ARCADIAN

Name: ARCADIAN
Item: ARCADIAN
Author: Review

"Riveting, Redemptive Creature Feature"

Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

ARCADIAN is a surprisingly good horror movie starring Nicholas Cage. Cage stars as Paul, the father of two twin 15-year-old boys. Fifteen years ago, Earth was depopulated by mysterious creatures. Now, Paul and his sons, Thomas and Joseph, are living in an isolated, fortified farmhouse in a remote valley, somewhere in Canada. Their lives are tranquil by day and terrifying by night. When the sun sets, mysterious creatures come out and try to get into the farmhouse. One day, Thomas doesn’t return from spending time with his secret girlfriend on a nearby farm. So, Paul orders Joseph to fortify himself inside while he leaves to search for Thomas.

ARCADIAN has many scary, violent moments. The fighting with the creatures eventually escalates, especially when more creatures appear. Despite the scary, intense violence, ARCADIAN tells a riveting, redemptive story about family, sacrifice, faith, and survival. The family prays at dinner in one scene, and Joseph briefly seems to be praying as his father is out searching for Thomas. ARCADIAN is pretty uplifting and mostly wholesome, but the scary violence warrants strong or extreme caution.

Content:

(BBB, CC, L, VVV, S, D, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong moral worldview with strong Christian, redemptive values, content and themes tells a riveting, redemptive story about family, sacrifice, faith, and survival, with family prays at dinner in one scene and one teenager is briefly seen prayer while his father leaves the safety of their fortified farmhouse to search for his other teenage son (there are echoes of the biblical story of Jacob and Esau in the movie, but with a positive resolution to the conflict between them), plus father lovingly holds one baby son in one scene and another scene shows him lovingly holding both baby sons (they’re twins);

Foul Language:

One “h” word and one muffled light profanity;

Violence:

Two very strong scenes where two teenagers fight a scary creature and one of the creatures body parts goes flying across the floor and later one of the boys examines the creature’s bloody entrails, and lots of strong and light scary violence involving more such creatures such as multiple fight scenes with the creatures in houses and in an underground cave, creatures are set on fire, a creature attacks and kills the heroine’s parents, heroine comes upon the scene and it appears that the creature is eating one or both of her parents (nothing close-up or gruesome is shown, however), creatures on fire roll toward three characters before two shotgun blasts stop them, people fire shotgun at other creatures several times in other scenes, a father has a bloody face and partially bloody body after being wounded, a creature sneaks into one house and creeps toward a 15-year-old sleeping in a chair, the creature reaches its arm and hands out toward the boy and a claw inches toward the boy’s face until there’s a happy ending surprise in the scene, a fiery explosion occurs, and many tense, scary moments occur at night when the creatures emerge to prey on humans;

Sex:

No crude sexual immorality, but two 15-year-olds kiss several times while sitting on a bed until the girl’s father enters the room and breaks it up (the kissing is not salacious, more romantic);

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Father smokes a cigar two or three times; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Teenage son disobeys his father once in the movie and his brother resents him because he feels the boy gets away with things he doesn’t, people selfishly deny a wounded man medicine, and then farmhands threaten teenage boy because he convinced the boss’ teenage daughter to give the boy some medicine.

More Detail:

ARCADIAN is an action horror movie about a father and his two 15-year-old boys who fight to survive on a remote, fortified Canadian farm against vicious creatures who have depopulated the Earth and only come out at night. ARCADIAN has many scary, violent moments, but it tells a riveting, redemptive story about family, sacrifice, faith, and survival, though strong or extreme caution is advised for the movie’s scary, violent content.

ARCADIAN stars Nicolas Cage as Paul. The movie opens with Paul running through a neighborhood while sounds of gunfire and small explosions ring out in the city around him. He eventually comes to a garage where a baby is crying. Paul lifts up the baby and holds him to his breast.

Cut to 15 years later. Paul and his twin sons, Thomas and Joseph, are living in an isolated, fortified farmhouse in a remote valley somewhere in Canada. Their lives are tranquil by day and terrifying by night. When the sun sets, mysterious creatures come out and try to get into the house. There appear to be two such creatures clawing at their door, but there may be more lurking nearby.

During the day, Thomas likes to visit the next farm over and help the man there, a man named Mr. Rose. Meanwhile, Joseph likes to read and tinker and, with a little last minute help from his father, manages to build and restore an ATV with a small truckbed.

After a harrowing night with one of the two creatures clawing at their door, Paul sends the boys out to scavenge things from a local pier on an ocean or lake. However, Thomas asks Joseph to drop him off at Mr. Rose’s farm, which appears to have some farmhands. Also, Mr, Rose has a wife, and he also has a pretty red-haired teenage daughter, Charlotte. So, the reason why Thomas likes to visit there becomes clear.

Joseph doesn’t like having to drop off Thomas, but he does it anyway. Joseph resents Thomas because he thinks Thomas “gets away” with things Joseph doesn’t.

At the pier, Joseph enters a building and rummages around the dark confines. He’s swarmed by some flying cockroach type bugs that may or may not have something to do with the mysterious creatures attacking the farmhouse. Then, when Joseph tries to start the ATV, he has some trouble getting it running. A suspenseful moment follows, but Joseph finally gets the engine running just as the sun is starting to begin its descent.

Meanwhile, Paul sees that the sun is starting to set. So he leaves Charlotte and runs to the Rose farm’s entrance, which is a distance away from the farm’s guardhouse overseeing the farmhouse and barns. However, when he leaps over a small ravine, he falls into the ravine and is knocked unconscious.

Joseph gets to the place where he was supposed to pick up Thomas, but Thomas doesn’t show. So, he races home to alert their father, Paul.

Paul orders Joseph to lock up the fortified farmhouse and stay inside while he leaves to search for Thomas. A nightmarish battle ensues during the next two nights. Will the two families survive?

ARCADIAN has many scary, violent moments. The fighting with the creatures eventually escalates, especially when more creatures show up to attack. The depiction of the creatures is very scary and unique, though they may remind moviegoers a little bit of the creatures in the QUIET PLACE movies. ARACADIAN is not as good as those movies, but it’s pretty riveting on its own. Also, the characters are well written, and Nicholas Cage and the young actors do a really good job. The interactions between Cage and the two boys or young men are realistic and warm. In addition, the music is very evocative.

One early fight in the movie shows the two boys lopping off a part of the creature’s body, we think the head. Shortly after that, Joseph dissects the creature and examines its bloody entrails. Despite this, and all the scary scenes, ARCADIAN tells a riveting, redemptive story about family, sacrifice, faith, and survival. In an early scene, Paul and his two sons pray before they eat dinner. In another scene, when Joseph is left at the farmhouse to wait for his father and Thomas to return, he briefly appears to be praying. ARCADIAN also shows Paul to be a strong, loving father. Also, when Charlotte’s father catches her and Thomas kissing, the father orders her to leave the room. So, he’s a strong, loving father too. ARCADIAN has no salacious sexual content and only one “h” obscenity and one muffled light profanity.

ARCADIAN is one of the more uplifting, exciting and better made movies of 2024. That said, MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong or extreme caution for the movie’s intense scary violence and two gory images.