Arcadian (2024)
Beware of the Dark.
One of the options from last week reappears as this weeks movie. A splash of horror thriller, a little mysterious monster, and everyone’s cherry on top Nicolas Cage. Trailers make it seem just as much a family bonding story as a monster flick - and I’ve never said it’s taken much to win me over when it comes to watching a movie. Board the windows and lock the doors before it gets dark, tonight we check out Arcadian.
In the future of the present or some rather ambiguous modern-esque time, the human race has found itself in danger from a mysterious source. Creatures that emerge at night, offing humans wholesale with not real given reason to their actions outside of speculation. Maybe it’s because humans are a plague the planet wants to clean up, maybe they are just hungry - who really knows. Either way, our main character finds himself two babies all by themselves and takes them in, and years later the now more grown kids and him are surviving on their little stretch of farm land by day, locking down and hoping for safety at night. The one son has hit that age where girls are a thing, and has been spending time over at the neighboring farm, which has him have some run ins with being late to get home - a real problem with the man destroying beasts coming out at night. Is it possible that the creatures could be getting smarter over time? We might find out when some family drama exacerbates the dangerous situation the family is in!
Actors do a pretty alright job here. It might not exactly be a standing ovation sort of performance out of everyone, but they all do hit a pretty steady level of performance that it feels like the movie is calling for. Cage doesn’t hit the real campy over-the-top levels of the “crazy” Cage performances, but there is still a little level of extra on his performance to keep it from feeling like it’s just another ho-hum role. There’s a bit of a mystery about his character, and the acting sort of helps present that. The younger crew does a pretty good job with what they have as well, but it’s also the spot I feel will bring the most friction because they are doing a good job delivering what the movie wanted - but that’s more of a character thing.
Speaking of, the character’s are there and there is a level of development for at least the younger crew. One of them goes from being a little dingus to being a little less of a dingus - which is where the decent job of acting could lead to some friction. You’ll probably hate the brother whose all romanced because he’s the one whose constantly causing dumb things to happen because of his cockiness and overall lack of using his brain. In turn, the other brother ends up shining, and by the end of the movie it really does feel romance bro is probably the least useful person in this entire apocalypse scenario. Yes, he does have growth like I mentioned, but stupid is as stupid does and that character is bound to rub wrong on some folks regardless of what the character intentions are.
The better characters.
The movie is rated R for some violence, but in all honesty it feels far more like a PG13 at worst to me. Heck, I can almost guarantee I’ve seen old PG movies go way harder than this (back before the MPAA redid their ratings to have a PG13). The effects on screen are good, but the main violent act is against the creatures, which despite looking good are never really quite going to pass off as being super real to a watcher. It’s less the effects work and more the design - at times it certainly could pass as a physical prop in close ups, but when you see it as a whole out in the open it’s pretty much a give away. That said, some of the choices with the creatures is, well, if I’m being honest I don’t know what the decision making process was for them. Unique, definitely - but about at a point the actions they do make them as frightening as a saturday morning cartoon. Ramps up the mystery and other-worldliness, but baffles a bit at the same time. I would not be surprised to see a lot of flak for it in reviews - I mean, when a movie elicits a “What the crap?” and bout of laughter out of me then you know it might not be quite hitting it’s mark with the normal audience it was aimed for.
Costumes are pretty modern like. It all feels fitting and never really calls attention to itself, so it does a wonderful job in that regard. Of course, the creature monsters fall more into the effects work than costumes most the time, but when it does seem practical - or if it is in fact at times practical - it does a pretty good job of it. The carnage bits - fires, deep claw marks on doors, damaged scenery - all looks good. All the “spawn zones” as I immediately started calling them do stand out a little for me - but at this point I’m getting an eye for it from watching so much stuff, so I can’t honestly tell if it’s just me or anyone would be able to pick it out as being something that was probably added in post and not an actual tunnel-like hole wherever it appears. The rest of the setting is pretty good as well, with everything looking much like it would imagine to look like.
Audio is fine. Balancing is good, and I never had issues hearing things I was meant to hear. Creatures got to have a rather interesting spin to them and their audio what with the design choices. There was music used here and there - and much like how I normally am with movies the music is just gone by the time credits come around. Nothing against the movie, it’s pretty much just a me thing at this point. We could find plenty if we were the thinking types in this movie, but by now we should know I’m really not the thinking type when I go into movies. We’ve got some stuff about families and family dynamics - rules and leeway and working together and all that sort of thing. You could also probably apply all sorts of things into the creatures themselves, like the whole rumored “anti-human earth fighting back” thing.
The monster that shall now be called Rikki-tikki-takki
It’s not a bad movie. You could say it’s a bit on the slow side, playing out almost more like a drama with thriller elements then a high scare rate horror action movie. It’s far more interested at most times doing a slow thrill then it is a sudden jump scare, building and alluding to things before they happen. I feel like if one thing would end up being the highest contention rate it’d probably be the creatures , especially after they start getting into the movie heavy. At times they become cartoon-ish, comical almost, and when it’s supposed to be scary a lot of folks will probably come out being more off-put than interested in the un-exposed mystery of what the heck that was all about. If the trailer seems like a interesting enough pitch for a family drama kind of movie, then you probably will enjoy yourself.