Adria Arjona plays Celeste, a combat-veteran Army sniper and single mother living in a New Mexico trailer park who uses her military skills to protect her young daughter Daisy from escaped genetically engineered super soldiers; her capabilities and motivation are fully justified by the in-universe premise of a mother defending her child against a slasher-style threat. The film’s political undertones—references to Operation Paperclip, a third-generation Nazi scientist (Dan Stevens as Dr. Hans Kammler) running experiments for a defense contractor, veteran PTSD, and the military-industrial complex—function as background conspiracy flavor and world-building for the gory B-movie action-horror, not as the foundational premise or primary emotional driver. Director Adam Wingard has described the project as a John Carpenter-inspired genre homage and a personal story about parenthood, explicitly noting respect for veterans while framing the history as fun conspiracy shorthand rather than activist messaging.