As an ex-smoker for over ten years it aches me that no one finishes their cigarettes in this film. C’mon on now.  I was screaming at the end. The bad guys are truly being the bad guys for not finishing their cigarettes and casually discarded them, even now, this day and age because of how expensive they now are.  As we go further though- I must say at this point. Smoking is dangerous and can lead to cancer and death. Now onto the movie, “Onslaught” is an adjacent sequel to 2014’s “The Guest” directed by the same person Adam Wingard.  Here he’s dialing up the pulp and the horror. “Onslaught” is a unabashful roller-coaster, good ole horror that harkens to the unabashful roller-coaster good old horror of the eighties and nineties. It’s all  “Psycho Killer” released a few months back wished it was. This unapologetic pulp horror.  There’s no depth to it. It’s all on the surface and popcorny entertaining. If you love your pulp horror this is it. 

The film is  two stories coming together at the end.  We do have the Lone Wolf and cub trope stitched in, along we do have the non-vocal, single-minded masked killers. The film is taking those two tropes and colluding them at the end.  We have the divorced mom who has PTSD from war and the secret operation of the U.S. military making mindless super soldiers.  The mom gets her child dropped on her unannounced at the trailer park she works at and the super soldiers break out of the secret compound to wreak havoc on soft targets- like the trailer and the gas station-both that were in the vicinity of the secret compound. The film wants us to feel a sense that it is two strong stubborn forces of the super soldiers and the War vet mom that are on a collision path of a showdown. We do get that, but what works best in the film is Wingard interspersing interesting characters, not really compelling but interesting. I still don’t know what Drew Starkey’s character “Cyrus”’s purpose is in the film. Seriously removing his characters does not subtract anything of merit from the film.  I understand there needs to be a certain mystery to him, a certain lull, but he has no skill, no talent, no title, and yet everyone around acts like he does.  What was the point of that character? It seems even a mystery to the writer of the film.

There are some great things in this. If you like this type of horror it has all the features you demand from a fast-paced popcorn horror. It is a film that definitely shows rather than tells and that is immensely appreciated. But what hurts the film is that it is going so fast that there isn’t time to go off-ramp to divulge into the supporting characters.  My lord, the character of Josiah, the Vietnam vet needs to have his own movie. There needs to be more scene time for Rebecca Hall. So captivating even in the little amount of time in it. “Onslaught” overall is like a fast, loud muscle car, but with not all the parts working- and it doesn’t care.  7/10