Send Help

Let´s be honest for a moment. The world of horror would have never been the same without iconic horror director Sam Raimi if he never created the Evil Dead franchise. The Evil Dead, the cult low budget horror film released in 1981 turned out to be one of those horror films that inspired so many low budget director´s. Even until this day you can hear both director´s and film producers talking about how influenced they were making low budget horror, thanks to the work of director Sam Raimi. I can totally understand why since this film looked really good, considering only having a budget around 375.000 U.S. dollars. Ok, i will admit that the practical make up effects in this film might look a little bit silly today, but we are talking about a horror film released in 1981 and a lot have improved since then. A young actor Bruce Campbell proved himself in this film, that he was something special among the characters in The Evil Dead. The sequel Evil Dead II - Dead By Dawn ( my personal favourite in the Evil Dead franchise ) turned out to pretty much me a remake of the first film but with even more brutal kills, even more slapstick humour, and so much blood that it becomes hillarious. Director Sam Raimi returned to direct, taking iconic horror actor Bruce Campbell back in his role as Ash. Evil Dead II is without a doubt one of the craziest horror comedies of the 80´s and in my opinion a masterpiece. This is still my favourite Sam Raimi film until this day, even if i really do enjoy Army Of Darkness. Since then director Sam Raimi have directed several other great films such as Darkman, The Quick And The Dead, A Simple Plan, The Gift, three different Spider-Man films and of course his return to horror in the 2009 film Drag Me To Hell. The one thing that director Sam Raimi always been really good at, is mixing horror and comedy together. And this is exactly what he seems to be doing in his latest film called Send Help. I was supposed to see this film in cinema ( that was the plan at least ), i ended up watching it on Disney + instead. Is this another delightful film from director Sam Raimi, or have he taken on a story that he should have left at the writing board instead?

Linda Liddle ( Rachel McAdams ) is a very hard  devoted worker, she is working as a strategist for a financial management company. She have been promised a promotion from her CEO, until the son of the CEO named Bradley Preston ( Dylan O´Brien ) one day takes over his father´s company. Linda finds out her promotion will not happen, since Bradley have decided to give the promotion to recently hired Donovan Murphy ( Xavier Samuel ). Linda is not happy and confront her new boss Bradley about her promised promotion. Bradley makes a suggestion, that she can go with them to Bangkok, Thailand to prove that she can finalize a company merger. The plane crash on the way unfortunately, only leaving two survivors, Linda and Bradley, on a deserted island. They will have to try and adjust themselves to survive.

Imagine if you combined the reality TV show Survivor and mix it with the 2000 drama film Cast Away with Tom Hanks, and you basically have an the combination of what Send Help looks like. One of the things though that we do find in this film as well, is the classic brutality of Sam Raimi films of the past. As a big fan of films of his past i expected to see Sam Raimi go back to his classic ingredients, and in certain scenes i do feel he manage to bring that cinema magic back to the big screen. There are a few brutal kill scenes ( especially towards the hog killing scene ) where it really feels like Evil Dead brutality, but then the film go in a completely different direction and becomes much softer. I can understand why director Sam Raimi wanted to do something different with this story, and do something that feels more like a Robinson Crusoe inspired story. He have done a lot of different kinds of films, and i would imagine sometimes you get fed up just sticking to gory horror scenes only and actually want to tell a story. Speaking of story, you do feel bad for the lead character Linda Liddle ( played really well by actress Rachel McAdams ). She might be very nerdy and not dress modern, but she have a big heart and mean well. There are certain scenes that are actually difficult to watch, because how terrible certain people bully her. So to seer her become a true fighter on this deserted island located in Thailand is a fun idea. Especially since her surviving boss Bradley ( also played well by actor Dylan O´Brien from The Maze Runner trilogy, all three films are worth a watch ), who is a complete ignorant asshole. The survival story on the island is something we have pretty much seen before, but it is the screen chemistry between actors Rachel McAdams and Dylan O´Brien that makes this film work ( outside of the gory scenes ). Is this a future classic by legendary director Sam Raimi? I still prefer the Evil Dead films plus Darkman over his latest film, but i do enjoy Send Help and can easily recommend it, streaming on Disney +. Nice to see that you can still make a solid survival horror thriller, while having some fun in there as well. Send Help should do the trick if you want something easy to digest.

Rating: DDD