Director Benjamin Brewer’s second collaboration with Nicolas Cage takes us to ‘Arcadia,’ a green, monster-filled corner of the end of the world. It’s a dystopian survival story meets coming of age meets creature feature.
But the thing that thinking directors know about the end of the world is that the creatures aren’t the important thing. It’s the other two that count, and where apocalypse horror finds its heart. Surviving and coming of age in the apocalypse aren’t easy! Therefore, ‘Arcadian’ keeps its attention to the family at its center: Paul (Nicolas Cage) and his two teenage sons, Joseph (Jaeden Martell, continuing a stretch of horror prowess) and Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins).
Courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder. An RLJE Films and Shudder ReleaseBrewer makes certain that we understand their family dynamics first, no matter what’s to come. Filmed in Ireland, the landscape is gorgeous and green, next-door neighbors and supermarkets are the thing of the past. After a long day’s work, we spend a few calm, precious scenes with the trio as a family. Paul has clearly established a semblance of a normal boyhood for his sons. They play chess in the evenings and say grace at dinnertime. When Joseph and Thomas begin bickering at the table, Paul is quick to put a stop to it, shouting, “What are you, animals? Are we not men?” He of course follows this declaration by jabbing his steak knife into their wooden table. The boys follow suit. It’s the apocalypse — we’re comfortable with knives here.
The word “arcadian” suggests rural simplicity, lives nourished by the wilds of the countryside. Paul is crafting a life with as much normalcy as a father can give in this timeline, given the terrifying monsters roaming the land. If tenderness can be found in dystopia, it’s within these walls.
This domesticity, while well-observed, may even outstay its welcome. Where are the monsters? Through all the green fields and teenagerly crush that Thomas harbors for their neighbor (Charlotte, played by Sadie Soverall), we sit in waiting for something to happen. We know there’s something violent that destroyed and shrunk their world, but without an appropriate build of tension we’re just…waiting. And with far too little of the screen charisma of Nicolas Cage, too much air has been let out of the balloon by the time our creatures arrive. But, oh, do they arrive.
Courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder. An RLJE Films and Shudder ReleaseHow to describe? Arachnids meet baboons, by way of the cockroach? Now, whatever image that conjures, I promise you: they’re different. There’s a fever dream I used to have as a kid; it involved a wild-eyed, coyote-looking creature loudly chomping its way toward me. It was dark, there was no way out. Well, these ‘Arcadian’ creatures are uncannily reminiscent of that childhood nightmare, and in turn offer the same effect as they wreak havoc on the family. And confusion. It’s dark, there’s no way out. There’s chomping involved.
Despite its simplicity in form, ‘Arcadian’ reaches beyond the traditional creature feature. It may not win Creature of the Year, but Dad of the Year? It’s a contender. Because though its success wavers, it’s a quiet story of fathers and sons, and nurturing the generations that will inherit the world we build for them. Teach them how to drive, they’ll know how to flee if needed; teach them to say grace at the table, they’ll be grateful for the kindness of strangers; teach them not to fight each other, they’ll opt for peace. With Paul’s parenting, we have hope that Joseph and Thomas will stop holding out for a hero and know how to save themselves.
‘Arcadian’ is now playing in select theaters.
