I love Sam Raimi movies, and I love horror movies.
So you can imagine my excitement when I first heard the director of the original “Spiderman” trilogy and the “Evil Dead” trilogy was directing another comedy horror. In fact, I watched my favorite Raimi movie “Evil Dead 2” just an hour before seeing “Send Help” opening night on Jan 30.
Yet the anticipation I had stirred up only made the lack of impact the movie had on me worse. When I sat down to write this review I struggled to remember details from the movie I watched mere hours ago. My struggle to remember highlighted the lack of memorable moments. This was the main problem with Raimi’s, “Send Help.”
Rachel McAdams plays main character Linda Liddle, whose name even reminds the audience of her meek and unassuming personality, while Dylan O’Brien plays Bradley Preston, Liddle’s douchey, rich and downright insulting boss.
The audience is introduced to Liddle as a hardworking but overlooked employee. This is most likely due to her awkward and off-putting personality. After a really well-shot plane crash scene that was immersive yet comedic, Liddle and Preston wash up on an unknown island.
Liddle is a big fan of the show “Survivor” and loves survival skills, something that Preston made fun of her for. But her skills became vital for their situation and Preston, now with a hurt leg, has to rely on Linda to take care of him. This shift in roles is incredibly satisfying to see from an audience perspective, and it leads to quality character development in the film.
“Send Help”'s character development is rewarding to see. Throughout the film changes in the characters feel realistic and are done slowly but efficiently.
I hoped the movie would be just like “Evil Dead 2,” with slapstick comedy and gruesome special effects. There were a few scenes that reminded me of that style, but not nearly as much as I wanted. The plot wouldn’t allow it, since “Evil Dead 2” has ghosts and ghouls while “Send Help” requires more realistic scenarios.
As an avid horror movie lover, the lack of scary scenes for a movie labeled as a horror comedy was underwhelming. There were, at most, two scenes that could spook the audience, which isn't nearly enough.
The scariest scene in the movie was a nightmare scene which is a cheap and lazy way to scare the audience. In a dream anything can happen and the movie itself can stay grounded.
The lack of scares added to the dull and forgetful feeling I had stepping out of the theater.
By far, the greatest quality of the movie was the acting of costars O’Brien and, the one that stands out the most, McAdams. She plays her role perfectly and her comedic chemistry with O’Brien had me and the rest of the audience rolling with laughter.
But the comedy couldn't cover up some of the huge flaws that made me roll my eyes. For starters the CGI was fairly bad. Usually I don’t mind if the CGI isn’t perfect but if it’s distractingly bad, I tend to get pretty annoyed. The poor CGI is even more frustrating when the budget was $40 million, a relatively high budget for a horror film.
The editing was pretty abrupt and quick which was an issue for me. Lots of movies have lingering scenes, meaning that after people are done talking or doing something the scene just lingers in silence. There's usually no real reason for it except adding tension to the movie.
The fast cuts in Raimi’s other films work especially well. Movies like “Spiderman” or “Evil Dead” are constantly grabbing the audience's attention with tense and action-packed scenes.
However, in “Send Help" the tension leans on the dialogue and acting. So the lack of lingering scenes where the air feels still and you can feel the actor’s emotions and fear feels like wasted potential.
The cherry on top was how painfully predictable the movie was. The camera was constantly focused on something that would later be a crucial part of the story, or the dialogue would very conspicuously switch to something so random that you knew that it would become important in the future.
Overall the movie does its job. It's a movie that’s funny enough to attract a comedy-lover and it’s bloody enough to satisfy a horror fan like me.
Not all movies need to be on the mind of the viewer for days to come. As soon as I recognized that, I came to terms with the purpose of this movie was not to be memorable or an instant classic. It's a fun time, a good experience.
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