SHANNON’S DRIVE-IN: ARCADE

Shannon watches the sci-fi flick Arcade and revisits 1990’s virtual reality nostalgia.

A troubled teenager goes on the hunt to find out why her friends are becoming addicted to a new video game.

Director: Albert Pyun

Writer: David S. Goyer

Stars: Megan Ward, Peter Billingsly, John de Lancie, Seth Green, A.J. Langer

One of the best things about the movie Arcade is it looks like Nickelodeon circa 1993.

In a world where movie audiences are getting beat over the head with nostalgia bait, reboots, and legacy sequels, sometimes it’s better to just go back in time to when things were less cynical, life was presented in a soft glowy filter and the Virtual Boy was considered cutting-edge technology.

Also, let’s get this out of the way first, the movie Arcade isn’t about an actual video game arcade; it’s the name of the virtual reality game in the movie. So scrub any notion of this story being about an arcade. Though where the game company is holding the event for the Arcade release is inside a very bare bones arcade by the name of Dante’s Inferno (you might think this holds some deeper meaning within the context of the story, but it doesn’t; scrub that from your brain as well).

Alex Manning (Megan Ward) is a teenager who has recently lost her mother. She and her friends hit up Dante’s Inferno where a company is test-marketing a new video game and somehow has enough money to give out free game consoles to teenagers for them to bring home and become hollow shells due to video game addiction. Alex and Nick (Peter Billingsley) go searching for answers from the video game company.

It’s a very straight-forward idea more suited to a forty-minute TV episode rather than an hour and twenty-minute-long movie. Some things, like Alex’s mom’s death, could easily be cut to make it a longer version of an Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode. The pacing would be better to get to the entertaining finale, which involves the main characters going into the video game to save their friends, surrounded by 1993 cheesy computer graphics, making it into a Nick Arcade episode. Yes, the finale is laughable, but it’s a great time with its characters on skateboards, trying to dodge a flying skeleton monster and save their friends.

Though there’s not much to Arcade, it does have bits that make it worth the watch. There’s that glint of 1990’s nostalgia that charms you in its use of soft filters, CGI graphics, and theme of virtual reality. The young cast isn’t given a lot to work with but their familiar faces texture the nostalgia (though it’s always weird seeing Peter Billingsly, who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story, at any age past childhood).Plus John de Lancie is always fun to watch, this time as the game company’s CEO, Dillard, bringing both charm and smarm.

Arcade was directed by Albert Pyun, master of the direct-to-video market. Fun fact about this movie is that Disney thought the effects looked too much like Tron and named Arcade in a potential lawsuit, leading to the effects having to be redone.

It’s not much on the outside, but overall Arcade is a small, fun watch for when you’re craving that nostalgia that only a Full Moon Features flick from 1993 can provide. It’s like off-brand mac and cheese, perfect for when you have a craving for that nostalgia hit but it’s the only thing you have on hand.

Shannon Grant is a writer, performer, adventurer, and horned cryptid living in the wilds of upstate New York. Her work can be found in many small press anthologies such as A Guide to Useless Sidekicks, Catskill Chaos, and The Lizzie Borden House Anthology. She is currently at work on a vampire novella. When not writing, she can be found haunting drive-in movie theaters, karaoke bars, and looking for ghosts in the woods.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.