SXSW 2024 Review: Top-Notch Creature Work Makes ARCADIAN a Damn Good Monster Mash
Here’s my pitch to sell you on director Benjamin Brewer’s Arcadian: it’s A Quiet Place but with Nicolas Cage and better creature elements. The last part came as a huge shocker. Writer Michael Nilon sets the stage for an eerily familiar doomsday scenario that feels like Gareth Edwards’ Monsters at first but quickly finds its roots as a sibling to John Krasinski’s alien invasion franchise. Arcadian does take a bit to reach its full momentum, not as dynamically engaging as a survivalist drama, but once the monsters reveal themselves? Brewer executes what could be a knockout audition to direct the next A Quiet Place sequel, should there be more on the horizon.
We first meet Cage’s protagonist, Paul, fleeing a metropolitan city under state-of-emergency sirens. Military rockets are fired towards an invisible foe as Paul escapes the crumbling architecture, eventually retreating to a homestead in farmland country where he comforts two crying babies. Fast forward fifteen years to when Joseph (Jaeden Martell) and Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins) are now young men raised by post-apocalypse rules, under Paul’s strict yet lifesaving guidance. Joseph is the brainy one who plays chess and engineers traps, while Thomas dashes around past their regular boundaries as the brawny hero type. Paul’s only reason for living is to keep his children safe from whatever’s clawing at their fortified wooden doors and window shutters — which ain’t easy.
Beyond A Quiet Place, Brewer’s vision aligns with other backwoods “unwanted guests” horror flicks like Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night or Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella’s After Midnight. Paul battens down the hatches every evening with installed planks and locking systems. Attackers come pounding, and we see the scratch marks the next day. It’s established that whatever ravaged our planet is a formidable threat, one that Thomas takes for granted when coming home late after visiting his crush Charlotte (Sadie Soverall) over at the neighboring Rose farm — where more survivors live. It’s all expected storytelling as Paul grooms his children for a future when he cannot protect them, much like Krasinski on his own farmland in that other vaguely similar series.
There’s nothing wrong with the setup, to be clear. Martell and Jenkins sport a warm, brotherly chemistry at odds in the most compassionately nerve-poking way. Cage also gets to “Cage out” in sparse moments, like when Paul slams his knife into the table like a sword into stone after breaking up a sibling quarrel and proclaiming, “Are we not men?” You’ll get apocalyptic driving lessons worth a smirk and adolescent foolishness when Thomas defies orders to see his sweetie. Everything works to establish a basis for stakes to come later because you’re here for the creature designs and wildly frantic defense standoffs in the film’s second half. That’s where Arcadian flies off the rails and earns its loudest praise.
As a monster movie, Arcadian often backs up its confident decision to show creatures in their SFX glory by executing incredibly nightmarish special effects that bring chatter-teeth beasts to life. It’s not just that creatures resemble a combination of Adam Maitland’s beaky stretched-face from Beetlejuice, camels chewing on those fake wind-up teeth toys, a bird-monkey hybrid, and so many other unnerving features. These things are illustrations from a Resident Evil walkthrough guide, and without spoiling anything, borrow even more from Critters 2: The Main Course. The way their jaws smack open and shut with the loudest sound effects, like a machine-gun rattle, is freaky beyond the relief. Arcadian doesn’t hold back when the violence reaches a maximum, and Rose farmhands become kill fodder, even better when Paul’s offspring and Charlotte team to fight the devilish beings out of their own estate once they burrow in from underground.
Arcadian is a damn good monster mash supported by plenty of sufficient enough establishing family dramatics. It’s never better than when creatures are allowed to cause merciless havoc for the sake of alien mayhem. Nilon never explains all that much about hows and whys; ambiguity helps as monsters start behaving in ways that might not make sense given their subterranean lifestyles, but when the thrills are thrilling, that doesn’t matter much. Brewer’s eye for intense battles between humans and inhuman enemies is on display and furiously accomplished, which forgives slower introductions like one of those filler episodes of The Walking Dead. When it gets there, it full-on gets there and rarely relents — we love a film that understands the importance of a memorable payoff.
Movie Score: 3.5/5
