Adam Wingard got his start in low-budget horror, but the American filmmaker is best known for helming the MonsterVerse franchise for the last few years. In 2021, he gave audiences the showdown they wanted with Godzilla vs. Kong, and he followed that up a few years later with 2024’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Both of those films were delightful popcorn blockbusters with big, explosive action about the iconic mutant kaiju and everyone’s favorite ape, so it came as a surprise when the director announced he was moving on from the franchise.
Longtime fans of Wingard, however, were less surprised. Before Godzilla, the director honed his craft with intense action and horror, notably You’re Next and The Guest, both of which pit an ordinary family against unrelenting evil. His next movie, which arrives next month, will fuse those two eras of his career into an unholy Frankenstein-esque monster that we can’t wait to see for ourselves.
Onslaught arrives very soon. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
What is the plot of Onslaught?
If you were tired of poor Adria Arjona being tortured for manpain across the two seasons of Star Wars’s gritty sci-fi drama, Andor, Wingard has a solution. What if Adria Arjona had several guns and did most of the shooting and torturing instead? If that sounds like a good time, you’re in luck. That’s exactly what Onslaught seems to be about.
Arjona stars as Celeste, an army sniper and single mother who lives in a trailer park and is simply trying her best to provide a decent life for her young daughter. That only seems to be getting harder for Celeste, as she soon realizes a group of super soldiers has escaped from a secret military facility and wants nothing more than to hunt down and hurt her family. Based on the trailer, there seems to be no real reason given for doing so, but considering these super soldiers are described as the human equivalent of a “heat-seeking missile,” it wouldn’t be too amiss to speculate that they may be after something only Celeste has.
With A24 as the production company behind this venture and writer Simon Barrett (who worked alongside Wingard on several projects, mostly in horror) handling the script, viewers should expect more than the basic premise of a single mom versus superpowered soldiers suggests.
Who is the cast of Onslaught?
As far as the cast goes, Onslaught has more than a handful of recognizable names, including Dan Stevens and Rebecca Hall, who has worked with Wingard before on The Guest and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Other cast members include professional UFC stars Alex Pereira and Maurice Greene, Michael Biehn (The Terminator), Drew Starkey (Love, Simon), Eric Wareheim (Master of None), and Reginald VelJohnson (Die Hard).
Is Onslaught a sequel?
Earlier this year at San Diego Comic-Con, Stevens referred to Onslaught as a “spiritual sequel” to his previously well-received horror-action film, The Guest. The latter follows U.S. soldier David Collins (played by Stevens), who arrives at the Peterson home as a friend of their son Caleb’s, who died during combat in Afghanistan. The twist is that David is in fact a super soldier, one that has been programmed to kill anyone who might compromise his identity. Sounds awfully familiar to Onslaught, doesn’t it?
Also at San Diego Comic-Con, Wingard confirmed that Onslaught takes place in the same town and teased that the covert experimentation that created David is connected to what was shown in The Guest. Could it be considered a sequel in the same universe? Absolutely. However, we highly doubt that any of the characters from The Guest will make an appearance, so it’s perfectly fine to have not watched that film before sitting down to watch Onslaught.
What is Onslaught’s runtime?
With a runtime of 92 minutes (1 hour and 32 minutes), Onslaught will have you wondering what the latest tricky twist Wingard has up his sleeve that will make him pitting a single mom against three super soldiers feel like a fair fight.
When is Onslaught’s release date?
Onslaught arrives in theaters on Sept. 4.