ONSLAUGHT – Review
– By Cate Marquis –
ONSLAUGHT is an action/horror film about a ex-Army sniper defending herself and her daughter against an attack by a team of super soldiers gone rogue in a 1970s style grind-house action film, a few touches intended as gallows humor. But director Adam Wingard’s action/horror flick delivers little, with an uninspired, predictable plot, stock or unconvincingly weird characters, and more style than substance, making even its brief 90 minutes feel too long. After watching this disappointing actioner, one question springs to mind: why is this actioner in theaters instead of going straight to streaming. Far better films than this one have had that fate. Or been shelved for a tax write-off.
The press materials describe the story, which largely takes place in the New Mexico desert at a rundown trailer park, as being about a “badass” ex-Army sniper (Adria Arjona) who “unleashed hell” trying to protect her daughter from “an army of genetically engineered” opponents. There are several points in which this grind-house actioner does not match that description. While, frankly, this writer is less enamored of grind-house action than some, if a film is going to promise this stuff, it should deliver it.
Actually there are only three of these deadly fellows, not an army. They are not “generically engineered” but psychologically-altered and biologically-enhanced veterans like herself who were selected for their ability to survive rather than something lab-created. These super soldiers escape a secret private paramilitary installation that was once a military facility but is now run by an ancient German ex-Nazi played by Dan Stevens, dressed in all white and sporting some weird make-up, with an obvious bald cap with white haired fringe, an unwrinkled face with bushy eye brows but age-spotted wrinkled hands. We first meet this German mad scientist character at home with his younger, dominate wife (Rebecca Hall), indulging in a little foot-fetish fun. The three super soldiers had been activated to demonstrate their skills for a potential client, but when they get loose, Dan Stevens’ German decides a little field testing might be a good idea.
Meanwhile, we first meet Adria Arjona’s ex-sniper, Celeste, as she is engaged in a little target practice with a line of jack-o-lanterns. That they are jack-o-lanterns, not just pumpkins is a tip-off that this woman who has time on her hands. Target practice with a rifle, which she does, makes sense but finishing off the pumpkins with a semi-automatic assault weapon, which she also does, does not make sense, as it is just has to be pointed in the general direction, making that just a show for the camera.
While Arjona’s character has plenty of time to carve pumpkins to shoot up, cleaning the trailer where she lives in a run-down trailer park, is another matter. When she spots her wealthy ex-husband’s car driving up the the worn rural trailer park, she flies into a frenzy of straightening up, bed-making and, responsibly, locking up her weapons. The ex is there to drop off their young daughter, even though it is not Celeste’s week to have her. The ex has some urge business that has come up and just assumed he could drop her off. He also informs her that he is planning to move across the country, and reminds her that she does not need to live in this decrepit trailer park. Celeste tells him she wants to live there, because she feels comfortable among the residents, these fellow wounded people. Their seven-year-old daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), is a sweet, polite little girl who seems not to know her mother well.
The cast is filled out with an assortment of sad residents in the old trailer park, including a cop and a few older military veterans. When the U.S. government gets wind that things have gone wrong at their former military site, they dispatch a young, stylish “fixer” named Cyrus (Drew Starkey), who they call up from his night off at a S&M club.
As far as “unleashing hell,” in fact our sniper mostly is unable to reach her large store of weapons and spends a lot of time knocked on her back and screaming until pure chance saves her from certain death at the hands of whichever super soldier is attacking. The super soldiers are nearly indestructible but they are not too bright and nearly as predictable as the plot of this sorry film.
There isn’t much to say about the acting since the characters are so predictable or stock, and there isn’t much for any of them to work with. However, Dan Stevens deserves mention for his weird-looking old-young German character, only to say that he might reconsider his recent choices of roles. The talented Rebecca Hall is wasted in her small part.
ONSLAUGHT has the gore, violence, body count and bits of sexual raciness that the genre calls for, but it falls short on the specifics the promotional materials seem to promise. Again, it is all style but little substance.
The one perhaps admirable aspect is the film’s sympathy for veterans, mistreated and discarded by the military and their government, and the long history of that treatment that is alluded to in the opening credits montage, which references WWII and U.S. wars since then. Still, that is just background to the carnage, familiar plot and stock characters, and the heroine’s many escapes by mere chance.
As said earlier, at 90 minutes, it still feels too long. Some scenes seem almost laughable with little indication that they were supposed to be comedy, and moments of intended gallows humor are more grim than actually funny. There isn’t much to recommend this action/horror offering, whose much interesting parts are the rather clever opening and closing credits.
ONSLAUGHT opens in theaters on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026.
RATING: 1 out of 4 stars
