Despite being twins, Joseph (Jaeden Martell) and Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins) could not be more different, except in their devotion to their father, Paul (Nicolas Cage).  The family unit is necessary for survival in the war and monster-ravaged land.  Cracks begin to widen in the dynamic, though, as Thomas begins spending more and more time with Charlotte (Sadie Soverall), the nearby farmer’s daughter, and pushing his duties onto his twin brother.  With the animosity coursing through the evening lockdown routine, details are missed, and the monsters that stalk the land find the perfect opportunity to attack the normally fortified homestead. 

Benjamin Brewer directs Arcadian from a Mike Nilon script for release by RLJE Films after its South by Southwest bow.  Streaming on Shudder, the original creature feature runs a breezy 92 minutes, and while it incorporates many aspects the genre fans have seen before, it blends them in a unique way so that the film does not feel like it is just cashing in on the zeitgeist.  Before the scares, though, Arcadian plays out like a post-apocalyptic family drama, bolstered by great performances from the leading trio that introduce us to this dying world and help us sympathize with their struggle to regain a normalcy which, at least for the young twins, they have never known. 

The film opens with Cage running through a war-torn city, rummaging for supplies and food.  As gunfire rings out, he makes his way to a blown-out shelter where two infants are waiting for him before the film jumps ahead in time.  While Cage opens the film, and surely his name helps to endorse the title for audiences and financiers alike, this is more a story about the two brothers than it is about Paul’s bid for survival.  While neither Martell nor Jenkins have the same household recognizability as Cage, both young men have been building steady careers for themselves.  The two play well off each other with their competing personalities; Joseph takes a more methodical and intellectual approach whereas Thomas has a more act first and figure out the rest later approach to survival. 

Arcadian is a real enigma of a film and a story.  Its narrative at times is steeped with planned and thought-out lore, but at other times it feels wildly unfocused as if it is sampling all of the possibilities and never quite settling on one.  The generous audience member will graft their own confusion as to what is going on as effective filmmaking since the characters themselves are working through what exactly the threat they are facing is.  Is it ecological, is it alien, is it a virus?  The ungenerous audience member would call it a mess, and to a certain extent, even those in favor of the film would be inclined to agree, but that amorphous threat is part of the allure of Arcadian.  The film does itself a further disservice with its creature design that is, to put it mildly, an acquired taste.  A werewolf-like creature that travels underground, has plant-like appendages that can grow or be withdrawn at will, and can combine with others of its kind to form a massive, deadly wheel.  In one-on-one fights they violently shake their head before attacking, unleashing a nails-on-a-chalkboard screech that cuts both characters and audiences to the bone.  The sooner we can accept that these creatures are a little bit of everything at once and nothing at all, the sooner Arcadian becomes an engaging romp through a dying world. 

As for the filmmaking, there is a lot of promise here in Brewer’s sophomore feature, but it is still incredibly scrappy.  That being said, it is scrappy in the best of ways, a down-and-dirty, run-and-shoot thriller that wears its inspirations on its sleeve.  There is so much going on, though, that it does not seem to be simply a derivative of what came before, but it is not dressed up as some esoteric homage, either.  Rather, this is a film that has clear aspirations both within the genre of which it is working and with what it commits to screen that the budget just could not allow for.  In this way, Brewer is continuing the tradition of many horror directors – from George A. Romero to, more modernly, James Wan – who have put it all on screen in hopes of forging a career, or at the very least, getting that nagging idea out of their head.  In this case, Brewer shows great promise and hopefully Arcadian will be a leaping-off point for him. 

Arcadian, though, has some real trademarks of a novice filmmaker with a low budget, especially in its use of handheld cameras.  Shot by Frank Mobilio, there is hardly a stable frame in the entire film and it goes beyond creating a sense of unease – which, honestly, this far removed from its inception, even films far above this one’s weight class struggle to pull off the shakycam technique well – and it borders something almost comical.  Thankfully, it is not so extreme to be nauseating, just frustrating, and needed to be toned down a little not so much to make it feel stuffy, but enough to let the action in the frame have that chance to settle.  Editor Kristi Shimek does her best at making sure the film is viewable on screen, but it is not an easy task when looking just at the visuals alone. What she is able to do incredibly well is bring balance to the storyline with sometimes as many as three threads running out concurrently, and she does so in a way that keeps tensions at an all time high. We might not always enjoy what we are seeing, but we are always thrilled by it. 

As the world seems to experience more and more once-in-a-lifetime events, and at an alarming frequency, it is no wonder that post-apocalyptic films are as prescient as ever. Arcadian, though, is not looking to get bogged down by the politics of it all. Instead, Nilon’s script focuses on a rather poignant story of a father handing over the reins to his sons and giving them the knowledge to hopefully rebuild a better world than they have known. It is a story about finding what brings us together in a fractured and torn-apart world, and finding the courage to move beyond what we may know, what we find comfortable, to secure a better future for us all. It is dressed down, for sure, but there is a real tender message here that will resonate with those who are able to look past the setting-appropriate, bad-in-the-best-way haircuts (by Linda Gannon) and will give the film a chance to be all that it aspires to be.