Onslaught Review: Wingard’s Feral Creature Feature

The setup is lean and unforgiving. Dr. Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens, clearly having the time of his life) has been cooking up genetically engineered super soldiers in a secluded desert facility. The project, naturally, goes sideways when a rogue squad - led by the hulking, near-mute "The Butcher" (UFC legend Alex Pereira) - breaks loose and heads for civilization. Standing in their path is Celeste (Adria Arjona), a highly decorated Army sniper living a quiet, isolated life with her young daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy). When the rampaging squad stumbles into her territory, Celeste’s maternal instincts and military precision collide, turning her remote homestead into a kill zone. She’s joined by a rag-tag group of survivors, including the grizzled Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson) and a trigger-happy Kovacks (Eric Wareheim), but make no mistake: this is Celeste’s war.

Wingard, fresh off the gargantuan spectacle of Godzilla x Kong, proves he hasn’t lost his touch for smaller-scale, visceral storytelling. He stages the action with a clarity that’s often missing in modern blockbusters, favoring wide shots and practical stunt work over shaky-cam confusion. The desert setting becomes a character itself - scorching, vast, and brutally indifferent. The horror elements are genuinely unsettling; these aren’t just dumb muscle. They’re intelligent, relentless predators with a hive-mind efficiency that makes them feel like a hybrid of Predator and The Crazies. The sound design deserves special mention: each footstep of the Butcher feels like a seismic event, and the gunfire cracks with satisfying weight.

But the film’s secret weapon is Arjona. She’s been a rising star for a while, but this is a full-blown coronation. As Celeste, she’s equal parts exhausted mother and cold-eyed killer. Her transition from baking cookies to zeroing a scope is seamless, and she sells every ounce of the physical toll. There’s a moment where she’s cleaning a wound while whispering a lullaby to Daisy over the radio that is more affecting than most entire dramas. She’s given a worthy foil in Stevens, who chews the scenery with a Germanic, Scarlett Johansson-in-Under the Skin menace, but it’s Pereira who steals the show as the hulking antagonist. He moves with a terrifying, unstoppable force, and the film wisely uses him sparingly, building anticipation for a final confrontation that does not disappoint.

If there’s a flaw, it’s that the script - presumably a polished draft of a logline - doesn’t give the supporting characters much depth. VelJohnson and Michael Biehn (the latter playing a gruff mercenary named Baylor) are welcome faces, but they’re archetypes more than people. The film’s pacing is relentless, which is a virtue, but it occasionally skips over logical beats to get to the next firefight. Also, the middle act sags slightly as the group holes up in a defunct mining town, trading exposition for tension. Yet, Wingard’s visual storytelling and a propulsive score keep things from ever feeling dull.

Pros

• Adria Arjona delivers a star-making, physically demanding performance.
• Adam Wingard’s action direction is clear, brutal, and inventive.
• The creature design and sound for the super soldiers are genuinely intimidating.
• A perfectly tight 92-minute runtime that wastes no time.
• Terrific supporting cameos from genre icons like Biehn and VelJohnson.

Cons

• The supporting characters are paper-thin, serving mostly as cannon fodder.
• The plot is a familiar patchwork of Aliens, Assault on Precinct 13, and The Terminator.
• A mid-film lull in the mine town stalls some momentum.
• Some may find the tonal whiplash between family drama and gore a bit jarring.

Onslaught is a welcome throwback to a time when action films were more concerned with being cool and efficient than being four-quadrant franchise fodder. It’s the kind of movie that knows its audience and gives them exactly what they want: a badass hero, a terrifying monster, and a body count that climbs with gleeful abandon. Wingard and Arjona make a formidable pair, delivering a film that’s as much about a mother’s primal instinct as it is about high-caliber bullets. It won’t change your life, but it will thoroughly entertain you for an hour and a half. As the credits roll on our September 5, 2026 screening, it’s clear this is the sleeper hit of the early fall season - a gritty, unpretentious gem that Hollywood doesn’t make nearly enough anymore. See it with a crowd, turn your brain off, and enjoy the hellfire. 8/10.