When you sit down to watch a Nicolas Cage movie, you expect a certain level of unhinged, over-the-top insanity – the kind of balls-to-the-wall performance that has made him a cult icon among his most devoted fans. The mere presence of Cage in a film is enough to elevate even the most outlandish premises, promising a wild, unpredictable ride. So, in a post-apocalyptic horror thriller like Arcadian, where the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, you’d expect Cage to be front and center, chewing the scenery and unleashing his signature brand of manic energy we have come to know and love.
However, in a surprising twist, the filmmakers behind Arcadian seem to have opted for a more subdued approach, sidelining Cage in favor of focusing on his two teenage sons as they battle the mysterious, light-sensitive creatures prowling the darkness.
Arcadian follows the story of Paul (Nicholas Cage), a father desperately trying to protect his two teenage sons, Joseph and Thomas, from the dangers that lurk beyond the safety of their remote farmhouse. As night falls, the family must secure their home and brace for the arrival of the unseen terrors that threaten their very existence.
But when Thomas ventures out against his father’s wishes to visit the neighboring Rose farm, driven by his secret crush on Charlotte, a local girl among the handful of remaining survivors, he loses track of time. As the sun begins to set, he finds himself desperately racing against the fading light to make it back in time. In his haste to return home, Thomas slips, tumbling into a nearby cave.
As night approaches, Paul is then forced to venture into the darkness to look for his missing son. Finding him trapped within the cave, Paul informs Thomas that they must attempt to survive the night in the cave, against the horde of creatures looking to find their way inside.
While attempting to stave off their nocturnal attackers, Paul is gravely injured. Despite the harrowing ordeal, Paul and Thomas manage to survive through the night in the cave. The next day, Joseph goes in search of his father and brother. Finding them, the two sons then attempt to seek medical care for their gravely injured father. However, after being turned away from the Rose farm, Joseph returns home with the unconscious Paul, while Thomas stays back to remain with Charlotte.
Convinced that Thomas has an ulterior motive to remain behind at the farm to steal their medication, Charlotte’s father has his farm hands deal with Thomas. But while attempting to dispense their own form of justice, the creatures break into the Rose farmstead and begin to attack everyone at the farm.
Managing to avoid the creatures, Thomas and Charlotte make it back to Thomas’s house, where Joseph is preparing to do battle against the creatures. Together the three of them make their last stand against the invading nocturnal monsters.
While Nicholas Cage’s presence in the film initially raises one’s expectations to get the opportunity to witness the unhinged energy, he’s known for bringing to his roles, the actor is unfortunately underutilized for much of the runtime. Cage plays the role of Paul with a surprising level of restraint and seriousness in the first half of the movie, only really coming alive towards the end when his character is already half-dead. This approach feels like a missed opportunity, as fans have come to expect a certain level of intensity and eccentricity from Cage’s performances, particularly in a post-apocalyptic setting ripe for his unique brand of chaos.
The film had the chance to showcase Cage in a post-apocalyptic setting but instead made the decision to focus more on Paul’s two sons, Joseph and Thomas, further sidelining Cage’s potential impact on the story. While the exploration of the family dynamics and the sons’ struggles is at times compelling, the lack of a full-throttle Cage performance leaves the audience feeling shortchanged.
In a film that borders on insanity at times due to the unclear nature of the creatures and their motivations, Cage’s presence could have been the grounding force that held it all together. Instead, his talents feel wasted in a role that demands too little of him for too long.
While the first hour starts out promising, creating an interesting mystery and scary sense of dread, Arcadian ultimately stumbles in its execution. At first, the element of the unknown works in favor of the film. You’re left wondering what is outside, what are they attempting to stave off. This sense of mystery and the unseen threat builds a palpable sense of tension and foreboding. The audience is drawn in, eager to uncover the secrets of this nightmarish new world alongside the characters.
However, when Thomas falls into the cave and we get our first glimpses of the creatures, this foreboding sense is quickly replaced by a need to know what is going on. The brief, obscured flashes of the creatures’ limbs, and the revelation that they possess the ability to stretch to extreme lengths, only serve to heighten the audience’s curiosity. Rather than sustaining the atmosphere of dread, these initial encounters leave the viewer frustrated and desperate for more concrete information about the nature of the threats facing the protagonists. However, Arcadian never bothers to provide any kind of explanation as to what the monsters are or where they came from. This lack of exposition wouldn’t be so problematic if the audience was at least provided with a clear understanding of what was happening on screen.
The filmmaker’s visual style also works against the film’s own interests, with excessive shaky cam and frequent underexposure transforming potentially thrilling encounters into a blur of motion and shadow. Crucial moments of action and revelation are obscured, leaving the viewer struggling to make sense of the chaos unfolding on screen. And when the creatures are finally revealed in their full, unobscured glory, the results are disappointingly underwhelming – the elongated, cartoonish wolf-like entities lack the sense of menace one might expect from such a build-up.
Arcadian is also plagued at times with abrupt, unexplained transitions from scene to scene, further creating this disjointed narrative in the story. For example, when Paul tells Thomas he is going to look for a way down to him, and the next shot shows him already in the cavern, or when Thomas and Charlotte suddenly appear at the farm after escaping, with no explanation of how they got there. These jarring cuts leave the audience confused and disconnected from the flow of the story.
Overall, the shaky camerawork and lack of clear explanations about the world undermine what could have been an intense, creepy horror thriller. Instead of building tension, the inconsistent portrayal of the creatures’ abilities ends up pushing the viewer away from any real sense of threat. What begins as an ominous, fear-inducing setup eventually falls apart into confusing chaos.
For Nicholas Cage fans hoping for another wild ride fueled by the actor’s signature style, Arcadian is a letdown. The film’s failure to fully utilize Cage’s talents, combined with its muddled storytelling and inconsistent world-building, results in a disappointing experience that fails to deliver on its initial promise. While some ambiguity can be effective for building horror, Arcadian goes too far, constantly leaving the audience struggling to understand what is happening on screen. While the premise had potential, the execution falls short, leaving both horror enthusiasts and Cage fans unsatisfied.
