Two colleagues become stranded on a deserted island, the only survivors of a plane crash. On the island, they must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it's a batt...
“Send Help” is pure B-movie, madcap, gross spectacle personified and above all, faithful to its own premise: using an extreme situation to expose the worst, and most ridiculous, of human behavior.
This is Sam Raimi’s first dip back into the combustible fires of the horror genre since Drag Me to Hell, and you will pray that it is not the last. He is firmly in his comfort zone, evoking a clear nostalgia for 1980s horror without ever seeming like a simple, empty repetition, and the amount of expressive amplification he infuses into the most mundane of sequences matches that of a hunter's precision and poise; with a clenched fist and boasting a wicked wit, his keen sense of manipulative orchestration transforms every frame into a thrilling dance of fear and/or excitement.
Deliberately being pulled from similar stranded island dramas as somewhat of an orchestral veil, looking at Ian Gracie’s production design makes it clear to see how much pre-visualization helped in masking and off-setting potential claustrophobia. With this being filmed in Australia and the Gulf of Thailand, there’s enough tropically enticing visual variety in this animated backdrop that leans close towards a proud imitation of Looney Tunes's playful spirit that does much better at emphasizing isolation and vulnerability in a world in which gore, filth and chaos feel immediate rather than letting the island setting do most of the work. It has a very glossy aesthetic concealing everything that hides how disarming its own small scope and scale is and the vast expanse of beach helps visually signal any emotional and psychological distance before the atmosphere wraps a belt to the bone around your neck and strangles you.
Presentation-wise, this feels like something straight out of a parlour game, more specifically a multilayered brutal take on Sardines and who better to take aim and make it look easy than Bill Pope; somewhat sedated in comparison to the Evil Dead series, there’s still an elasticity in how lush many of the shots are (exaggerated close ups, POV shots, quick zooms and whipping movements galore) and his cinematography wastes no time slowly veering into the unreality with beautiful color compositions buoying and contrasting against simple but effective lighting and Bob Murawski’s prickly editing.
It should go without saying, but don’t go into this expecting the same nonstop delirium as Raimi’s other features, for the pacing here weaponizes all of that high energy only to admittedly stumble to get full milage out of the 110 minute runtime (90 minutes honestly would’ve been tighter and straightened this up). Most of the visual effects are visually consistent enough to feel passable although they get progressively goofier the further we progress—the CGI in particular is incredibly shoddy for a $40 million budget, its focus gradually narrows and expands at the drop of a hat, much of the tension is surprisingly deft for what’s meant to be a fun contrast of jabbing at motivational figures and in the midst of all that, it’s strung along by a tone that juggles and legitimizes camp, comedy, and mean-spirited by the skin of its teeth while grappling ahold of the very impish sensibilities that Raimi usually weaponizes to bolster that very symmetry.
Danny Elfman conjures up a score both eerily reminiscent of and vastly different than his previous works, one that bubbles and broils in such a way I easily lost myself in the ebb and flow of the music, the dependance on Jussi Tegelman’s sound design helped create a rich auditory environment, costume design has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it grimy quality for only Linda’s character once you notice it, and feel free to correct me on this one…..but am I the only one scratching my head at the R-rating? Don’t get me wrong; it’s every bit as gleefully, cartoonishly violent and gluttonous connoisseurs of his work love to see but it still feels rather tame in comparison to what Sam Raimi is used to delivering….but perhaps it’s not gore for the sake of it.
Most movies have their characters either shape the events of the story they’re stuck in or be at the mercy to whatever events come their way; this is definitely the latter half of that equation as everything from the blunt dialogue and dynamic acting demand humiliation, restraint, and a willingness to look foolish on top of supplying two of the most emotionally exhausting character journey’s I’ve seen since Woman In the Yard. Dylan O’Brien’s oozes charisma out of his snarmy and sly portrayal of a much-hated archetype….but c’mon, we all know this is Rachel’s movie. She is absolutely feral in maneuvering every tonal chicane with this infectious zeal and zest that quickly turns her from endearing to terrifying at the drop of a hat.
And the chemistry between them both is fucking impeccable for this being their first time working together.
I admit to doing a bit of a double take upon discovering the writers behind the Friday the 13th remake and Freddy Vs Jason penned the script here, especially when pulling back all the onion layers for this gives off a very familiar potency and smell; this is literally Misery meets Cast Away meets Triangle of Sadness all converged, ironically, into a triangle of uncanny labor satire, power dynamics and transitioning. Sure, if you’ve made a habit of watching every single “stranded on a deserted island” story, you’re guaranteed to pick out most of the twists and turns charging your way like a wild boar; its so simplistic, derivative and loaded to the gills with telegraphed foreshadowing to the point that its disarming. But despite playing it straight, its coked up the ass with so much energy and miles worth of peaks, valleys and troughs that it only just gets away with having its cake and eating it too.
This is dicy subject matter further amplified by the thin line it straddles between cruelty and catharsis without nosediving into nihilism; in a movie like this, that lives and dies on the chemistry of its leads alone and whether you believe these two people cannot escape each other, its push-and-pull and shocking tidbits of subtlety feels specially designed to misplace our sympathies in trying to decode the real characters of both Linda and Bradley. While this constant back-and-forth does stretch itself slightly thin, once that turning point arrives, the film erupts into a powerful and relentless second half that more than makes up for the slow burn.
On top of misogyny in the workplace, the shifting dynamic between toxic male bosses and overlooked, mistreated female employees and the general overall disconnect of classism that bleeds into corporate entitlement, the rather brilliant ending of the movie further drives home how that dog-eat-dog world mentality of capitalism unfortunately twists and restructures certain minds to where people either thrive without it or crash and burn without any safety nets. The toes you step on on the way to the top are connected to the asses you’re gonna have to kiss on the way back down and the movie shows fully how such practices mixed with ego make it to where it’s next to impossible for anybody to be happy or socially advance without screwing somebody over at least once; as annoying as it is to run into yet another eat-the-rich parable, it finds a comfortably queasy space to discuss all that in an almost cruel way, transforming a story of survival into an uncomfortable moral game, in which we’re constantly forced to rethink who they are rooting for….
….and it keeps curdling over and over into the third act which, again, leads up to a brilliant ending sequence that’s nothing short of a French chefs French kiss.
And that’s what brings us to the rut because I enjoyed everything at the beginning and everything at the end. The middle section, while not boring me, did start getting rather gratuitous due to, again, how telegraphed it is and how much it tips its hand not once, but twice earlier on leading into that final act. Not to mention, the film doesn’t really opt for picking a side until the last minute. It’s not like I wasn’t willing to take whatever character development came my way; Rachel and Dylan act their asses off so well, they made me believe whatever when the movie allowed them to get along but their emotional backstories feel perfunctory rather than revealing, and the later escalation doesn’t entirely feel earned by the characters we’ve come to know. The final turn and twist is clear (even though it would’ve hit a little harder if they went with a War of the Roses approach), but it never lands with real weight.
Still, I had a blast. I had a feeling about what I was gonna get out of this, and it still left me salivating for more.
