Spoilers gotta watch out for their brothers.

Horror features with family dynamics feel very close to home. Even if the world is on a dystopian setting, you can’t help but relate and empathize with characters that are part of a family where everyone has a role and a job to do. That role and that job is sometimes defined by traditional archetypes, but most often than not it is also influenced by character and personality. It’s easy to see how some things never change. Unfortunately… we’ll talk.

(Credit: RLJE Films)

Arcadian (2024) was directed by Benjamin Brewer and written by Mike Tilon. Paul (Nicholas Cage) is rising his two sons, Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins) and Joseph (Jaeden Martell), in a remote farm where they fend for themselves and must be indoors by dark. This is because civilization has collapsed due to some sort of cataclysmic event and this mysterious creatures come out of the ground at night. In a style of post-apocalyptic slow burns, most audience will catch on real quick that we’re not going to be hand-fed the premise and must discover it outselves.

The movie wisely decides to first establish the dynamics between Paul and his sons before we even get a glimpse of our monsters. One catches on real quick that Paul pretty much has one rule: be home before dark, secure the home. Thomas’ is always running to help out in the Rose farm. Joseph does machines. He’s actually the most intriguing of the two as he seems to be a self-taught scientist and mechanic. He’s also writing down the habits of the nightly creatures, trying to see if he can find a weakness. He even manages to put together a small motorized cart from scrap. Thomas’ interest is obviously the young daughter of the Roses, Charlotte (Sadie Soverall).

It should work, but I actually started losing interest after the monsters are revealed. You can probably guess that Thomas is the trigger here, as he ends up staying late, runs back, slips and falls in a crevasse that would have given anybody in a non-starring role a broken neck. His father goes after him and ends up injured. You can probably guess how things go from here. Cage gives out a very solid performance, the kids are decent, but there’s very little surprises about. I also found the cinematography very stunted and jumpy. With a countryside in the film one would expect some very nice wide shots.

Not recommended unless you’re looking for a slow horror film with very little horror. Cage has a rather good fatherly chemistry with the young actors playing his sons, but after that is well establish the horror parts feel even slower. I didn’t find the creatures particularly scary or the tension engaging. It’s almost a drama with the horror part tacked on. Perhaps good for a background watch while you’re doing house chores and nothing more.

That will do for now.