{"id":1124,"date":"2024-06-19T23:32:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/arcadian\/"},"modified":"2024-06-19T23:32:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T23:32:00","slug":"arcadian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/arcadian\/","title":{"rendered":"Arcadian"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a few minutes, \u201cArcadian\u201d basically becomes \u201cAliens\u201d on an Irish farm with Nicolas Cage in the Ripley role. That might be the best elevator pitch I’ve ever heard. You know if you want to sign up for that or not. Don\u2019t get me wrong. This is not James Cameron-level filmmaking, but it is an effective creature feature that avoids a lot of the traps of post-apocalyptic horror (which has really<\/em> been a thing lately, especially at this year\u2019s SXSW) and delivers on its premise. It truly feels like \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d and now maybe \u201cThe Last of Us\u201d have spawned a wave of films about how humans respond when civilization collapses\u2014\u201cArcadian\u201d is one of the better entries in this growing genre about how screwed we all are.<\/p>\n

\u201cArcadian\u201d opens with Paul (Cage) fleeing what is obviously the end of the civilization, represented by sirens and explosions buried in the sound design, off in the distance. In a hiding spot, he cradles two infant twin boys. Cut to fifteen years later, when Paul lives with his teen sons Joseph (Jaeden Martell) and Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins). We\u2019re introduced to these characters in a moment of panic as Thomas hasn\u2019t returned home from the nearby Rose Farm, and the sun is going down. It\u2019s clear that people don\u2019t like to be out after dark. <\/p>\n

A brief bit of character development at a table sets up the fact that Thomas is the more instinctual, risk-taking brother, while Joseph seems more intellectual, interested in figuring out how to progress beyond just survival. The trio boards up all windows and doors at night, moving to a higher floor, and then something<\/em> tries to get in, leaving scratch marks on the door that look like moving blades were trying to chop it down. Those aren\u2019t your ordinary wolf claws that did that. After spending a bit too long with the cute Rose daughter Charlotte (a very effective Sadie Soverall), Thomas falls as he\u2019s running home, getting stuck in the woods after dark. Dad goes out to save him. Things get really weird. And then director Benjamin Brewer and writer Michael Nilon drop their bomb in one of the best genre scenes in a very long time. Without spoiling it, let\u2019s just say it involves a sleeping Joseph, an open panel in a door, and a wide shot that feels like it goes on forever in order to ratchet up maximum tension. <\/p>\n

It turns out that what\u2019s 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, \u201cLet\u2019s just do em ALL.\u201d At its core, the monster kind of looks like a primate produced an offspring with a xenomorph. There\u2019s the almost crawling, twisting energy of the H.R. Giger monster but there\u2019s so much hair and teeth and I don\u2019t even know what. One of the main reasons \u201cArcadian\u201d works is that Brewer knows how to hide his budget in quick shots of the creatures that don\u2019t feel like cheap obfuscation as much as terrified glimpses. You don\u2019t want to see this thing all at once. You couldn\u2019t handle it. <\/em>Every time, you think you know what the Hell these things are, they have a new level of insane design. In one of the death scenes, it just becomes a never-ending maw of teeth and fluid and blood and who the hell knows what. There have been some truly mediocre creatures in horror films lately, and \u201cArcadian\u201d proves how essential it is for the things that are supposed to terrify the character to be, you know, actually terrifying. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a few minutes, \u201cArcadian\u201d basically becomes \u201cAliens\u201d on an Irish farm with Nicolas Cage in the Ripley role. That might be the best elevator pitch I’ve ever heard. You know if you want to sign up for that or not. Don\u2019t get me wrong. This is not James Cameron-level filmmaking, but it is an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[51,37],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thriller-movies","tag-science-fiction","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}