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The Arbors

Play trailer 0:56 Poster for The Arbors 2020 1h 56m Sci-Fi Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
80% Tomatometer 5 Reviews 24% Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Ratings
Set against a dreary small town, The Arbors follows Ethan Daunes, a reclusive locksmith struggling to keep ties with his younger brother, Shane. Ethan's life takes an unsettling turn after finding a strange small creature and forming a mysterious connection. After a string of unexplained killings, the creature's true nature is soon revealed, and Ethan finds himself at the center of panic and paranoia.
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The Arbors

Critics Reviews

View All (5) Critics Reviews
Steve Davis Austin Chronicle It's a fairly sophisticated (almost noirish) psychological narrative for the genre, and director Witmer does a fine job of maintaining a keen sense of anxiety in the film. Nov 10, 2020 Full Review Carla Hay Culture Mix If viewers can get through watching this whole movie without falling asleep, they'll find the ending to be so disappointing that sleeping through it would be a much better option ... The story is a sluggishly paced, dimwitted mess, and it ruins the movie. Apr 6, 2021 Full Review Stefan Birgir Stefans sbs.is Lurking inside a two-hour runtime there is a great 80-minute flick; however, in its current state it's dull at times and uninteresting. The mind wanders away from the screen while a lonely man reflects awkwardly on what to do with this murderous creature. Rated: 2.5/5 Mar 28, 2021 Full Review Michael Gingold Rue Morgue Magazine It's a carefully controlled, well-thought-out and finely crafted film that's being sold as a monster movie but is really a disquieting mood piece. Mar 26, 2021 Full Review Seth Troyer Dread Central This is a complex, brooding film that deserves to move beyond the indie circuit to devour a wider audience. Rated: 4/5 Aug 28, 2020 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (18) audience reviews
Brad P A film where paranoia runs rampant in a setting that will make suburbanites shudder with recognition and city dwellers remember why they fled their small towns in the first place. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review R R It was an "OK" movie I guess...it was rather dull at times.......ending was very drab.....hard to figure out connection between that critter & the kid. Seen much better movies, no doubt. I would probably not watch if someone would have told me.....& reading reviews before I watch anything really does not work for me to well. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Jim S The main character has obvious abandonment issues from his childhood, but without his backstory one would believe he's autistic and undermine his character. It's not reasonable to have expectations of how someone should react to grief, but his over-the-top melancholy created a major plot hole in the storyline. His family and unrealistic ex-girlfriend were oblivious to the presence of his clearly visible severe mental health issues. I'm guessing he's behaved like that since his unfortunate abandonment events during his adolescence and it's merely been his norm or the status quo (thus the premise of an "Ex" is ridiculous unless she raised the "thirsty" bar beyond imagination because homeboy took "emotionally unavailable" to an all new level!). His extreme apathetic depressive state was just too big of an incidence of "the elephant in the room" to realistically have been ignored for viewers to realistically accept the possibility of the existence of such a temperament. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 10/04/22 Full Review Audience Member Sllllloooooowwwwww and really lacking. Obv Ethan's got issues and the "monster" (which isn't much) is his lonesomeness and inability to change his life. Been done much better a billion times. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Ron T A dreary and depressing movie about a dreary and depressing character named Ethan who is as expressive as a kidney stone and has the personality of a bird dropping. He comes across a spider-like creature and, instead of spraying it with a large dose of insecticide thereby saving us from having to suffer through this nonsense, he somehow connects with it. The following scenes of Ethan laboriously dragging bodies and his torturous conversations with his younger brother who, for whatever reason looks years older than him, have the nimbleness of a three-toed sloth and exude the excitement of a thimble full of naval lint. I have had gall bladder attacks that were more entertaining than this mess! Rated 1 out of 5 stars 08/05/22 Full Review Audience Member I'll give the film 4.5 stars because of the performance of Drew Matthews as the very disturbing Ethan. If Mr. Matthews is not simply portraying himself in the movie, than this performance is world-class, A-list acting. Five seconds on the screen and I thought to myself, "This is a man in dire need of a psychiatrist with a prescription pad." Just superb acting if Matthews is portraying a human being, just barely hanging on to a sense of reality. The movie was extremely well-edited, more so than most films I've watched. The story line is plausible: We see the white-suited government workers--probably from DOD--so we know the creatures is one of two things: an alien life form or a laboratory creation. Rather than a two hour movie, however, it should have been shortened to 1-1/2 hours. And, as one reviewer commented, the tension would have been greatly heightened if the townspeople were freaking out rather than acting calmly as events unfolded. If you want to watch a bit of horror and a first-class acting job, watch the movie. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Arbors

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis Set against a dreary small town, The Arbors follows Ethan Daunes, a reclusive locksmith struggling to keep ties with his younger brother, Shane. Ethan's life takes an unsettling turn after finding a strange small creature and forming a mysterious connection. After a string of unexplained killings, the creature's true nature is soon revealed, and Ethan finds himself at the center of panic and paranoia.
Director
Clayton Witmer
Producer
Clayton Aggeles, Michael Samilow, Clayton Witmer, Drew Matthews
Screenwriter
Clayton Witmer, Chelsey Cummings
Genre
Sci-Fi, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Mar 26, 2021
Runtime
1h 56m
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