Arcadian. Arcadian… Arcadia. Hmmmm. *Adjusts glasses. *Consults The Eric Undead Record of Things. *Goes for a walk and sits on a park bench admiring nature. *Itches various parts of body. *Returns to desk and takes ink pen in hand. *Transcribes thoughts.

Remember when you were a heavy one after another chain smoker lighting new ones off the ends of used ones and puffing and puffing and getting toxins into your blood and circulatory system and in your skin and into the threads of your clothes and the strands of your hair and that feeling was idyllic or even Arcadian and you smoked and smoked and loitered and stank and one day your kids left you and moved to Arizona and you were there all alone smoking and thinking about tobacco and decided to quit so you threw out all of your ashtrays and butts and spent matchbooks and those coffee cups filled with disgusting remnants of your DNA and you could breathe and really fly with the eagles and you went to work and everything seemed cleaner and the people were nicer and the windows were more transparent and your boss wasn’t on your tits and you got invited to a cocktail party and you went and were really loving this new paradise and you had a Gin Rickey or two and moved on to whiskey neat and then to shots of something called a mind eraser and this lady asked you out on the patio to burn a heater and you were all no no no I’m fine I quit smoking and you were dizzy and staggering and she was all suit yourself and turned away and the alcohol was really cooking in your brains and loins and you went to grab her shoulder and be all it’s ok I love the smell let me go out there with you but you slipped a little on the old carpet and grabbed her dress at the shoulder and slid down the whole length of her body until you were cradling her legs and her dress was covering your stupid head and she started screaming and the others were pointing and you started throwing up right there in her dress and on her shoes and she went from screaming to crying and then to kicking and you let go of her feet and she ran off and you tried to get up but were too fucked up so you just wallowed there in your vomit crying and wondering how you could have ever ended up like this how could this happen you never hurt anyone and eventually they had the cops haul you off into the city drunk tank and you realized that maybe that all of that bullshit wasn’t quite the perfect garden of Eden after all some Arcadia yeah right.

But that’s not what this movie is about! This is about Nic Cage’s character who is bringing up two kids in a city or world that has been besieged by aliens who – we are told in the voiceover “came after we polluted the planet or so people thought” so I guess that leaves us left to wonder if they are shit eating aliens who eat shit and rot and garbage and more piles of shit and they came here from outer space because we made the earth stink and now they’re hungry or if they are some sort of do-gooders who came here from the depths of space to clean up our mess and kill us all for doing it. Do they want to return it to paradise or bring about a new one by cleansing the people off of it? I don’t really know for sure because that’s not the point of the movie but because we can’t leave our questions unanswered like that, like leaving a half eaten burrito on your desk when you go on break or just standing there on a crack in the floor while you’re talking to someone, so let’s go check in with our arbitrarily selected international correspondent that will surely get me in trouble somehow, the Greek himself, Erikoupolits Undeadargilotis.

“Hello, my Objects. Let me delight you and rub you and how do you say, enlighten you? Yes! Today we are all enlightened! Enlightened like the olive in the Light of the East! Today we love! Er, live! In this feature my main man and personal concierge and colleague and lover of oils, Nikolai Cagimetrus stars and showcases his brilliance! Brilliant as the shine of the river in which I bathe with you my loves! Shining and glistening! His world is destroyed like Mt Olympus yet he presses on like Hermes himself, spreading his love and messages of hope and preservation! He teaches the fruit of his loins, my loved ones, to battle and survive like our ancestors survived the cruelty of the Romans! But one night, folly! A tragedy! One of his own beloved falls into glistening and robust love and then falls in a hole! Have mercy, Fates!

A daring rescue indeed, Beloveds! His child is found in the darkness yet the beasts from the stars above develop new strategies and attack from below! The horrors! Truth my loves never encounter such terror! If faced with this death you will need to summon the Hercules himself! Only then can you pull forth his seeds and shine as bright- “

Uhm. Let’s cut him off before I get in real trouble.

So Cage and his peeps live in this world ravaged by these insectoid things for some reason or another and he goes scavenging for shit in the decimated tow-

“Dionysus my love! My goddess! You shine your lights upon my upright fortitu-“

HEY! UM. But one of the kids gets his hots on for the girl a few acres over and his hormones keep him there after dark one night and he slips into a ravine or something an-

“Ecstasy and pain! May the sun be eternal in the irises of your sou-“

COME ON! But Cage rescues him and blows up his arm and spends most of the movie in a be-

“A BED! EROS! My mentor and devoted benefactor! I love thee so and present my swollen Greek grapes! Meet me under the olive tre-“

OK SHIT! THAT’S ENOUGH! I’m pulling the plug on this before this gets too out of hand if hasn’t already. This movie was all r-

“MY hands!! Oh my hands! They labor for your burning celestial touch-“

FILED UNDER: THE EDITOR AND AUTHOR APOLOGIZE TO ANY GRECIANS AND SWOLLEN GREEK GRAPES

And just for fun, here’s one from my personal Undead Arcanum collection: