Filmmaker Adam Wingard has returned to his horror roots with A24's sci-fi horror film Onslaught, starring Adria Arjona as Celeste, a former Army sniper who must protect her young daughter when three escaped Super Soldier experiments threaten their remote New Mexico trailer park home. In a joint interview with Collider, Wingard and Arjona discuss the bloody production, filming in freezing Albuquerque conditions, and how Wingard cast Arjona after being struck by an intangible toughness he saw in her that went beyond her previous film roles.

The film also features Dan Stevens, Drew Starkey, Reginald VelJohnson and Michael Biehn, with Wingard revealing he wrote specific roles for VelJohnson and Biehn as a tribute to his 1980s childhood heroes. Wingard, known for indie horror hits You're Next and The Guest before moving to blockbusters like Godzilla x Kong, said meeting Arjona convinced him she could embody the character's toughness and messiness, a quality Arjona jokingly attributed to him seeing her drive her truck.