Oh, goodie! And here I thought deliberately making a B movie was a lost art. Clearly, no, for I see Onslaught has all the requirements, whatever they may be. No, this isn’t an A-Lister gone foul, nor an honest attempt at art. This was exploitation, pure-and-simple: mad science and blood and boobs for the pure sake and enjoyment of mad science and blood and boobs.
But mostly blood. Let’s not be silly.
You know that when 90% of a film takes place in a trailer park it is not meant to be taken seriously, right? Right.
This particular trailer park is in New Mexico, a stone’s throw away from a secret government lab where Nazi scientist and (literal) toe-licking sex pervert Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens) is busy creating zombie super soldiers.
Actually, that’s not fair.
The “Nazi” part? Oh, no. This guy is serious Nazi, with a hilarious Rocky Horror hairstyle to boot. I mean the “sex pervert” part. Look, if sucking toes is your thing, and its consensual, who am I to judge? Yeah, building remorseless homicidal monsters with an eye on placing them in human populations is pure evil, but what you do in the bedroom, or -in this case- your kitchen, is between you and whomever allows to “whom” them, knowwhatI’msayin’?
The queen of the trailer park is single mother Celeste (Adria Arjona). An ex-military sniper and dirty fighter, Celeste manages this waste of earth and seems a bit of a hardass about it. On the day in question, her ex drops off their kid, a too serious 6-year-old named Daisy.
And then trouble comes. While training with live ammo at the base, the three super soldiers kill everybody, and then all appear to have heart attacks, in effect playing dead so they can kill everybody
else beyond the base. After that, they head for the trailer park, because of course they do. Eventually, it’s gonna be one badass mom, Celeste, against three super soldiers. Yeah, there are some breasts and some weird sexual submissive stuff thrown in, but I honestly think that was just to pack the runtime. At 92 minutes, the film is already short and shallow, so sure, add some leather and whips.
If B-movies were my thing, Onslaught might put me in hog heaven. This is cheesy with a capital Brie. And there isn’t a single attempt in this movie to make something that wasn’t intended for a 1970s drive-in. As I say, I wish it were my thing so that I could have enjoyed this one more, but Onslaught mostly felt empty to me, and the half-assed human emotion segments kinda made me wonder why the film bothered. There’s a lot to like about Onslaught, especially a supporting cast of movie trivia favorites: Dan Stevens, Michael Biehn, Rebecca Hall, Reginald VelJohnson. Again, if this were enough, I’d heartily recommend this underdeveloped piece of sexploitation. As is? Not so much.
There once was an ex-soldier Celeste
A badass, as one might have guessed
Villains arrive in the dark
And murder all at her trailer park
But she’s one woman who don’t like to be messed
Rated R, 92 Minutes
Director: Adam Wingard
Writer: Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard
Genre: Movies from a different time
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Drive-in junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Aesthetes
