‘Onslaught’ Is a B-Movie That Gets the Blood Pumping

The title of Adam Wingard’s “Onslaught” holds true. As both a story of individuals holding on to their senses of self and an exercise in cinematic form, the picture dusts off its hands and gets down to business. A recurring set of title cards informs us that there is only so much time until some catastrophic event is to take place. The countdown is an obvious but effective ploy, particularly given the limited time span in which the story plays out. Was it my imagination or did the audience with whom I was seated collectively grip its armrests each time the clock appeared on screen?“Onslaught” is a sleek animal of determined means that nonetheless leaves confusion in its wake. The characters know their places within a circumscribed setting even as they are left adrift by the machinations of screenwriter Simon Barrett, who worked on the story with Mr. Wingard. The plot’s loose ends hamper the film’s velocity, leaving us to wonder why this out-and-out villain or that morally compromised hero bothered to show up at all. Must every piece of cinematic product come equipped with intimations of franchise potential? Mr. Wingard is a stylish technician with a B-movie aesthetic. The opening credits are a bravura display of justaposition and overlay, a pump-up-the-volume summation of international conflicts that takes us back to the early 20th-century. The director, working along with editors Josh Schaeffer and Adam Avery, employ this rat-a-tat-tat polemic for reasons that are world-historical in association and easy attention grabbers — that is to say, Nazis and sex. Evil men and kinky ladies are the rule of order in a universe that trades in breathless spectacle.Let’s start with Dr. Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens, unrecognizable from “Downton Abbey.”) He’s a bald-pated genius with mix-and-match eyes who seems to have escaped from an “Austin Powers” movie. A scientist who’s been up to the requisite madness, he’s retrofitting three dead American veterans with all sorts of gizmos thereby turning them into killing machines. The military contractors with whom Herr Kammler has been working are eager to get these not-ready-for-prime-time super soldiers up-and-running. A test done at a facility in the deserts of New Mexico goes awry. People are slaughtered. A trio of terminators is set loose on a civilian population.The nearest civilians live at Windy Oasis, a trailer park whose amenities make the Bates Motel seem like a luxury resort. Celeste (Adria Arjona) is the caretaker, spending her time collecting rent from a rogues gallery of oddballs and doing target practice with her many, many guns. She’s a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, and suffers from shell shock. When her ex, Griffin (Jacob Scipio), shows up unexpectedly with their young daughter in tow, Celeste hurriedly clears the trailer of beer bottles, food containers and firearms. She loves Daisy (Blake Kennedy), but, you know, a parent needs to ready herself . . . Daisy is a cutie-pie and so too, in his own way, is Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson), an avuncular, chain-smoking Vietnam vet who still knows a thing or two about combat. What else is there to tell? Big scary cyborgs invade Windy Oasis, and there’s bloodletting galore if, in fact, very little in the way of viscera. Mr. Wingard, bless his pulpy heart, knows that suggestion is the better part of excitement, and punctuates the rock-em-sock-em proceedings with jarring cutaways and a knowing sense of humor. The fun is not in how innovative the story might be, but how well it is told. At a crisp 92 minutes, “Onslaught” gets the blood pumping. Capitulate to its excesses and you’ll be whisked away on a tumultuous ride.

‘Onslaught’ Is a B-Movie That Gets the Blood Pumping

‘Onslaught’ Is a B-Movie That Gets the Blood Pumping

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