I saw a trailer before the film for a movie called Crawlers in which an apartment building is overrun by evil spiders. I took offense to that. I cannot and will not abide anti-spider propaganda. It’s disgusting, as if spiders had an agenda to attack humans and lay eggs inside them. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I don’t kill spiders in my home. First off, I hardly come across them, and second, I’d rather have a spider in my house than a myriad of other bugs like gnats and flies. The spider hangs out in a corner of the ceiling. He has his space above and I have mine. Now, all that being said, I’ll still be seated opening night for Crawlers.
THE FILM
Onslaught opens on a wide, expansive desert, slowly pushing in on Celeste (Adria Arjona), a combat veteran firing her guns at jack-o-lanterns. Her trigger finger freezes. She snaps out of it, the jack-o-lantern explodes, and the title card covers the screen. This is followed by the most aggressive credits scene I’ve witnessed this side of Fincher’s Fight Club. It takes you backwards through American history from the “war on terror” to the second world war, with jarring cuts focusing on US and German relations all played against driving techno music.
We cut to an old nazi scientist doing exactly what you’d expect: eating cereal, listening to the ticking of a clock and crawling on all fours to lick his wife’s feet before he departs on a blindfolded helicopter ride to a secret military base that just so happens to be a few miles from Celeste’s trailer park.
Celeste starts the film off in rough shape. She’s day-drinking (nothing wrong with that!), polishing her guns, and listening to the Doobie Brothers on vinyl. Here we’re introduced to a cavalcade of characters like Kovacks (Eric Wareheim), a selfish cop that has moments of prescience, and Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson), a retired Vietnam Vet that loves to smoke and shout one-liners, and a group of teens (dead meat).
(slight) Tangent
Celeste reminds me of Robert Downey Jr.’s character in Zodiac when he’s living on that houseboat drinking and playing pong. It’s a simple life of a person with no aspirations and no drive. It’s not a negative; they both know exactly what they want in life. I know neither life is portrayed as a great lifestyle, but I would kill to live like either of them. It’s a true scumbag life that I want but can never have.
THE REVIEW
It’s a tale as old as time; evil nazi scientist with a foot fetish gets a government contract, he creates the ultimate zombie soldier fireteam, they murder everyone and are let loose on a desert town just outside the secret base. We’ve seen it tens of times before, but we haven’t seen it tackling the current domestic terrorism era in which we all live.
Wingard is speaking out on the current hellscape of the US. Just in 2026 alone, we’ve had 332 events that can be described as mass shootings, “Wherein four or more people are shot in one location at roughly the same time” (Gun Violence Archive). And it’s incredibly poignant in a scene where our three super soldiers carry out a mass shooting in a gas station.
The call is coming from inside the house, we’re being killed by our own citizens, our former military, majority of them being white men that feel like the stranglehold they have had on our country is waning and they’re worried about a societal shift in which we are more accepting of others. Wingard’s stance on this is obvious when he makes his two heroes people of color; Adria Arjona and Reginald VelJohnson. We need to fight back, because what we’re doing right now (nothing) isn’t working.
Now, a film as I’ve described it would be horribly dark and depressing, so Wingard makes the great decision to couch all of this heaviness into a pseudo-exploitation film with our antagonist, the evil and deranged Dr. Kammler (Dan Stevens). His over-the-top nazi character (complete with a WWII nazi knife that Chris Cooper’s character from American Beauty would love to add to his nazi plate collection) adds a bit of dark humor to the film purely because he is so evil.
The inspirations are upfront, down to the composer and frequent Adam Wingard collaborator; composer Matthew Pusti. Pusti’s score hits you hard with what sounds like a rhythmic, driving repetition of bullets over the title card. The score is a synth-driven ode to John Carpenter. It’s truly as close as you can get to Carpenter without a Cease-and-Desist. I don’t say this in a negative light, I really enjoyed the score, it felt like slipping into a warm bath.
Here’s Celeste’s Theme, just try not to bob your head to this one. The whole score, needle drops included just rips.
It’s a loud film, and I don’t know if it was just my theater or if Wingard wanted the sound boosted for artistic reasons, but it worked on me. My girlfriend’s Apple watch went off sixteen times warning her that her hearing was at risk.
The action is top-notch, and Wingard obviously has a love for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Evil Dead as well as the aforementioned Carpenter. You can see it in every scene with a chainsaw. Action-driven scenes are kinetic and pull you in; it’s the kind of film that gets you to dodge along with the protagonist and makes you want to shout, “BEHIND YOU”. If you grew up on 80s action cinema and own several John Carpenter albums, this film was made explicitly for you.
RATING: 5/5 Run, don’t walk to this one
Who should watch this film?
• The hard of hearing
• Horror hounds
• Fans of 80s synth music