It’s the end of the world! Only this time in Arcadian, we aren’t exactly sure what transpired to cause our leads to be cast into a survival environment. But director Benjamin Brewer’s small-scale apocalypse movie has Nicolas Cage, so all is right then?
Well, not necessarily. Something didn’t click for Cage to go out with a bit more kilter energy this time. Someone wanted to pull in a non-elegant ripoff of A Quiet Place with touches of Bird Box and The Alamo: a family trio is keeping themselves alive from predators at bay once the sun goes down, and the creatures (somewhat of a hybrid of a cockroach and mantis with supernatural abilities) wait around to strike when convenient. However, even when juggling the frantic camerawork (trust me, this feature adores this quality), we never receive any explanation for how they came about, and even the 15-years-prior flashback with Cage’s character Paul stumbling upon two infants, whom he raises, doesn’t bleed much in terms of exposition.
In the present day, Paul works with his two sons, Joseph (Jaeden Martell) and Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins), to guard their house during the night. Paul’s authority loosens as Thomas seems oblivious to the risk, galivanting to another local property to meet Charlotte (Sadie Soverall) and her folks. Joseph is more obedient and fascinated by the creatures and their scientific elements than by bargaining with devils. The leads get a so-and-so contained time to alert us of their day-by-day tactics and what they encounter when the night dawns. The creatures remain the only exciting parts within most of the runtime, while the tension between the leads becomes fallible. Even Jenkins’s chemistry is brief with Soverall, despite both trying to initiate some form of flirtation in life, which is now devoid of media input or role models.
Add in some jerky camera movements that are more nauseating than expected and a subdued performance from Cage, and this action-horror motions picture seems more struck with shortcuts and a lack of urgency. At least the creature design is unnerving and unpredictable despite looking slightly derivative. It has some knockout moments for another horror feature, but nothing that several other classics out there can do infinitely better.
