L Movie Review 2The latest from horror auteur Sam Raimi, Send Help, is a gonzo, bizarro delight. After 20 years of IP fare, the director returns to the curio of carnage that put him on the map with his Evil Dead franchise. While his Spider-Man movies spun quite the web, there’s something extra gripping about being caught, like his protagonists, in a web of terrors that’s somehow both wonderful and frightful. 

In a brief intro, we meet a seemingly normal finance consultant, Linda (Rachel McAdams), who’s stuck in a waking nightmare of finance bros, quarter zips and douchey conversations that scream “daddy got me this job.” At her firm, she’s shunned by her insufferable boss Bradley, (Dylan O’Brien), as well as his legion of beer-bellied nepo babies, for being the only woman on her team. As you can probably guess, she doesn’t get the promotion she wants, but she does get a free trip to Thailand on Bradley’s private jet after he fires her in front of the entire office because, as he says with Patrick Bateman-like indifference, “you make me sick.” 

You can understand her mounting frustration when they pull up and mock her audition tape for Survivor on the plane, as she cowers into her leather-clad seat. She’s sad, devastated, humiliated. But then the plane goes down, and it’s just her and Bradley who wake up, delirious, on the white sands of a deserted island. He’s got a broken leg, she’s got a deadly glare. She’s the captain now.

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Rachel McAdams as Linda Liddle and Dylan O’Brien as Bradley Preston in SEND HELP. (Courtesy of 20th Century Studios)

While Raimi’s corporate satire doesn’t exactly land, once his leads are stranded on a stark island with scarce resources, his first R-rated movie in 15 years really kicks into gear. Profusely flowing with blood, vomit, viscera and visceral torture, Linda’s pent-up emotions wash up on shore with startling ferocity, as she cares for a boss who has never cared about her. Is she really helping him or hurting him? One look at O’Brien’s punchable scour and you can probably guess where this is going. 

Send Help is a giddy mashup of Cast Away and Misery, with a splattering of Lord of the Flies, infused with a more trashy sensibility than those stranded thrillers. Raimi stylishly sets up graphic torture scenes as we wander this island of azure oceans and palm trees waving in the ocean breeze, but don’t expect sophistication — this is the kind of frothy entertainment that merely exists for audiences to share communal gasps and laughs in between bites of buttery popcorn. It’s not exactly a thought-provoking take on gender roles either, since we already got this woman-wronged-in-the-workplace comedy over 40 years ago with the once-relevant 9 to 5. 

What keeps this misery island afloat is an electric performance from McAdams, who couldn’t be further from the doting mothers and ditzy lovers that have marked her career. You almost expect Linda to start singing Bradley a lullaby or give him a kiss goodnight, but instead, she’s rabidly screaming into his face with a blood-soaked knife. Nor would it coalesce without O’Brien, who is inscrutably irritating as a sexist who commands Linda around even while she’s saving his life. 

The film surrounds them with sinister music by Danny Elfman and slow-roaming cinematography, elevating these committed performances to claustrophobic heights. There’s not much more I can say without giving the twists away, so prepare for your eyes to bulge, your jaw to drop and your laughs to echo while McAdams’s cast away deflates her Wilson with a sharpened tree branch.