Onslaught (2026) Review!!

Synopsis – When a rogue squad of genetically engineered super soldiers break loose in the desert, a badass Army sniper must unleash hell to protect her young daughter.

My Take – While Adam Wingard has spent the past decade steering IP-driven projects like the underrated Blair Witch (2016) sequel to Netflix’s divisive Death Note and a pair of box-office juggernauts in the Godzilla vs. Kong series. With his latest, he reunites with longtime collaborator Simon Barrett and pivots back toward his low-budget thriller roots.

Notably, the film is set within the same continuity as The Guest (2014). And though it is contemporary in setting, it deliberately evokes the texture of a forgotten ’80s action relic unearthed from a dusty VHS bin, aiming for a stripped-down slasher framework in the John Carpenter mold. The trouble is that simplicity curdles into emptiness. The mix of action schlock and B‑film gore never fuses into something satisfying.

Three genetically engineered soldiers, who are apparently impervious to bullets, capable of smashing through walls, and treating civilians as collateral scenery, should provide pulp thrills, yet the film delivers neither the slash of a slasher nor the suspense of a thriller. Its half-hearted jabs at government critique feel casual, never rising to genuine provocation.

Yes, it looks great, the editing is slick, and Adria Arjona once again proves magnetic on screen. But the film spends so much time oscillating between genres that it never builds momentum. It isn’t eerie enough to qualify as horror, nor does it stage enough kinetic set pieces to satisfy as action. What remains is a flimsy, vacant exercise, as hollow as the trailer park backdrop it inhabits.

For all the gunfire, the film never pulls the trigger on its own concept. Given the talent Wingard and Barrett have demonstrated elsewhere, the result is simply frustrating. By year’s end, this one will already be forgotten.

The story follows former Army sniper Celeste (Adria Arjona), an elite veteran scarred by PTSD and obsessed with firearms. Having traded soldiering for the grim duty of managing a rundown trailer park in the New Mexico desert, she lives among fellow misfits and discontents, surrounded, inevitably, by guns. When others idle away the day, she takes hers out for target practice, blasting carved Halloween pumpkins into dust.

Her fragile routine collapses when her ex-husband (Jacob Scipio) suddenly leaves their young daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy) in her care. But the real danger lurks nearby: a clandestine U.S. government facility overseen by Nazi scientist Dr. Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens), who has engineered three monstrous super-soldiers — Butcher (Alex Pereira), the Cockroach (Dave Campbell) and the Crybaby (Tyler Hall). However, their nicknames prove irrelevant; their purpose is destruction.

When the experiment inevitably goes rogue, the trio slaughters everyone inside the facility and storms outward, programmed for endless search-and-destroy. The carnage leads straight to Celeste’s trailer park, where survival collides with motherhood. As neighbors fall to the reprogrammed killers, Celeste must protect Daisy and face down the nightmare creations in a showdown as stark and unforgiving as the desert along with Vietnam War veteran Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson).

Think of it as Assault on Precinct 13 refracted through The Terminator, with slasher villains drafted into military service. The opening credits unspool in reverse, tracing America’s misadventures from Barack Obama and Afghanistan back to Woodrow Wilson and World War I — a montage of failed promises to be “the land of the free and home of the brave,” complete with nods to clandestine black-site experiments.

Though the film begins with a ticking clock already under twelve hours, director Wingard takes his time, stretching anticipation toward a bloody finale that never quite earns its drumbeat. Early on, we linger on the unsettling image of the unbelievably old Nazi scientist Dr. Hans Kammler crawling to lick the stiletto heel of his much younger wife and co-conspirator (Rebecca Hall).

And when his engineered trio of killers inevitably escape, the narrative detours into the introduction of Cyrus (Drew Starkey), a drugged-up, laid-back operative who likes to spend his time in S&M clubs, sent to clean up the mess. Director Wingard delights in sketching him out, but the character ultimately fizzles, his perspective-shift at a gas station massacre feeling unjustified and abandoned.

What works is his flair for staging violence. The super soldiers, with militarized echoes of Michael Myers, Leatherface, and Jason Voorhees, wield chainsaws, cleavers, and heavy artillery. They burst through walls and windows as relentless silhouettes, delivering jump-scare energy. Celeste’s battles against them are punctuated by black-and-white flashbacks to her military past, culminating in a full-circle reveal that lands with convenience rather than catharsis.

Yet the central siege never achieves the delirium promised. The soldiers’ near-invincibility reduces encounters to repetitive demonstrations of durability, draining tension instead of escalating it. Celeste spends much of the runtime running and screaming, her sniper rifle offering only sporadic punctuation.

By the climax, when she channels Evil Dead’s Ash, the carnage feels unearned, a sudden surge of energy absent from the preceding 92 minutes. Horror ambitions smother the action potential, leaving both halves underfed. Hints of sharper commentary flicker, on how veterans are discarded, or on the loaded imagery of masked militarized men storming civilian spaces in 2026, but none of it develops. The film gestures at provocation, then retreats, leaving spectacle without substance.

It’s a real shame because Adria Arjona is clearly ready to be an action hero. She brings steely-eyed intensity to her performance and believably wears Celeste’s tragic military backstory. The great Reginald VelJohnson is a welcome surprise, chain-smoking his way through the role of a Vietnam vet who dispenses both shotgun blasts and sage one-liners. Eric Wareheim provides goofy comic relief as a drunk cop too hapless to step up when it matters, while Michael Biehn drops in as a sardonic military official, cracking wise at the very notion of lab-bred soldiers.

Drew Starkey adds a volatile edge, but he is too underwritten to leave an impact. In small roles, Dan Stevens and Rebecca Hall lean gleefully into their creepy German caricatures, committing fully to the bit and clearly enjoying themselves. On the whole, ‘Onslaught‘ is a blunt action-horror hybrid that flickers with throwback promise but sputters into half-baked thrills, leaving more smoke than fire.