In Review: Send Help
Written By: Kenzo Funtanares
Spoilers Ahead
A simple but suspenseful and disgustingly slimy fun time. Director Sam Raimi’s return to full-fledged horror and thriller in years does not hold back in his usual styling and recurring themes, and rather shows us that the man has still got it with his well-known bag of visual tricks, creatively energetic camera movement, and his well known love of dumping buckets of blood, vomit, and other gross gunk on his actors, as it could be plucked straight out of a classic 90s collection of horror and thrillers. Such a genre has always throughout the years been used as a form of expressing social commentary of its contemporary culture and issues, and on top of being a gross-fun deserted island survival thriller with very fun performances with its two leads, also explores topics relating to workplace nepotism and misogyny.
The film’s lead, Linda Liddle, played excellently by Rachel McAdams, is shown as the sad, often ignored loser type who gets disregarded and undermined by her peers, although is established early on to have a special interest in nature and wildlife survival. As she is suddenly put upon a business trip she has no business being involved in, the plane fails and crashes through sequences of classic Raimi crash-zooms and sudden jumpscares, and is suddenly washed up to a seemingly deserted island leaving her and her borderline manchild, rich spoiled brat of a boss, also played excellently by Dylan O’Brien, as the only two stranded on said island. Right away, we get to see Linda flexing her clear passion and skill in nature survival as she also tends to the injuries of O’Brien’s Bradley Preston, establishing a clear change in leadership dynamics.
We the audience at first get to enjoy the vindication of seeing the usually disregarded hard worker be put in the position where their importance and strengths get to shine and be seen by their peers (or in this case just one peer), and the usually high positioned irresponsible boss who never truly commits to doing hard work gets humbled, wherein the island is a plot device where such a situation can take place, an escape from the cold, calculating corporate world in favor of the simple, peaceful beach provided by nature.
The film also contains nuance in character with its two leads. Although the way such nuance was depicted can feel like either a strength or a flaw depending on when and where in the plot it happens. As the film goes on, Linda’s sanity begins to slip further and further, dipping into genuinely sinister behavior, although seeing her unfortunate situation and position at the start of the story makes it clear and in some cases understandable where her anger and sudden sadistic behavior is coming from, she starts to enjoy her situation a little too much to the point of actively avoiding and destroying any sign or way of her and Bradley leaving the island, her one place where she gets to feel like the boss, much to the detriment of her actual boss.
At the same time, we are also shown the perspective of Bradley, the rich son of the company CEO, given the aforementioned role after his father’s passing, making his way to the top through nepotism. Throughout his arc, he is given the chance to show his humanistic side, encouraging him to reflect on his rotten behavior and his background as a neglected son growing up, also revealing that he truly does care about certain people, such as his fiance, albeit continuing to lean into his selfish self-centered behavior on more than one occasion, making his true motives and whether he has truly changed for the better most times confusing and unclear. The two opposing personalities would wind up in a visually ecstatic fight to the death by the climax, with moralities as muddy as the ground they battle in, a sequence where Raimi once again gets to bask in his frantic stylisms.
Although the earlier mentioned character progressions and deep study into their psyche is in fact a strength in the film, as well as being very entertaining to see unfold, their arcs end up leaving a sense of tonal disorientation as its final act makes it somewhat tonally unclear which of the two leads to truly root for, and whether the final outcome truly leaves its last person standing as morally good as innocent lives were also taken in the process (although it can be argued that such moral ambiguity makes for an entertaining viewing in an outsider’s perspective). On top of it all, the film overall is still a common survival horror film that doesn’t particularly reach new unique heights, although still does have an edge in its depth in writing being above the average two-dimensional level of complexity other films in the genre are often given, and being a Raimi-directed film, a welcoming return to his humble roots of a familiar genre where he made his first found fame.