Released: 29th January
Seen: 13th May
In the year 2000, the world was introduced to a reality show that would go on to effectively change history. Survivor, now in its 50th season, took a bunch of random people and dumped them on an island with nothing but their wits and tasked them with surviving for 39 days to try and win a million-dollar prize. It was a monster hit, revolutionised TV as we know it, effectively turned reality TV into the genre we know today and made producer Mark Burnett into such a massive figure that he was able to get another show off the ground, The Apprentice. Speaking of things that start with getting trapped on a desert island and end in unnecessary death, carnage and projectile vomiting, Send Help is a pretty great movie.
Send Help follows Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) who works in the planning & strategy department of a financial management company. She’s the kind of person who works harder than everyone else without anyone giving her the praise she deserves. When a new position in upper management opens up, Linda should be a shoo-in… unfortunately, the CEO has just passed away and his asshole son Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) has taken over and he has no plans on giving Linda anything other than a hard time. Eventually though, Bradley and Linda (along with a bunch of other people at the company) board a plane for a very important meeting in Bangkok and on the way, the plane crashes on a seemingly deserted island with the only survivors being Linda and Bradley. Linda, turns out, is a bit of a survivalist and so she has to work hard to keep them both alive long enough that they can be rescued, but she has to do it while Bradley is just being the biggest asshole around.
Send Help is a welcome return to the horror genre for director Sam Raimi after Drag Me to Hell and it’s like he never left because this is an absolute blast. From start to finish it has all those special little Raimi flairs that make his specific kind of horror films such fun, if kind of makes you wish he made more of them because they’re always just such a good time. There’s just a specific energy to this, almost like a cartoon complete with over the top violent/gross slapstick that makes everything as crazy and silly as you could hope for. From people doing CPR while vomiting to a pseudo-castration, there are some genuinely wild moments in this film that will have you cringing and howling with laughter and it all works thanks to the heightened tone that Raimi sets early on in the film, there’s not an ounce of realism here and it makes the film so much more fun.
Of course, even though Send Help is about as far from realistic as it could get, it does still have enough intelligence to use its setting to touch on some clever topics, the way it deals with the boys’ clubs of office culture and nepotism is far from subtle and creates some of the films funnier moments. There’s obviously a little bit of commentary in there about how CEOs who do nothing rely on the labour of those underneath them to survive, taking that about as literally as possible but making it entertaining. It’s a fun popcorn horror film that has enough weight behind it to elevate it above its peers, making something that you can either just enjoy as a silly piece of fluff or you can have fun looking into the subtext that’s barely hidden, either way you’ve got something that is absolutely brilliant in so many ways.
All this glorious fun insanity is helped by the incredibly game cast. With only two people on screen most of the runtime, the entire film lives or dies almost entirely because of them and how they bounce off each other and this is a glorious double act that just works. The wickedly acidic banter is just deliciously cruel, the fights feel visceral and brutal in a way that can be cartoonishly over the top at times and my god, are both of them able to just give each other hell. It’s impressive that both of them play characters that should, on some level, be unlikable (she’s just meant to be kind of weird and unnerving and he’s a complete and utter bastard) but you can’t help but want to see just how things are going to go for them both. The performances are captivating and brilliant, Rachel plays the role of the awkward survivalist so well and Dylan was born to play an utter bastard, both of them just get so many moments to shine and show off their wide range of skills.
Send Help does admittedly feel like it goes on a little longer than it needs to, at two hours there are a few moments that feel repetitive and stretched out more than necessary. The middle is where there’s just a lot more of this happening and you can almost feel them just spinning their wheels in place for a bit between the big moments where the film elevates itself. Most of the time it feels like the film just keeps elevating itself and getting more and more insane but the gaps between those moments of elevation can drag every now and then, not enough to make the film boring (fortunately the high points are so good that it’d be impossible to do that) but enough that you do end up wanting them to hurry up and move on to the next wild moment so you can see how this pair handles their situation.
Send Help is absolutely batshit fun in the best way, a twist-filled joyride that serves as a reminder that Sam Raimi still can deliver an absolute jaw-dropper of a horror film. It’s dark and funny and a little sick but all of it is done in good fun. There’s a little something for everyone, enough twists and turns to keep the audience guessing and at least one moment that will have every man watching crossing their legs in discomfort.
Movie Meister Reviews 