Arcadian
Arcadian
For a couple of minutes, “Arcadian,” quite simply, is to “Aliens” with Nicolas Cage in the Ripley’s position, this time around a Colombian farm. That could quite possibly be the most compelling elevator pitch I have ever come across.
You know if you want to sign up for that or not. Don’t get me wrong, please. This is not James Cameron grade filmmaking, but it is a watchable monster movie that steers clear of many of the pitfalls of post-apocalyptic horror, which is a thing as of late especially during this year’s SXSW and lives up to its promise.
It really appears that as some of it are is that it appears as if “The Walking Dead” and now perhaps “The Last of Us” have not only been and spawned a resurgence of films about humans after civilization collapses, but also how fools we all are – “Arcadian” is one of the best of a recent surge of this particular subgenre.
Arcadian begins with Paul (Cage) ignoring death, which has suddenly come – sirens and collapses can only be heard through the sound at a distance. He is in some kind of hiding place holding two babies of opposite sexes. Jump cut to fifteen years later when Paul is with his adolescent children Joseph (Jaeden Martell) and Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins).
We remember those ones in a hurry seeing that Thomas is absent from the home after making his visit to the Rose Farm that poses as home to the sun, which is almost about to set. It is apparent that most people do not want to be outside after sunset.
According to rather practiсal background sketсhes at the table, the older son Thomas is characterized as reckless and overly emotional person, whereas Joseph is more rational, looking for more ways to advance than just to bare life. So they board up every window, every door at night and retreat to a higher floor and then something tries to breach in, a series of claw marks raking against the inside of the door which look as if a blade-armed liquid took it down with steam of anger.
Those are far from the standard wolf claws which did that. After developing a tad too much of an infatuation with the sweet daughter Charlotte Rose (a very convincing Sadie Soverall), Thomas piвонлас an absolute fool while returning home safely from school, losing his way in the woods after it goes dark. As always, dad is stepping up to the plate and heading outdoors for the boy like an actual superhero.
Mercy, it is about to get really weird. And then, like Fireworks with a bang that director Benjamin Brewer and writer Michael Nilon use for one of the best genre scenes in a heck of a long time, they drop the bomb. Without giving much away, something to sleep, to the open door with one operation on it and with a very long, more than it even is feasible, long-distance shooting, in order to pump up the stress in the audience.
It turns out that what’s out in those woods is absolute nightmare fuel. It feels like Brewer asked his creative team to bring in every creature design idea they could and then just said, “Let’s just do em ALL.” So even so the monster is somewhat resembling a cross between a gorilla and a an Alien/ xenomorph sex toy.
There’s the Oh you fans of the H.R. Giger monster where it almost crawled and twisted its form but there is so much hair and teeth and I don’t even know what. The reason why “Arcadian” succeeds among many ways is that Brewer efficiently cuts away to the creatures without lingering on them which the audience doesn’t regard as cheap coverage but rather terrified glimpses.
You don’t want to see this thing all at once. You wouldn’t survive it. Every time you think you have understood what in the world these things are, they have a whole new mad design level. At one of the death scenes, it becomes just an infinite gaping hole with insatiable teeth and blood and fluid and always blood and why the hell am I even asking.
Horror films have featured some awful monsters lately, and “Arcadian” highlights how critical it is for the things that are supposed to terrify the character to be, well, terrifying. Let’s be honest, that line is more on point than it is in some cases, there are some choices in “Arcadian” especially early that work against it.
There’s a certain feeling that Brewer was too scared that during the set-up people will get bored, so from the outset, he literally goes berserk shaking the camera with Frank Mobilio as the cinematographer. There’s no need for any attempt at being restrained with the action done within early scenes of this film.
Most of it will be Cage fans’s nightmares: A groupie’s movie, that is not about him, but Martell’s, Jenkins’, and even Soverall’s. They are all good, but I suppose those who come in here expecting another ‘Mandy’ are going to be disappointed. This is cage who has come to learn that he supports rather than steals the limelight from his child and monster co-stars.
All in all, in their more coddled definitions, ‘Arcadian’ may not appeal to some, in the sense that there is no in-depth character progression or world creation even. But again, the creature design compensates for that frequent flaw of this type of films. The world is so vicious and violent that there is hardly any time to explore themes such as how the world managed to reach this horrible point.
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