I remember when the news came in that Adam Wingard was directing the long-awaited big-budget Godzilla/Kong crossover from Legendary, a pivotal keystone of the “MonsterVerse” megafranchise. It felt like a sharp left turn from a filmmaker who came up making scrappy indie action/horror flicks.

This despite the fact that Blair Witch (2016) went nowhere, You’re Next is overrated slop, The Guest is nothing special, and I’ve already more than said my piece about V/H/S. And while Wingard’s two Godzilla/Kong flicks weren’t exactly terrible, they were anodyne corporate products first and foremost. Also, maybe it’s just my opinion, but I really don’t like how those movies favored Kong so much.

Anyway, here’s Onslaught, in which Wingard directs and his frequent collaborator Simon Barrett wrote the screenplay. This was made and marketed as Wingard’s big return to form. He’s delivered a couple of major Hollywood tentpoles, now let’s see how he can put that experience toward making another one of his scrappy smaller-scale horror/action flicks.

It doesn’t go well.

We lay our scene in the American southwest, in the general vicinity of an abandoned WWII bunker that’s been leased out so military contractors have a space for R&D. This particular military contractor is a shadowy corporation that’s hired a German mad scientist (played by Dan Stevens under heavy prosthetics) to develop the perfect soldier. In the process, three military veterans (played by Alex Pereira, Dave Campbell, and Tyler Hall) were effectively transformed into undead killing machines. They escape from the lab, killing half the supporting cast in the process, and we’re off to the races from there.

Right up front, there’s a huge problem because our antagonists have no motivation. They have no personality. They have no mission. They have no gimmick, aside from their glowing eyes. They don’t even care if their victims suffer. They kill for the sake of it, that’s it. Simply put, they’re boring.

All of this stands in sharp contrast to the victim pool. And that contrast is admittedly quite interesting.

Our protagonist is Celeste, played by exec producer Adria Arjona. Here we have an Army sniper vet with a crippling case of PTSD. And she’s the on-site manager for a trailer park populated with other misfits and losers, which doesn’t help her temper issues. Worst of all, she’s in danger of permanently losing her young daughter (Daisy, played by Blake Kennedy), because her ex-husband (Griffin, played by Jacob Scipio) seems convinced that she’s an unfit mother. And while his concerns are well-founded, it’s worth remembering that she’s the one stepping in to take care of Daisy after Griffin, his new wife, and his usual sitter were all suddenly and inexplicably unavailable for the weekend. Make of that what you will, I’m just saying.

There are a number of other trailer park residents, but the only two worth mentioning are the Vietnam veteran (Josiah, played by Reginald VelJohnson) and the incompetent cop (Kovacks, played by Eric Wareheim). Elsewhere, I’d be remiss not to mention Cyrus (Drew Starkey), the government agent sent to clean up this whole mess. Oh, and we’ve also got Rebecca Hall and Michael Biehn showing up just long enough to collect their respective paychecks.

What’s interesting about the “human” characters (read: everyone except the slashers) is that the film goes to great lengths in showing their sins and virtues. The film literally opens with the German mad scientist and his wife getting into some freaky fetish play. All throughout the picture, the characters drink and swear and smoke cigarettes and argue and connect with each other on an emotional level. Yet they also have varying boundaries and some sense of moderation (e.g. Celeste firmly insisting that nobody smoke cigarettes in front of her child). All of which are things that the slashers are functionally incapable of.

In so many charming little ways, the film examines and normalizes the messy nature of being human and being alive. The point is effectively made that our flaws and urges and traumas are all part of what make us human. These are things to be embraced and accepted, in contrast to the ruthless mechanical “perfection” as defined by the slashers and the corporate overlords that made them.

This is all well and good, but there’s a huge problem: the tagline on the poster reads “to stop a killing machine, you must become one.” That implies the lead character has to become every bit as cold and ruthless and impersonal as the antagonists. I don’t know if it’s me, the filmmakers, or the marketing team, but somebody misread this movie in a big way.

Moreover, the film is titled “Onslaught“. It’s about a trio of killing machines on the loose. For a film with this pedigree and such a stone-simple premise, the action has to be worth the cost of admission. And it isn’t. Not by a long shot.

There are three major action set pieces in this 90-minute film. And two of them show the slashers effortlessly mowing down hapless victims we don’t have any reason to care about. The third one — the entire third act, in fact — is set in the trailer park, so we don’t get much variety in the terrain.

There are no car chases, no fistfights, and no fun tricks with explosives. Aside from a couple of kills with a chainsaw, it’s pretty much entirely gunplay in a trailer park. That lack of variety is anathema to a good action flick.

I need hardly add that by virtue of the slashers’ overpowered nature, of course the filmmakers nerf and buff them as the plot demands. I found it particularly laughable how these unstoppable super-soldiers couldn’t break down the door of a trailer home. Not without a freaking chainsaw. Seriously.

More to the point, the film has a nasty habit of underwhelming payoffs to excessive setups. Cyrus is a key example — the filmmakers put so much effort into hyping him up as a badass, so much time into showing him a step behind the slashers. And when he finally shows up, he does fuck-all.

What’s even worse is the grand climactic showdown between Celeste and the last Big Bad. So much overwrought set-up to that fight scene between them, and it’s literally over in ten seconds. One slow-mo shot and that’s it. They brought in a legit MMA fighter to play the big bad for this bullshit. Fucking pathetic.

I’m genuinely sorry that Onslaught could not exceed or even equal the sum of its parts. I like the actors, and I like the basic concept of trailer-park fuckups standing their ground against “perfection” as defined by the military-industrial complex. Unfortunately, the underwhelming payoffs, overwrought setups, and the dull-as-dogshit antagonists all leave the plot fundamentally broken. More importantly, the limp and monotonous action scenes mean the movie fails where it matters most.

I can’t recommend this one. Sorry, but this movie is further proof that Adam Wingard is an overrated hack. Let’s hope he proves me wrong next time.