In theaters now from 20th Century Fox!
Directed by Sam Raimi.
Written by Damian Shannon, Mark Swift.
Check out the trailer here!!
A shrewish employee named Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) and her new boss Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) who has in one day, ruined her dreams of promotion, are the lone survivors of a plane crash and wash up on a deserted island. As Bradley heals, Linda – a SURVIVOR junkie and outdoor enthusiast, nurses him back to health. But the mean-spirited Bradley has some adjusting to do when the tables are turned and Linda takes charge of making sure they don’t die on this island. But the longer they stay on the island, the more the two get to know one another. One might think this is the recipe for a typical Rom-com where the couple see past their differences and fall in love. But this is a film directed by Sam Raimi and SEND HELP turns out to be anything but your typical love story.
I don’t usually take a look at things like marketing when it comes to horror, but since you can’t turn on the TV without seeing a trailer for SEND HELP, it’s kind of hard not to make note of it. Mentioning that this is a Sam Raimi film is going to get geeks in the seats. And since the bulk of the trailers focus on Rachel McAdams’ as Linda, who is disrespected by her boss and looked over for promotion, SEND HELP is going to get those young to middle aged professional women to the theater for some catharsis against their own bosses at work. Casting McAdams was smart as well, as there really isn’t a woman alive who hasn’t seen THE NOTEBOOK and MEAN GIRLS and if you get the girls wanting to go see a horror movie, the guys usually are game to take them to theaters in hopes that there are enough jump scares to have the gals clutching on them in the dark. So, as with most big budgeters, a lot of thought seems to have been put into SEND HELP, which also means a movie that takes risks, flips expectations, and goes against mainstream mentality is not something to expect with this one. Now, I like my big budgeters as much as the next guy and Sam Raimi hasn’t done me wrong though I love some of his work more than others, but because I like my horror unpredictable and downright wrong, I kind of knew going in, that’s not what I was going to get with SEND HELP.
And yes, for the most part, SEND HELP could be considered safe horror. The focus is on the battle of wits between Linda and Bradley, but I was surprised how bloody things eventually get. There’s an especially gnarly boar hunting scene, hinted at in the trailer, and the climax actually delivers some genuinely toe-curling effects. For a big budget movie, I was surprised at how much gore and violence ended up showing up by the time the credits rolled by, though the story takes its sweet time to get there.
This is a Raimi movie, so of course, there are a few things shrewd-eyed fans will see. Raimi’s 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale, which has appeared in every one of his movies, does make an appearance. I won’t tell you where but look for it. There’s also a pretty clever Bruce Campbell cameo that is a blink and you’ll miss it moment. But the thing I most appreciated was some of the early shots of Raimi’s old trademark extreme and creative camera angles that never failed to entertain. It was these angles that set Raimi apart from the rest of his ilk in his heyday in the eighties and nineties. With Raimi, I knew that I’d always see the camera swoop and zoom in and pull back with manic and cartoonish glee and took quite a bit of joy in seeing them appear multiple times in some key grossout or simply comical moments in SEND HELP.
Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien are great in their respective roles. Throughout the story, both actors do and say some despicable things to one another. And the narrative provides enough reasons for both characters to get retribution or redemption. This is a film that highlights the worst in both characters, making it hard to root for who indeed should survive. Who does survive? I’m not telling, but though neither Linda or Bradley pull no punches during the climax, it turns out it is who I suspected it would be, and I’m sure those savvy to who this film is geared towards will be able to guess who comes out on top.
That said, SEND HELP was a wild ride. I was surprised at how much of what is in the trailer occurs in the first half of the movie and how little it reveals about the latter half. Good on this film for using some restraint in spoiling the last half. Though it is more of a survival action film, SEND HELP does get nice and goppy by the end, earning its horror categorization. This is one of the better Raimi yarns in recent memory as I had feared the director had given up his horror director roots in favor of his more big budget superhero work. Raimi can still deliver the goods when he tries and though there was not a Kelp to be seen, SEND HELP is worth watching. The tribe and I have spoken.
