Long before Adam Wingard became the guy who made box office eye candy like the Godzilla films, he made a little hallucinatory horror called Pop Skull about junkies in Alabama. It’s a skeezy, depraved little nightmare, and if you’ve been wondering where that Adam Wingard has been for the last few years, then it’s safe to say that he’s back with a vengeance – and a grin – for Onslaught.
A quasi-sequel to his 2014 shoot-’em-up The Guest, Onslaught dives deeper into its rabbit hole of mad science and mass murder. In the first film, Dan Stevens played a resurrected super soldier who worms his way into an innocent household. Here, he does some crawling of a different kind as Dr. Hans Kammler, a third-generation Nazi scientist with Andor martinet Orson Krennic’s sense of style. He’s been working on a super soldier program for the U.S. military: no pain, no mercy, just an unstoppable urge to kill everything in front of them. Which they do with all the grace and style of a wrecking ball until they wander into the New Mexico trailer park managed by PTSD-rattled ex-sniper Celeste (Adria Arjona, Hit Man, Splitsville). Facing her on any day would be bad enough, but she’s ended up with unexpected custody of her somewhat estranged young daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), so momma isn’t holding back.
Neither is Wingard. Reunited with his longtime creative partner Simon Barrett, with whom he broke into action cinema with home invasion classic You’re Next, Onslaught feels like no-holds-barred Wingard, finally able to really cut loose. It’s hyperviolent, bloody with a cunning streak, and also deeply perverse. The opening has Kammler and his equally sadistic spouse (a deliciously histrionic Rebecca Hall, channeling Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS) indulging their kinks before being called to the office. Equally debauched is the government agent tasked with cleaning up their mess (Drew Starkey), out of his gourd on molly after being prematurely snatched from his planned evening.
Where Wingard does show some restraint is in the gunplay, probably because it would be hard to outdo the massive firefights of The Guest. The super soldiers aren’t shy about slinging lead; but, considering how easily they can plow through even the best-armed opponents with guns, where it gets interesting is in what else they get in their hands. Axes, cleavers, chainsaws, charcoal grills, you name it. The deadly trio of the Cockroach (Dave Campbell), the Cry Baby (Tyler Hall), and the Butcher (former UFC champion Alex Pereira) are the roid rage personifications of a Call of Duty gooning session with Riddick from Pitch Black’s eye shine. Wingard does take great efforts to point out how shabbily the U.S. government has treated veterans, and that’s a point underlined by Die Hard legend Reginald VelJohnson in a grizzled yet charming turn as Celeste’s Vietnam War-era neighbor. Yet he’s not afraid to nod to the fact that the powers that be like having a few unabashed war criminals on hand for when needs must.
VelJohnson isn’t the only Eighties action icon on the call sheet, with Aliens legend Michael Biehn adding a gleeful twist. Indeed, just as cuckoo-in-the-nest classic The Stepfather was a big influence on The Guest, there are more than a few nods to James Cameron’s sci-fi military mishap here. Luckily, unlike most directors who try to ape the Eighties through neon pastel color palettes, Wingard goes for the old school gonzo action jugular, revving everything up with Matthew Pusti’s martial metal score. And with that undercurrent of delicious perversity, well, who knew that the real heir to John Waters would be the guy that made Godzilla x Kong?
Onslaught
2026, R, 93 min. Directed by Adam Wingard. Starring Adria Arjona, Blake Kennedy, Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall, Dave Campbell, Tyler Hall, Alex Pereira, Drew Starkey, Reginald VelJohnson, Michael Biehn.
This article appears in September 4 • 2026.
