When you think about the best monsters, names like Xenomorph, The Thing, or even the Cloverfield monster might come to mind. But now it’s time to welcome a new horror icon: Goofy. That’s because the Disney character heavily influenced the design of the creature in Nicolas Cage’s new film Arcadian.
The film is directed by Ben Brewer, who recently told IGN that he was fixated on filming unusual things he thought were scary as a kid… like Goofy.
The wacky Arcadian effect
“From the beginning I had the idea of big nocturnal eyes and massive gaping teeth,” he said. “The teeth are too big for the creature’s mouth. Goofy, the Disney character, was a big inspiration.”
Specifically, the scene in the Goofy movie where Goofy’s son Max has a nightmare of becoming his father served as the inspiration for the creature that took over the planet in Arcadian. Really, it’s not such a far-fetched idea, because this Goofy scene is pretty off-putting. As Brewer tells it, what makes the scene scary, and why Goofy’s influence has stayed with it, is the abundance of personality in Goofy’s dream character. Working from a script by Michael Nealon, Brewer wanted his creature to have a soul—for the audience to be scared, but also to feel that the monster had a personality.
“That’s where the Goofy thing comes in because in this movie that dream sequence or even like the way Big Step is portrayed [in A Goofy Movie], it’s terrifying,” the director said. “It’s too much personality. We gave our creatures too much personality because that would be weird for humans.”
Aaaahas Goofy might say.
Replacing humanity?
Arcadian takes place after a catastrophic event has ended civilization. More than a decade later, there are small groups of people trying to rebuild. This includes Nicolas Cage’s Paul, a farmer and father of two boys. When one of the children doesn’t show up after dark one night, it sets in motion a series of events that spiral into horror and carnage.
Part of what makes the movie interesting is that it never explains how the world came to be this way (one scene has two teenagers playing a game trying to guess what happened and explain it in 10 seconds ), nor does it explain exactly what the creatures are that come in the night to terrorize the remnants of humanity. The thing looks part primate, part horse, but also a bunch of bugs.
According to Brewer, the creature is meant to be an evolved form of several species that have formed a symbiotic relationship to survive some horrific climates. “The combination of organisms becomes a symbol of what can survive on Earth,” he said. It ties into the film’s exploration of the idea that humans no longer belong on the planet, that they’ve ruined it to the point where we can’t survive here and maybe we should just leave it to the creatures that can thrive on it now. “If this horror show with all these weird trappings is the most competitive species now,” Brewer said, “then what does that say about our role as a species that cares for the planet?”
Nicolas Cage’s Monster Advice
While there are elements of Goofy’s original design in the final creature – particularly the bulge on top of the head that remained until the creature’s final model – the finished look doesn’t really evoke ah-hike answer as much as a terrible scream. You have to partially thank (or blame) Nicolas Cage for that. When the director showed Cage the design of the monster (which is almost entirely CGI, painted on a hat-wearing performer who was on set), the star had only one thing to say: “I can’t kill that. It’s like a wacky stuffed toy.”
The actor went on to suggest that the creature be something more real, something that can actually survive and adapt to this world. “He started talking about ant colonies and different species surviving through their community, through their society,” Brewer recalled. “Nick is an amazing contributor and he really absorbs what’s on the page. His feedback on the monster was like just the right point and he had a great idea about it.”
The final design feels like an amalgamation of every single creature you can think of. It has an arm that stretches to incredible (and terrifying) lengths, a jaw that splits the entire head in half to make a machine gun-like, teeth-rattling motion that causes noise that Shoebill makes with its beak and much more. Like the Xenomorph, we never get a good look at the whole monster; instead, small figures that resemble various animals are teased, letting viewers’ imaginations run wild. There are even times where the creature is shown from the perspective of the characters’ imaginations, adding fake attributes to make it more subjective and harder to figure out.
For Brewer, this is an attempt to resist the excessive anthropomorphization of nature. “There are so many aspects of nature that just don’t make sense to us, but make perfect sense to ecology,” he said. “I think it hinders people’s ability to track everything that this thing can do. Every time you see it, you learn something new about it.”
Unlike the Xenomorph, the creature is not an apex predator. He can be defeated if you overpower him. This was important in Nealon’s script; the writer emphasized that if there are two people fighting against one monster, the monster loses. “I haven’t really seen a movie that shows a monster that’s as dangerous as a coyote or anything like that,” Brewer added. Although the creatures can be killed individually, they are the epitome of terror as a pack. The script describes the creatures as having a traveling form that they assemble together.
Brewer and his brother Alex, who helped design the creature, also came up with the idea that it could roll in a wheel. “We tried to be really true to the idea of not what would be great for me as a person, but what would make sense for these things if they were actually rolling around,” he said. It ties into Cage’s idea of a creature that can adapt and thrive, one that feels real – or as real as this monster can feel.
“We ended up with a creature that is very strange and freaky.”
