renders his trio of villains as slow, hulking, unstoppable forces with masked faces and pinprick light eyes. His most boldly cynical take is that the American government’s ideal combatant would be functionally indistinguishable from a serial killer, which renders “The Butcher” (UFC heavyweight Alex Pereira) and his compatriots as half Terminator, half Jason Voorhees. Once they break free from containment and start wreaking havoc on the civilian population, their sole drive is to kill everyone in sight, with none of the human empathy that might slow down a normal soldier.

That leads to all the aforementioned blood and gore, though Wingard smartly realizes that not seeing something can be as terrifying as seeing it too. During a ruthless truck stop attack, he uses shallow focus to emphasize the dehumanized perspective of his killers and the disorientation of their victims. Some of the most brutal kills are left entirely to the imagination as the film cuts away just as a meat cleaver hits its mark, which only makes the resulting injury that much more horrifying to imagine. It’s a shame, then, that Wingard doesn’t have the same restraint during a character introduction filled with gratuitous, leering shots of half-naked women in fetish gear. Apparently the way to get away with exploitation in the 21st century is to “homage” the 20th century exploitation genre.

It's humor that holds the film together when it falters. Drew Starkey is darkly funny as a government agent pulled in on his night off to clean up the super-soldier mess, as is Eric Wareheim as a less-than-responsible cop living in Celeste’s trailer park. But the real scene-stealer is Family Matters and Die Hard star Reginald VelJohnson as a grizzled Vietnam vet with a soft spot for Celeste and her daughter. If VelJohnson’s campaign to become America’s sweetheart began with his appearance on Dancing with the Stars two years ago, it should be solidified here thanks to the kind of winning supporting turn that so often made 1980s action vehicles sing. In fact, it almost feels like Wingard maybe should have just made VelJohnson his lead, as he seems to have more affection for his character than he does for Celeste.

From a glass-half-empty perspective, Onslaught is the sort of movie that could so easily be improved with better pacing and stronger character work. (Nods to PTSD and the struggles of vets go nowhere.) Yet from a glass-half-full one, it’s just nice to have an action vehicle this tactile again. As with this summer’s other 1980s-inspired retro crowd-pleaser, The End of Oak Street, Onslaught is the ideal movie to see in a packed theater, where the boisterous reactions can help paper over the fact that there’s not actually a ton going on beneath the hyper-stylized nods to other, better features. Still, if Onslaught ultimately doesn’t have much more to offer than the simple pleasure of watching squibs go off, at least those squibs look pretty damn great.  

Onslaught opens in theaters on September 4th. Caroline Siede is a film and TV critic who runs the newsletter Girl Culture.