Intelligent but put upon by her new boss, Linda Liddle, from accounts turns the tide after a plane crash leaves them stranded on a desert island seemingly fighting for their lives.
Directed by Sam Raimi of original Spider-Man trilogy and The Multiverse of Madness fame, comes more of a comedy than horror with a brilliant zero to hero element. Co-written by comparative veterans of the industry Mark Swift and Damian Shannon (Friday 13th), we are in the capable hands of a team who can produce this style of film set predominantly during daylight hours whilst still giving us the much loved jump scares we all of course crave. Director Raimi purposely brought McAdams in as our downtrodden lead, feeling she was grossly underused during her time on the previous multiverse film, and also realised she had never really played a devious villain before so wanted to give the audience a Liddle surprise.
Starring Rachel McAdams as socially awkward Linda Liddle, struggling to fit in at work, she is their strategist and intelligent backbone to a financial investment company: and one step away from her rise to the top table through her determined work ethic, only to be thwarted by the nepotistical Bradley Preston, played by Dylan O’Brien, of the Maze Runner trilogy.
Filmed mainly on location on a desert island in Thailand between February and April 2025, Send Help works with an ever increasing intensity over the given three act sequence. Opening with the frequently used office background as our setup, we are delivered some highly unsubtle character plot building points. Linda wants to be the next ‘survivor’ champion illustrating her gained instincts through copious research: and her new boss – who has been unceremoniously thrust into his new job – has none.
Surviving a plane crash and delivering the first of the jump scares, this film doesn’t really get going until we are in the middle act 2 and the tides have now turned where the downtrodden Linda quickly becomes the master of their new solitary world. Playing off Linda’s subdued character we have her rude and quite frankly useless boss Bradley, played by O’Brien, a man who was once ruler of his corner of an office in New York, quickly realises with his leg injury and blatant inability without her help will soon die.
Send Help is a film that takes its time to really get going but once we are in the latter part of the second act, we really begin to see the cartoonish horror we have come to expect from Swift, Shannon and Raimi. Decapitation of a hog, eye gouging and vomiting with accuracy of velocity make this a multi watch film with more enjoyment each time. Shot on location with beautiful lighting and vistas, a coconut farm was hired but more importantly cleared of its hanging fruit to prevent accidental deaths during the shoot.
Revisiting this several times with my last time in 3D with a very large screen, is an unusual choice for this recording method and style of film, but where other films have failed with the otherwise unloved 3D format giving us over emphasised scenes in the beginning, middle and end, Send Help utilises the open feel of 3D brilliantly throughout, delivering us to another world through the large letterbox opening of the 16:9 cinematic frame. This in turn brings us closer into the world Raimi is looking to create with popping richer colours and more intense fight scenes that become emotionally ever darker and more intense as the film resolves its solitary person to person issues.
Despite this movie delivering the required darkness in the final act, and of course in real life would actually be quite horrific, Send Help is not strictly speaking a horror film, though the twist is quite brilliant and worth waiting for, making this a movie be viewed several times. The one to one interaction between McAdams and the foil of O’Brien is quite special. The want for Linda to ultimately overcome her oppressor and Bradley to be beaten to a pulp by her, illustrates the superb and often speedy dialogue script of Swift and Shannon. With a run time of under two hours (probably for pacing) – and seeing elements in trailers which have unfortunately been deleted from the final cut – I would have happily spent another twenty minutes in this dark world where the uncertainty of outcome begins to rise and the chosen victor, potentially unknown.
Send Help delivers a film of almost perfect depth and timing. The one and only Danny Elfman gives us our gorgeous score, while seemingly melting into the background it also of course helps create the acoustic intensity without which would leave such a film quite flat alongside his 100 others including the aforementioned Spider-Man and Batman.
Go for the blood and perfectly produced viscosity of vomit but leave with a feeling of a film done well, like the decapitated boar over the beach fire as they drink their newly distilled toilet wine.
BTW, pay attention to the reflection…
Author: Piers, Maidstone Store
