Movies, Films & Flix

Quick Thoughts:

1. The world needs more straightforward and efficient 90-minute genre films.
2. Between You’re Next, The Guest, and Onslaught, I really like Adam Wingard’s action horror films.
3. Adria Arjona is legit.
4. Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall, Drew Starkey, Reginald VelJohnson, and Eric Wareheim are clearly having a blast.
5. The “G.I. Joes from Hell” are wonderful villains who exist to smash through doors and look cool. Their tactics are a bit suspect, but they are zombie soldiers who’ve gone rogue, so their horror-inspired tactics make sense.
6. It’s not the most ambitious of projects and feels like Wingard needed a palate cleanser after the Godzilla films.
7. I don’t see it becoming a cult classic like You’re Next or The Guest, but I appreciate the world-building and likable characters.

For 20+ years, director/writer Adam Wingard and writer/producer Simon Barrett have smashed genres together to create wonderful films like The Guest and You’re Next. With Onslaught, they put a bunch of films into a blender, added their sensibilities, and created a brisk romp. After finishing up work on Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Wingard wanted to make “a really crazy, violent action-slasher film that’s paying homage to John Carpenter and James Cameron.” His low-budget film, shot in 35 days, combines elements from Assault on Precinct 13, The Terminator, The Fog, Halloween, and Aliens to create straightforward action films. He also tossed in elements from Universal Soldier (out-of-control super soldiers), Jurassic World (the bunker escape), and Tremors (likable trailer park crew) to fill out the running time and build the world. Onslaught isn’t the most ambitious of projects, but the idea is marketable, and it must’ve been easy for Wingard to sell the high-concept film to A24.

Onslaught revolves around what happens when a high-heel-licking Nazi scientist named Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens – amazing) and his super evil wife Hanna (Rebecca Hall – wonderful) attempt to create super soldiers in a secretive New Mexico bunker. Their experiments are too successful, as they reanimate a trio of maniacs into hulking beasts who quickly escape the isolated bunker and tear through rural New Mexico. After a brutal truck stop massacre, their murderous journey leads them to a trailer park managed by Celeste (Adria Arjona), a retired military sniper who deals with crippling PTSD and post-war injuries. Once there, the trio attacks the unsuspecting residents and kills them in a variety of grisly ways. The onslaught forces Celeste, Vietnam vet Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson), and a goofy/brave cop (Eric Wareheim) to protect the trailer park and keep Celeste’s seven-year-old daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy) safe. What follows is a bloodbath involving chainsaws, butcher knives, charcoal grills, sniper rifles, and many smashed doors.

After the escape, a local “janitor” named Cyrus (Drew Starkey) is summoned by Hanna (from a high-class sex party) to clean up the murders and track the exploits of the super soldiers. His scenes help build the world and extend the film’s running time as he witnesses the aftermath of the chaotic encounters. It’s a smart budgetary decision as locations are reused and Cyrus’s conversations/calls help build the secretive private-contractors network. Aside from being under the influence of MDMA, Cyrus is a relatively chill agent who occasionally slips on blood and casually jumps over corpses. The nice thing about Drew Starkey’s performance is that he doesn’t overload the quirky character with too many quirks. His performance creates a nice middle ground between the insanity of Dan Stevevens (and Rebecca Hall) and Arjona’s grounded realism.

On the performance front, Arjona does a fine job of creating a three-dimensional human who suffers from PTSD, went through a divorce, and doesn’t have the capabilities to deal with her trauma. So, she lives in a trailer park where she collects rent and fixes the often-malfunctioning trailers. She also must love carving pumpkins because the opening of the film features her using carved pumpkins as shooting practice to establish her sniper credentials. The addition of Reginald ValJohnson means that audiences will immediately cheer for the likable actor as he battles the super soldiers played by Alex Pereira (MMA Legend), Dave Campbell, and Tyler Hall (who worked on Splitsville with Arjona).

Production designer Tom Hammock (Pearl, Weapons) does excellent work building a realistic trailer park in the vast New Mexico desert. The on-location shoot helps authenticity as wind sweeps through the park and everything seems beaten down by the blazing hot sun. Instead of lining up the trailers in a neat row, Hammock and Wingard organized them in a circle to create a gladiatorial ring where the final confrontation between Celeste and The Butcher (Alex Pereira – MMA legend) takes place. Cinematographer Oren Soffer (The Creator – great work) does a fine job capturing the mayhem and adding in enough low-budget spice (inspired crane and dolly shots) to make the film look ambitious and expansive.

Jay and Mark discuss the 2026 shark film Chum. Directed by Jonathan Zuck and starring Alice Eve, Eric Michael Cole, and an incredible amount of ADR, the movie focuses on a shark hunter who is really bad at hunting sharks. In this episode, they also talk about temporary shark-riding, cynical cash-grab AI slop, and ghost poetry.

Quick Thoughts:

1. Between Osiris and Man of War, I’m enjoying the LaMonica Garrett/William Kaufman/Linds Edwards crew.
2. The action blends together after a while, but the dedicated actors and stunt crew make it feel professional and tactically sound.
3. Daniel Bernhardt!
4. Andrew Howard!
5. It’s nice watching William Kaufman find his groove with The Channel, Osiris, and Man of War. He’s an excellent action director who can stretch a budget to make films that punch above their weight.

Man of War is a refreshingly straightforward action film about a private military contractor named Connor (LaMonica Garrett – 1883, The Lioness, The Terminal List)) fighting his way through the back roads/streets of Ukraine to rescue his niece Riley (Rosmary Yaneva). There are no bells and whistles or balletic gunplay; instead, it’s a muscular experience filled with dedicated actors and confident direction from action maestro William Kaufman (Osiris, The Channel, One in the Chamber, Sinners and Saints). It helps that the villain is played by Daniel Bernhardt (Nobody, John Wick, The Matrix Reloaded, Deathstalker), who clearly enjoys playing a psychopathic Skorzeny mercenary who is lethal with a rocket launcher.

Filmed in Bulgaria and shot in 25 days, Man of War is a solid action film that features gunfights in deserted roads, dense forests, empty streets and a massive police station, Connor bulldozes his way through countless masked mercenaries with the help of his local guide Dany (Andrew Howard – Limitless, Inception, The Odyssey), and Bunny (Linds Edwards and his beard) a British mercenary who leads a group of soldiers (played mostly by real-life stunt performers). The actors were trained by tactical advisor Max Kraus (Red Sonja, The Princess), who put the crew through a weeks-long training regimen involving movement and gun handling. The training and smart casting decisions paid off as the actors look believable and fluid as they battle countless mercenaries.

In the press notes, Kaufman mentions that he wanted Mark Rutledge’s camerawork to feel rough and immediate, and the results are perfect for the low-budget action film. Rutledge went hard on close-ups to keep the budget down (less to dress in the background), but they work because Garrett, Bernhardt, Edwards, and Howard can hold the screen. The camerawork is never too shaky, and Rutledge does a fine job of following the actors during the final police station battle (a lot of rehearsal went into this film because the movements are well-synced). Like Osiris, the action scenes become less distinctive during the long battles in the police station/space ship. The action scenes are technically impressive and well-designed, but there are only so many ways to stage a shootout in a hallway.

The color palette is loaded with blue-grays, muddy browns, and muted greens, which decimate the world of color. Man of War is a dour affair, which makes sense because of the content (Bernhardt has some bleak moments), but it does zap some of the energy out of the air. The film opens with Garrett’s character contemplating suicide as he haphazardly drinks whiskey from a bottle (most of it makes his beard drunk). From there, things stay bleak as he travels to Ukraine to rescue his niece. I’m not saying humor or pratfalls were needed, but I will say that things perk up whenever Linds Edwards or Daniel Bernhardt have screen time because they clearly relish their various roles.

Final thoughts – Man of War is a well-made film made by professionals. It’s worth a watch.

Quick Thoughts:

1. Director/writer Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan) tackles AI, rapid information exchange, and collective consciousness by creating zombies who work as one horrifying unit.
2. The plot is familiar, but the “upgrading” zombies who share information through a hive mind bring a fun new element to the genre.
3. Gianna Jun (My Sassy Girl, Windstruck, My Love from Another Star)  is a solid lead. She is intelligent, sassy, and capable.
4. It might be the goo-iest movie of 2026.
5. South Korean actors go all-in when playing zombies. I don’t think another country can match their skills.
6. Ant mill!

In a bit of a Catch-22, director/writer Yeon Sang-ho probably didn’t have a hard time finding funding for his latest zombie film, Colony. However, since he directed Train to Busan, an all-time zombie film, every zombie film he makes will be compared to the propulsive classic. Doors were opened because of Train to Busan, but matching the lighting-in-a-bottle qualities of the fast-paced zombie film is a tough task. The good news is that Colony is a big step up from Peninsula (2020), and while it doesn’t come close to Train to Busan’s excellence, it proves Sang-ho can still bring the zombie goods.

In the press notes, it’s mentioned that the “zombie genre will be rebooted” by Colony, which is a bold prediction considering director Sang-ho already rebooted the genre. Colony isn’t a game changer, but it’s an ambitious film that goes out of its way to tackle collective consciousness and create new variations of undead angry people. What makes these zombies unique is that they’re created by a biologist named Suh Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan) who believes “imperfect communication” needs to be eradicated by creating an information-sharing hive mind. He unleashes his zombies during a biotech conference located inside the Doongwoori Building, a high-rise filled with long corridors, vast parking garages, and a shopping mall. When people get bitten, they almost immediately become zombies who walk on all fours as they hunt for people to chomp on. What’s interesting is that they communicate through a gooey hive mind, and every time they learn something, they share the information during a reboot phase, which halts their movement as they download new information. Whether it’s how to open doors, learning new scents, or realizing that cardboard cutouts aren’t humans, the constantly evolving zombies add a ticking clock to the proceedings because humans like the industrious Professor Kwon Se-jeong (Gianna Jun) and security guard Choi Hyun-seok (Ji Chang-wook) need to stay proactive to avoid the evolving undead.

Like in Train to Busan and Peninsula, Yeong Sang-ho and motion choreographer Jeon Young worked together to make the zombie movements distinctive and unique to the film. They hired some of Korea’s best contemporary dancers to perform the twisting movements of the newly created zombies (who might remind you of the evil dancers in Smile 2) as they bond together to create a gooey blob of violence. The “zombies” in Colony are simultaneously more vulnerable and dangerous than traditional zombies because they can be killed with relative ease (headshots aren’t necessary), and their problem-solving skills mean people can’t hold up safely in a shopping mall for months (they will find a way in).

Action director Heo Myeong-haeng (Badlands Hunters, The Roundup: Punishment) does a fine job choreographing the action, which evolves as the characters traverse the high-rise. Fights happen in hallways, clothing stores, elevators, parking garages, and other unique locations, which makes them feel fresh. Most of the fighting scenes belong to Choi Hyun-seok, who batters zombies with metal rods, hard elbows, and various knives. What’s really impressive is that Hyun-seok does most of his fighting while carrying his paraplegic sister Choi Hyun-hee (Kim Shin-rock) on his back. It’s a fun twist and great advertisement for camping stretchers.

Production designer Lee Mok-won does a fine job of recreating the high-rise shopping mall and various interiors. It would’ve been impractical to shoot on location, but the sets look and feel real, which adds a lot to the production. Mok-won also designed the train sets in Train to Busan, so his shorthand with Sang-ho paid dividends as they worked together to create a labyrinth of corridors and rooms to make up the Doongwoori Building.

The 123-minute film won’t break big like Train to Busan, but it’s a worthwhile exploration of collective consciousness and communication. The technically polished film will put a smile on your face, but won’t linger in your memory, which is totally fine. The world needs ambitious genre filmmakers who aren’t content with stock carnage and destruction, and it’s neat that Sang-ho keeps pushing the genre forward.