Send Help Review

Sam Raimi Turns Rachel McAdams Loose in a Gore-Soaked Survival Fantasy

By: Marc Kozak

Send Help

Sam Raimi Turns Rachel McAdams Loose in a Gore-Soaked Survival Fantasy

By: Marc Kozak

Every once in a while, a movie makes a casting choice so clever and perfect that it can create electricity by the simple act of reading the logline and the actor’s name together. Rachel McAdams is someone that pretty much everyone knows and loves, a new honoree on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a rare bona fide star that has amassed a ton of goodwill with audiences and industry alike. She’s had iconic roles as a romantic lead (The Notebook) and a comedy villain (Mean Girls) and earned an Oscar nomination with her dramatic performance in Spotlight.

Giving her the lead role in the latest horror-comedy gorefest from Sam Raimi is an inspired decision, weaponizing McAdams’ sunny disposition to incredible effect in a massively entertaining desert island survival story that marks Raimi’s glorious return to the genre he helped perfect with The Evil Dead and Darkman.

The story takes a soft swing at class commentary and gender/power dynamics in the workplace, positioning McAdams as an ultra-capable and perennially overlooked employee in a corporate office dominated by chauvinistic male bros. But really, all of that is secondary to the true attraction: watching Raimi shock and thrill us with projectile vomiting, impossibly powerful sprays of blood, and several other moments of ridiculous twists and gleeful mayhem.

" Giving McAdams the lead role in the latest horror-comedy gorefest from Sam Raimi is an inspired decision, weaponizing McAdams’ sunny disposition to incredible effect. "

Maybe the most unbelievable twist is giving McAdams glasses and messed up hair and trying to pretend she’s undesirable. This is Linda Liddle, a mousy and unrelentingly cheerful strategist at a nondescript Fortune 500 company, a complete dork that is obsessed with Survivor and unable to pick up on the fact that she’s been socially shunned by her younger coworkers. She was promised a long-deserved promotion by the company’s CEO, but he suddenly died and left the company to his moronic frat-boy son, Bradley (Dylan O’Brien), who is immediately repulsed by Linda and flat-out tells her that she has no future at the company. After being told that Linda does too much valuable work that no one else wants to do, Bradley makes a half-hearted effort to appease her by inviting her along to a business trip to Thailand, even as he plans to start pushing her aside and possibly out the door altogether.

After a huge storm rips the company plane out of the sky, graphically (and hilariously) killing just about everyone on board, Linda and Bradley wash up ashore on a tiny island, with no signs of being saved any time soon. Linda immediately seems to be having the time of her life, using her considerable survival skills to build a shelter, hunt for food, and tend to Bradley’s horrific leg wound. The power dynamics have completely flipped, as the now-helpless Bradley is totally dependent on Linda to survive. Bradley, who is used to expensive clothing and the comforts that come with being rich, struggles to adjust to his new environment where Linda doesn’t have to listen to anything that he says. Linda is clearly in her element and rightfully takes pleasure in treating Bradley like a child, forcing him to treat her with respect or, y’know, she’ll just leave him to his death.

It’s a classic wish-fulfillment fantasy, as the aggrieved worker is allowed to take out her frustrations on her asshole boss. Thankfully, Raimi knows that this is only fun for a little while, and he slowly starts to turn things in a much darker direction. As Linda and Bradley open up to each other about their pasts, we learn that Linda is driven by such a strong desire to be needed that it starts to push her in a dangerous and much less likeable direction. Sure, Bradley is a classic jerk who any audience would hate, but Raimi knows it’s much more interesting if the audience’s allegiances are being tested. How is it possible that the duo has been trapped on this island for so long? Is Linda up to something here, caught up in a simpler life where she is fully in control? The story takes some pretty flimsy liberties to keep things on the island (and a late twist taken straight from The Triangle of Sadness makes it clear that these liberties are part of the joke), but really, realism isn’t something Raimi is very interested in here.

What he is interested in is setting up a spectacularly ludicrous final act where Linda and Bradley go full savage mode, as their pent-up frustrations crescendo in a bloody battle that is a lot of fun. It’s a wonderfully ridiculous finale; Raimi knows how to give audiences a good time and it’s hard to imagine anyone leaving the theater without at least a little chuckle. For the long-time Raimi sickos, this may well be cinematic nirvana.

It's great to see Raimi squarely back in his comfort zone after decades of mostly superhero fare. At 66 years old, he still has a unique voice in the horror-comedy space, and adding perfect new collaborators like McAdams helps to bring a fresh energy to a classic formula. Send Help isn’t anything new, but it’s quality entertainment made by a top-notch entertainer.