Adam Wingard Confirms ONSLAUGHT Is a Spiritual Sequel to THE GUEST
If you've been wanting to see director Adam Wingard get back to the kind of lean, genre-fueled filmmaking that gave us The Guest and You're Next, you're going to like what he had to say about his upcoming action thriller, Onslaught.
While the movie isn't officially The Guest 2, Wingard revealed at San Diego Comic-Con that it was designed to continue the same creative path and even shares a connection with that fan-favorite film.
After spending the last several years directing the Monsterverse films Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Wingard is returning to something much more grounded, and from the sounds of it, much more personal.
During Onslaught's SDCC panel, Wingard explained how he views the film in relation to his earlier work: “I saw this film as a completion of a trilogy. I thought it was You’re Next, The Guest, and then Onslaught. And Onslaught takes place in the same town as The Guest, and there [are] thematic through lines to it.”
That's a pretty exciting reveal for fans of The Guest, which has built a loyal following since its release. While plenty of people have spent years asking for a sequel, Wingard's comments suggest Onslaught may be the closest thing we're going to get.
That connection gets even stronger thanks to Dan Stevens, who famously starred as the mysterious David in The Guest. Stevens has reunited with Wingard before in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, and now he's back again for Onslaught, although he's playing a completely different kind of unhinged character.
Speaking to the Comic-Con crowd, Stevens said: “The Guest changed my life. It’s a special little movie, and I’m very fond of it; a lot of people are very fond of it …
“I think a lot of people have been waiting for a sequel to The Guest in some way, but this is, I’m sorry to say, not exactly a sequel, but it is a spiritual sequel. And as Adam says, it lives in the same universe, but I get the opportunity to play an even more insane character.”
That certainly sounds like exactly the kind of energy fans have been hoping to see from another Wingard and Stevens collaboration.
The film stars Adria Arjona as a former Army sniper struggling with PTSD who suddenly finds herself protecting her home and her young daughter when rogue supersoldiers launch an attack. Fortunately, she's still got the skills, instincts, and enough firepower to fight back.
Stevens plays one of the people responsible for unleashing the genetically engineered killers, while Rebecca Hall and Drew Starkey round out the lineup of villains.
Unlike Wingard's recent giant monster spectacles, Onslaught scales everything down and embraces the gritty action movies that shaped him as a filmmaker. When panel moderator Kevin Smith pointed to James Cameron and John Carpenter as clear influences, Wingard happily agreed.
“Those are probably two of the biggest references. John Carpenter has always been the main influence for me. So I just got into this thing where I was making all these Godzilla movies, and the main way for me to unwind was just watching They Live three times a week.
“And it’s just, there’s something his movies do to me. It’s like magic. I just like the vibe … But I think with this film, out of Carpenter’s canon, Assault on Precinct 13, the original, was probably [the biggest influence].”
That old-school DNA extends beyond the filmmaking style and into the cast itself. Wingard packed Onslaught with actors he grew up watching, including Reginald VelJohnson, best known for Die Hard, and Michael Biehn, whose legendary performances in The Terminator and Aliens left a huge impression on him growing up.
Wingard even shared a great story about how Biehn ended up joining the project. As a kid, he became obsessed with Hicks from Aliens before he'd even seen the movie because the action figure looked so cool. When he finally watched the film, Hicks completely lived up to the hype.
That childhood admiration eventually came full circle while developing Onslaught, which Wingard co-wrote with longtime collaborator Simon Barrett.
“I was like, I haven’t seen Michael Biehn in a movie in a long time … let’s just write this role for him and get him. I mean, to be honest with you, [we] almost wrote the role just so I could hang out with Michael Biehn.
“And so I sent him this letter, and it was all about the story I just told [about being a Hicks superfan]. He was very touched, and we started talking, and now we’re like homies, and it’s like, it’s so cool, you know?”
Everything we've learned about Onslaught makes it sound like Wingard is tapping back into the style that earned him so many devoted fans in the first place.
Between its practical, retro-inspired action, its connection to The Guest, and a cast packed with genre favorites, this one has all the ingredients to be one of the coolest action movies of the year.
Onslaught blasts into theaters on September 4.