Can we point out how much of a miracle that a film like Send Help exists? In an age of sequels, reboots, remakes, and legacy-quels conquering the film landscape and sucking up the remaining creative energy that Hollywood might still have, films like these are becoming more diamonds in the rough in the film industry. The one lone genre that can be seen as a slight exception to that is with horror, at least if the likes of The Black Phone, Barbarian, Talk To Me, The Substance, Sinners, and Weapons are anything to go by. They’ve offered some of the most fresh and inventive feature films that we have seen in recent memory, providing a glimmer of hope for smaller scaled indie filmmaking! To add to that stunning rose gallery, someone at 20th Century Fox or Disney was wise enough to give a blank check to the godfather of horror and superhero movies in Sam Raimi, his first original horror film since 2009’s Drag Me To Hell!
Thankfully, Send Help is yet another worthy addition to Raimi’s Hall of Fame of Horror! It’s able to capitalize on it’s simple yet effective premise thanks to it’s two charismatic leads, it’s incredibly visionary direction, unapologetically excessive gore, and a script that will keep audiences on their toes the whole way through. Even if it can be rough around the edges that it knocks it down to the middle-of-the-pack of Raimi’s filmography rather than up there with the likes of Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, it’s still an absolute blast of a motion picture that is definitely worth seeing on the big screen.
Premise: A woman (Rachael McAdams) and her overbearing boss (Dylan O’Brien) become stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. They must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it’s a battle of wills and wits to make it out alive.
With Send Help, you really get a sense desperately wanting to return to his roots in the horror genre, that made for classics such as the original Evil Dead trilogy, Darkman, and the previously mentioned Drag Me To Hell. From his good old-fashioned camera tricks to entertaining hammy performances to stylized blood filled set pieces to complete descent into horror imagery, Raimi feels truly at home yet again. Sure, there were some unique moments like that in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness but you still got a sense of the Marvel machinery that Sam was forcedly kneecapped too in order to keep the higher ups at Disney satisfied. Thankfully, that is not the case whatsoever with Send Help. Here, we get Sam Raimi fully unleashed!
The main driving force here are the two leads played by Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien. McAdams’s Linda is easily the bigger standout of the two, being able to successful convey the consistent transaction from scene-to-scene, going from the stoic and socially awkward “ugly” girl to a woman that becomes more unhinged once she is able to take power into her own hands. She’s someone that anyone who has dealt with asshole bosses like Bradley in the film can get behind but that commitment gets tested the more you discover about her. It’s the great subversion of expectations of having a female dominant force that crosses the fine line between the hero you are behind and root for to the protagonist you are forced to follow. While her performance definitely takes inspiration from other iconic psychotic female performances such as Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman in Batman Returns, McAdams still delivers a Raimi-worthy performance that would certainly make Ash Williams proud.
Dylan O’Brien’s Bradley is able to make for a perfect counterpart to McAdam’s Linda. On the surface, he does come off as the stereotypical misogynist boss that sees his employers as pushovers rather than genuine hard workers, going as far as to promote a guy who just got employed over a woman whose been with the company for some time now. However, once the power dynamic shifts and we see Bradley getting a taste of his own medicine (Those are not spoilers! These plot points are all in the trailers!), we see a different side of Bradley that showcases that not only is he not the over-the-top alpha male we are lead to believe but he might not even be the more absurd person that’s trapped on that island. Similar to Linda, Raimi is able to test the audience’s patience as to who is more sympathetic and who is more worthy of being the most scrutinized! Anyone that thinks the back-and-forth between our two leads follow the traditional routes for male-and-female troops both old and now are NOT prepared here!
And speaking of not prepared, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift are able to craft out a script that’s full of witt, suspense, and absolute surprise. Each scene on the island is able to properly transition to the very next scene that not only will keep you guessing about what’s going to happen next but also feels very fluent with the film’s perfectly controlled tone and thematic undertones, giving the indication that a lot of thought and proper preparation went into the writing here. Even if the entire destination does feel quite obvious at the end (All you have to do is remember what Linda’s favorite show is), the journey getting there will keep you on the edge of your seats, making you wonder how exactly each scene will resolve itself until we get to those final moments.
As it’s stated in the title, Raimi leaves no stone unturned here. With no MCU guidelines like his last go-around or low budget restraints to bring him down like some of his earlier films, he is able to fully commit his unique horror movie stamp into this well-down picture. He is able to let his actors go loose with their performances, allows for his camera and editing tricks to shine, brings up all the gore and carnage that will make even the most die-hard horror fanatic cringe a little bit, and is able to re-team with Danny Elfman to deliver a score that’s different but feels right. It might’ve been a hot minute since we last saw a Sam Raimi film feel 100% like a Sam Raimi film but Send Help is able to deliver those blessings with pure camp and carnage.
I wouldn’t quite say that Send Help is on the level of the very best of Sam Raimi. The plane crash sequence does reek heavily of poorly done CGI that even with a $40 million budget, did take me out of the movie in ways that I don’t believe was intentional. There are moments in the third act that feel more exposition heavy than it needs to be where a character has to explain their motives and fill in certain blanks involving sequences in the middle chunk, almost feeling like a cliff note from the studios. And while with the way things are wrapped up does make sense from a narrative and thematic standpoint, there’s a bit too much lapses in logic and handwaving as to how the resolution presents itself that feels like Raimi needing to cheat his way out to get the ending that he wanted.
Send Help is basically the spiritual successor to Drag Me To Hell that horror fans have waited 17 years for. Sam Raimi is able to go back to basics in a way that feel refreshing and not as a desperate attempt to recapture the magic of the good old days. It’s fun, witty, twisty, and filled with blood, gore, violence, and messed up characters doing messed up things. Those are the recipes that made Raimi’s prior horror work a success and he is once again is able to make something old feel new again.
Even as we see studio merger after studio merger and more reliance than stuff we loved in the past than ever before, Send Help is a reminder of what happens when we still allow our favorite creative and talented filmmakers to make fresh and original pictures that can stand on their own. We’ve seen that visionary in the horror genre grow throughout the 2020s and thankfully with Send Help, Raimi is able to fit right in with today’s kids instead of yesterday’s adults.
I just hope today’s kids who saw Iron Lung will take time to see this as well!
Adam's Blog 