By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Sam Raimi
• Starring Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel
• R

It’s been a long time since a full blown, true Sam Raimi flick hasn’t there? Sure, he’s made a couple of blockbusters like the scattershot if entertaining Oz the Great and Powerful and the wildly misunderstood Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but when it comes to the horror maestro version of Raimi, it’s been 17 years since he last graced us with his usual blend of dark comedy, horror thrills, and character cruelty.

His first non-franchise flick in those 17 years, Send Help is a gloriously good time at the movies; a movie made by freaks and sickos for other freaks and sickos that feels right at home with both Raimi’s own roots in low budget, grungy horror and his later big budget efforts. That blend feels right for somebody like Raimi, who has always been unafraid to push the bar as far as it can go in terms of his stories – just take a look at Drag Me to Hell which pushes the PG-13 envelope to it’s literal limit. And while Send Help relishes in it’s R rating, it has learned a thing or two from Raimi’s time in the blockbuster scene.

Because if Sam the Man is truly great at anything, it’s making sure the audience is entertained and delighted first and foremost, and he’s in top form here from a directorial perspective. All of his trademarks are here, from the POV tracking shots of creatures stalking their prey, fast cuts and edits, uncomfortable closeups, and a penchant for covering his otherwise attractive leads in mountains of bruise makeup and blood and chunks and ooze. Raimi’s playfulness and delightful teetering of what is “good” and “bad” taste keeps Send Help being fully unpredictable in it’s storytelling, taking the furthest left turns constantly not as a way of losing focus but keeping the audience on their toes. Like the plane ride crash itself, Send Help is a trip and a half, and it’s made all the more breezy thanks to a fantastic script that keeps things moving without leaving out it’s important details.

That trip and a half is anchored mostly entirely by a completely game Rachel McAdams, who delivers one of the best performances of her career. While her change from meek employee to hardened girlboss to full on survival psychopath is pretty telegraphed, McAdams uses this telegraphed nature to play into Linda’s own personal complexities and lean into a great mix of nuance and camp. A moment of her realizing she likes the hunt – her dropping the boar head in front of O’Brian being one of the many huge laughs of the film’s darkly comedic tone – is a perfect encapsulation of how much fun McAdams is having here. She’s always been unsung in her talents in Hollywood despite being well known, but there is reason to think that Send Help will be the film that finally gets people to realize just how incredible she actually is.

And while Dylan O’Brian is clearly the one that Raimi and company are focusing their cruelty on here, with several sequences almost entirely dedicated to getting his otherwise unlikable boss character just having the worst time of his life in karmic fashion, O’Brian is also clearly game for it and plays well against McAdams throughout. He’s just charming enough for you to understand why he’s at least in charge for a bit, but also slimey and inconsiderate to the point where once he starts getting his justice dealt to him it feels really, really good.

Once the gore ramps up and the chunks start flying, Send Help really goes off the rails in the best ways possible and remains a blast of a time as it’s twists become more audacious and it’s characters more unhinged in the psychological mind games they play on each other. There is only one way this ends and you know, and Send Help doesn’t so much twist the knife as repeatedly stabs it over and over again to the point where you are pretty sure something can’t actually bleed as much as it does but the blood vessels burst anyways. Those mind games almost feel like Triangle of Sadness‘ third act expanded to a whole, much nastier film, complete with class discussion and gender politics that intertwine in a topical, if blunt edge.

It’s just good to have Sam Raimi back in full force again, as he really is a one of a kind filmmaker in the business. It’s hard to say if Send Help is among his best as he’s had so many that can count as that, but it’s certainly a return to form for the Raimi that so many came to love and respect over the years. Basically the best version of this we could have gotten – we love movies made by sickos.