Send Help is Sam Raimi’s return to the director chair. It’s been a long time. Drag Me To Hell was nearly twenty years ago now.
Community Notes indicates that statement is incorrect. Raimi also directed Oz The Great and Powerful (2013) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).
My response…who cares?
Send Help sees Raimi return to the horror genre. In this case, the survival horror genre. A douchebag boss and his awkward put-upon lady employee become castaways.
Send Help is described as Castaway meets Misery. Maybe a bit of War of the Roses could be thrown in, as well. As per usual for all new release movies these days, the early reviews are nothing but superlative love letters.
Does Send Help live up to the hype, or does it need help? Let’s take a spoiler-free look at it…
Send Help
Sam Raimi has also been a unique voice in the director chair. He helped pioneer the “splatstick” genre by gushing onto the scene with the Evil Dead franchise. He then matured to deliver films like For The Love Of The Game and A Simple Plan before spinning off into the big leagues of the superhero genre with Spider-Man.
Send Help is an amalgamation of all these Sam Raimis. It displays a smidge of quirkiness, a bit of splatstick, a degree of maturity and a pinch of action.
The only real complaint leveraged in this department is that Send Help sways close to making the mistake of trying to be everything… so it ends up being nothing. Raimi keeps it from going over the edge, though.
Barely.
Ultimately, it feels like Raimi left a bit on the table with Send Help. Sure, it has some sliminess, but the envelop could have gotten pushed a lot more. For example, George C. Scott made a more uncomfortable castaway flick with The Savage is Loose, and it contains no gore. Nevertheless, Send Help feels a bit like one of those those fun non-supernatural Tales From The Crypt episodes stretched to feature length.
Send In The Clowns
Send Help is a two-person show.
Dylan O’Brien (American Assassin) portrays the douchebag boss. He obviously has a lot of fun playing the guy who follows in the footsteps of a benevolent father by wearing designer loafers around the office (sans socks). Instead of rewarding the worthy employees, O’Brien boosts his Machiavellian bros up the ladder with promotions.
While O’Brien has all the power in the office, he finds himself the low man on the totem pole on a desert island after the corporate jets goes down in the Pacific.
O’Brien gets to be a lot of things in Send Help. He travels a course that meanders from douchebag to invalid to partner to conspirator to friend to soul-searcher. In the end, nothing to complain about in this department.
Send Me An Angel
On the other side of the coin, you have Rachel McAdams (The Hot Chick) as the mousy employee. McAdams also does fine work in Send Help. She ‘spergs her way around the office is dweeby clothing and submits her skin to the makeup department for some strategically placed moles. She is a savant with numbers but not so great socially.
On the island, McAdams makes up for her inability to fit in the real world by having a keen interest in survival. One of her dreams is to be a contestant on Survivor. She has spent years honing her skills, and now she has the perfect opportunity to practice them.
Send It!
On the surface, Send Help looks like it is going to go the route of the ugly duckling, where McAdams goes from her Cinderella state to a position of saving the day. But the neat part of Send Help is that it is not so simple.
As a lifelong beta, McAdams is unsure how to wield power. Perhaps, she should not even be given any despite her abilities. As McAdams and O’Brien try to form a partnership on the island, the dynamics of their relationship shift multiple times, and the viewer reaches a state where they aren’t sure who to root for exactly.
And this is really the crux of the matter. Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason) crafted a story that has twists and turns, not so much in its plot, but in its point of view. In the end, how satisfied a person is with Send Help will depend on how much they like one character or the other, despite their shortcomings.
Send Help
It is nice to see Raimi return to his roots. When it comes to modern-horror Raimi, Drag Me To Hell is superior to Send Help. Nevertheless, Send Help was a decent diversion, especially for a January release. Normally, January is where movies go to die. Since Send Help has no real competition, it can stand out. Add in the fact that it only had a $40 million budget, and Send Help is at least helping itself succeed.
