‘Send Help’ Review – Rachel McAdams Shifts The Balance Of Power With Buckets Of Blood In Hilariously Graphic Horror-Comedy From Sam Raimi
As I watched Sam Raimi’s new movie, Send Help, I was reminded of something that William Golding said in his 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, and for more than one reason: “His mind was crowded with memories, memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.”
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It’s a grim reminder that we are still fairly new at this experiment in civility, and that savagery remains a fundamental part of our default settings. The human condition has undergone a significant amount of evolution over the past two centuries, but it has done so on a flimsy foundation of codependency and complacence. One that could shatter under the right combination of inconveniences, and send us screaming back into the jungle.
This violent, over-the-top comedy about survival from the director who does it best, Sam Raimi (Evil Dead trilogy, Darkman, Spider-Man 1-3), gives moviegoers a glimpse of what true authority looks like when people are removed from the comfortable delusion of safety that modern society provides, but it also shows what happens when you pick on the wrong wallflower.
Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a strategist for Fortune 500 company, Preston Strategic Solutions, and one of their most valuable assets, but it’s never clear what anybody actually does there. Her work ethic puts the entire office to shame, but Linda is also a relentlessly upbeat, socially inept, walking, talking fountain of cringe who incriminates herself further by bringing tuna fish sandwiches for lunch to an indoor office workspace.
None of her coworkers enjoy her company, but what they don’t know is that Linda is a master outdoorsman, and she trains vigorously in her abundance of free time to be a contestant on Survivor.
They’re also not aware of the fact that the company’s recently deceased CEO had promised her the Vice President seat before shedding his mortal coil, but that goes up in smoke when his yuppy douchebag son, Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) takes over, and gives the position to one of his frat buddies. He’d rather get rid of the awkward weirdo, and her tuna sandwiches, but he needs her expertise for finalizing a merger in Bangkok.
Bradley invites her along for the trip, but an engine fails on their private jet during a crazy storm, and it crashes into the sea, leaving them as the only two survivors. The sequence itself has to be one of the funniest plane crash moments in film history, and that does include the scene from Fight Club.
They wash up on a remote island in the Gulf of Thailand, and Linda is stuck having to do all the work (build a shelter, forage for food, etc.) because Bradley sprained his little ankle, but it doesn’t help that his soft hands are ill-prepared for real work. This doesn’t stop him from making vulgar displays of ingratitude, and peppering her with insults.
It doesn’t take long before the power dynamic shifts. Bradley quickly realizes that they’re not in the office, he’s no longer the tyrannical boss, and that the seemingly harmless Linda has an even darker side than he does.
This is for the Sam Raimi fans who’ve been wishing for a return to form after the hollow CGI mess that was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s not a gorefest from beginning to end, but the sparing moments are full of splatter. The combination of horror, gonzo humor, and corporate-trolling weave together seamlessly.
He also managed to throw in subtle callbacks to all of his previous films, and the beginning is an obvious nod to the 1994 screwball comedy that he co-wrote with the Coen Brothers, The Hudsucker Proxy.
Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls, Wedding Crashers, Red Eye) gives an amazing performance as a perpetually awkward wallflower who washes up on an island, and blossoms into an exotic orchid of feral madness. Someone who can make a person chuckle with her ‘adorkable’ mannerisms, but then paralyze them with poison, and get creative with a knife.
O’Brien (Teen Wolf, Maze Runner trilogy) is almost too convincing in his role as a trust fund clown with mommy issues, but neither of them have any redeeming qualities by the end of the film.
Send Help is amusing vacation from sanity with gore, minimal CGI, and Sam Raimi’s classic style. There’s no protruding messages, one-the-nose preaching, or ready-made victims. Just an insane time at the movies with very little reminders of the horror that awaits in the outside world. It’s now playing everywhere, and tickets are available at your local theater, or at AMC Theatres.
Here’s the trailer:
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Send Help
PROS
- Ample Gore
- Rachel McAdams steals the show
- Full of dark humor
- Danny Elfman Score
- Classic Sam Raimi style
CONS
- CGI boars
