A24’s New ‘Onslaught’ Trailer Just Confirmed It’s a Sequel to a Cult Classic, Sort Of

Adam Wingard has built a career on delivering exactly the kind of unhinged genre thrills that horror fans crave, and his latest collaboration with longtime writing partner Simon Barrett looks primed to continue that streak. With San Diego Comic Con in full swing this weekend, the pair used the moment to unveil their biggest look yet at a project fans have been anticipating since it was first announced back in 2024.

That project is ‘Onslaught,’ A24’s upcoming action horror thriller marking Wingard’s first fully original film since 2014’s cult favorite ‘The Guest.’ The new trailer, released alongside the Comic Con festivities, offers the clearest picture yet of just how far Wingard and Barrett are pushing this particular story.

Adria Arjona stars as Celeste, a former Army sniper living quietly in a desert trailer park with her young daughter after finally finding a place that feels safe. That peace does not last long, as the trailer reveals a rogue squad of genetically engineered super soldiers, code-named Crybaby, Cockroach, and the Butcher, breaking loose from a nearby military facility and turning their unstoppable killing instincts loose on the surrounding community.

One voice in the trailer describes the escaped soldiers as the human equivalent of a heat-seeking missile, underscoring just how relentless and unkillable these engineered threats are meant to be. Once they start killing, according to the film’s marketing, they simply do not stop, forcing Celeste to rely on skills she thought she had left behind for good.

Much of the pre-release conversation has centered on the film’s connection to Wingard’s earlier cult hit. Dan Stevens, who starred in ‘The Guest’ as a mysterious former soldier hiding a dangerous secret, appears briefly in the new trailer under heavy old age makeup and sporting a German accent, making clear he is not simply reprising his original role as David Collins.

Wingard addressed that connection directly during this year’s Comic Con, noting that ‘Onslaught’ could technically be billed as a sequel to ‘The Guest,’ though not a direct one, in comments made during the film’s panel. That careful distinction has only fueled more speculation among longtime fans trying to piece together exactly how connected these two stories really are.

The film’s ensemble cast further reinforces that sense of shared universe building, rounding out with Eric Wareheim, Reginald VelJohnson, Michael Biehn, UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, Drew Starkey, and Rebecca Hall. Hall’s presence in particular has drawn attention, given her character’s apparent ties to the same kind of covert military experiments that fueled the plot of Wingard’s earlier film.

Wingard has described the project as a gonzo action horror thriller, embracing an over the top blend of sci-fi carnage and unrelenting violence that feels like a deliberate return to the pulpier, 1980s indebted style of his earlier work. That tonal shift marks a notable departure from his more recent big budget studio efforts directing ‘Godzilla vs Kong’ and ‘Godzilla x Kong The New Empire.’

With production handled by Aaron Ryder and Andrew Swett’s Ryder Picture Company alongside A24 and Alexander Black’s Lyrical Media, ‘Onslaught’ represents Wingard and Barrett’s first fully original screenplay collaboration since ‘The Guest’ itself. Given how beloved that earlier film remains among genre fans, expectations for this spiritual follow up have only grown since the Comic Con reveal.

‘Onslaught’ unleashes exclusively in theaters on September 4.

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