Film Review - Send Help
Images courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
For all of his many valued contributions to the horror genre, it seems Sam Raimi has never been particularly interested in dignity. His films thrive on excess, and the kind of physical comedy that takes Three Stooges-tier escapades to their bloody extremes and all the way into splatstick. Send Help feels like a director gleefully re-engaging with that instinct - not by retreating into nostalgia, but by weaponising it against the horrors of everyday life.
On the surface, the film is a straightforward two-hander: Linda (Rachel McAdams) and Bradley (Dylan O’Brien), corporate adversaries stranded on a remote island after a plane crash, must cooperate long enough to stay alive, but Raimi is less interested in survival than in escalation. Every act of collaboration is temporary, every moment of trust a setup for betrayal. But what makes Send Help work is not just its brutality, but its rhythm. Raimi understands that gore is funniest - and most shocking - when it arrives at precisely the wrong moment. The film’s set pieces often play like gross-out punchlines, punctuating an otherwise by-the-numbers classic tale of role reversal. It’s a tonal tightrope walk that would easily slip through the hands of someone more afraid to lean into the freak of it all.
Rachel McAdams delivers one of her most compelling performances in years. Her Linda is neither heroic nor villainous, but relentlessly pragmatic - a woman whose survival instincts are sharpened by years of corporate warfare. McAdams brings a mousy, almost neurotic intelligence to the role, forever calling things as she sees them, bluntly forgoing the manner of a more socially adjusted coworker. Dylan O’Brien matches her energy with an entitled prick of a dudebro boss. His Bradley is egotistical, built to ensure the audience finds glee in watching him squirm, as the film’s entertainment often lies in the uneasy symmetry between the pair.
If the film sometimes indulges in excess, it does so with purpose. Raimi uses gore to remind us of the savage life we as a civilisation have worked so hard to distance ourselves from, that without ready-made packaging or a keen eye, there are plenty of plants and animals that might look edible despite being far from it. The island becomes a battleground of wits, showing that sans privilege, Bradley is far more reliant on his plucky underling, Linda, than he might otherwise care to admit. In that sense, Send Help is a corporate satire drenched in blood, its sheer savagery posturing it as a kind of kindred spirit with last year’s Bugonia.
Not every joke lands, and not every tonal shift will stick for those not already on the film’s Looney Tunes-style wavelength, but I’d argue the film’s imperfections are part of its charm. In an era of horror films that strain for prestige, Send Help feels refreshingly unconcerned with respectability. It is messy, funny, cruel, and wholly entertaining.
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Send Help is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.