In a shabby trailer park in remote New Mexico, former military sniper Celeste (Adria Arjona), armed to the teeth, struggles with PTSD and an unsteady trigger finger. As the sci-fi horror thriller Onslaught begins, she’s doing target practice on jack-o-lanterns in the desert; a grinning orange head explodes in freeze frame under the opening titles.
Celeste’s ex unexpectedly drops off their sweet little daughter (Blake Kennedy) for her to watch – the same night the trailer park is invaded by a trio of genetically enhanced killer soldiers who have escaped from a nearby scientific lab. Somehow stuff like that never seems to come up on days when you don’t have to watch your kid.
Over the quick 90 minutes that follow our introduction to Celeste, she bandages a wound on her face in a way that makes her look extra badass and piratical, and mounts a spirited defense against the monster soldiers. There are campy cutaways to the creepy scientists and officials responding to the bloody mayhem that the soldiers have already wrought elsewhere.
Directed by Adam Wingard from a script by Simon Barrett, Onslaught is an exercise in homage, to the horror and action flicks of the late ’70s and early-to-mid ’80s. Hints of movies from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Terminator may be detected, but in terms of style and music, it’s above all a salute to grindhouse auteur John Carpenter. Wingard humorously conjures Carpenter’s Halloween with the pumpkins in the opening credits, and borrows liberally from The Fog. The killer soldiers, often seen lined up in a row, knee deep in mist, with hoods and glowing eyes, strongly resemble the leprous sailor ghouls in that 1980 film, as do the shots of their arms crashing through windows.
I’ve always had a soft spot for The Fog, so I was able to enjoy this dumb but carefully Carpentered tribute. Star Arjona manages a nice balance of warrior toughness and vulnerability. Rebecca Hall makes her presence felt in a small role of (deliberately) ambiguous identity, and it’s nice to see ’80s favorite Michael Biehn, albeit briefly. It’s also fun to see Die Hard scene-stealer Reginald VelJohnson as Celeste’s neighbor, not providing moral support to Bruce Willis or enduring Urkel, but kicking monster commando ass. About time!
