Send Help Is Triangle Of Sadness For The Gore Hounds
Sam Raimi’s latest horror is a deliriously dark return to form.
They put Rachel McAdams on a plane again — but this time, she’s got the tools to fend for herself.
In Send Help — Sam Raimi’s long-awaited return to all-out horror-comedy — the Red Eye alum is playing delightfully against type. Rather than a flustered final girl, McAdams is Linda Liddle, the resident “workhorse” at a Fortune 500 company and a Survivor obsessive. By day, she takes on much more work than she has to, sacrificing her lunch breaks to chow on tuna fish sandwiches from the confines of her cubicle. By night, she goes home to her bird, pores over survival manuals, and dreams of the promotion coming her way. It was, after all, promised to her by the former president of Preston — but with his passing comes a new boss, the smarmy nepo baby Bradley (Dylan O’Brien), whose first order of business is replacing Linda with his far-less-competent frat buddy (Xavier Samuel).
But Linda soon gets the last laugh: when Preston’s private plane crashes en route to a business trip in Thailand, she and Bradley are the sole survivors. On a deserted island with no hope of rescue, Linda’s survival skills make her the new boss, while Bradley — already pretty useless, even without a gnarly leg injury — finds himself entirely at her mercy.
So begins the kind of class-conscious, cat-and-mouse thriller we’ve seen in countless configurations, from the frosty Misery to the nihilistic Triangle of Sadness. What sets Send Help apart from all the others is, of course, the Raimi touch: It’s been 16 years since the director has delivered a straightforward horror, and he brings the full weight of his trademark, gonzo gore to bear here. That doesn’t entirely stop this from leaning into predictable beats, but Raimi, McAdams, and O’Brien are having so much fun, it’s impossible not to join them on the ride.
It helps that this island setting is teeming with unorthodox chemistry between Raimi’s two leads. If you ignore the generous servings of blood and the gauntlet of gross-out moments, Send Help is kinda like a screwball comedy... just with the dysfunction dialed to 20. McAdams effortlessly flits between endearing optimism and steely, kinda-scary competence as Linda gets her bearings in the wilderness, putting her survival skills to the test. She shrieks with delight when she starts her first fire, and later digs deep for a more guttural battle cry upon slaying a wild boar. Bradley, meanwhile, can’t do much but look on in disgust — but O’Brien, long one of the most unsung actors of his generation, finds myriad ways to make his dissent more dynamic. Bradley’s attempts to retain some semblance of control allow O’Brien to flex his comedic chops, dialing in to the manic energy that fans of Teen Wolf will readily recognize.
Send Help is a screwball comedy spliced with gonzo survival horror.
Bradley clings to his status as a tyrant at the outset, triggering a series of mind games that slowly, surely chip away at his dignity. The sexual tension between our leads is not nearly so pronounced as it is in, say, Swept Away — but there’s something to be said for the way Linda actually gets hotter as the days pass, shedding her frumpy office clothes like old skin as she steps into new confidence. At times that comes at the cost of Bradley’s douche-y masculinity, but at others, it breaks down his walls long enough for this odd couple to form a fragile connection. The closer they get, though, the blurrier the boundaries become: their mutual trust ebbs and flows like the tide, allowing for tender moments in one breath and gasp-worthy displays of dominance in the other.
Send Help is at its best when all bets are off, when it lets go of the quiet character work (crucial as it may be) and takes this nightmare scenario to its highest peak. That so much of it works is a testament to this cast’s commitment: McAdams has long demonstrated her aptitude for absurdity, and fans of her performance in Game Night will find plenty — if not more — to love in Linda. Though this character is one with a much looser moral compass, she wears crazy so well that you can’t help but root for her. The same goes for Bradley once his bravado is well and truly broken: O’Brien sells every triumph and betrayal with pitch-perfect prowess. Their respective efforts to prove who’s really the boss tip this story further and further into the deep end. It all comes dangerously close to capsizing, but under Raimi’s assured hand, Send Help delivers the campy return to form we’ve desperately needed.
