Arcadian (2024)
Directed by: Benjamin Brewer
Premise: In a post-apocalyptic world, a father (Nicolas Cage) and his two adopted sons (Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins) shelter in a farmhouse. One of the boys befriends a girl (Sadie Soverall) living at a nearby farm.
What Works: Arcadian applies a raw and intimate approach to the post-apocalyptic story. The narrative is narrowly focused between a father and his sons and their struggle to survive. The families are presented with a great deal of credibility and reality. Arcadian acts out the conflicts between young people and their parents. One of the teenage boys is in love with a girl at a neighboring farm and the film dramatizes the youthful need to break free of their family while parents instinctively want to keep their kids sheltered and safe. The world building of Acaridan is quite vivid and effective. Human civilization has been decimated by nocturnal monsters and life has reverted to a mostly agrarian state. The filmmakers spend a fair amount of time early on focusing on how these people provide for themselves and the lives they lead are labor intensive. The monstrous threat emerges gradually. Everyone has to be indoors by sundown and then keep watch so that the creatures do not force their way in. Arcadian is quite creepy in part because the filmmakers set the tone well and initially hold back on revealing the monsters. The creatures have a unique design and they move fast. It’s unclear whether they were created with practical effects or digital tools or some combination of the two but the monsters fit into their surroundings organically. The home invasion climax is intense and the characters are generally intelligent as they find ways to evade the monsters in an enclosed space.
What Doesn’t: Although we can view Arcadian as a post-pandemic film, it also owes a lot to pictures such as Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later and especially A Quiet Place. Much like the 2018 movie, Arcadian is about a family surviving in a rural home while fending off monsters but Arcadian lacks a sense of grief. Civilization has collapsed and these characters lose people close to them but no one ever seems all that cut up about it. They’re very matter of fact which suits the survivalist ethos of Arcadian but the film never pauses for the characters or the audience to feel the pathos. The film also lacks any greater meaning. In George A. Romero’s better zombie pictures, the climax reveals an epiphany about civilization and survival and A Quiet Place emphasized the love and sacrifice between the family members. Arcadian never quite makes it to this level of meaning or insight.
Bottom Line: Arcadian is an effective horror thriller. The premise is familiar and Arcadian isn’t as affecting as some of the movies that is descends from but it is done well and is sufficiently scary.
Episode: #1008 (August 11, 2024)