This review may contain spoilers.
I went into this completely blind, and I HIGHLY recommend everyone do the same. This was my first Sam Raimi film outside of the Spider-Man trilogy, and I absolutely will be visiting more of his filmography. I have a theory that this will be my favourite of his.
Rachel McAdams steals the show here for me. I did enjoy Dylan O’Brien’s performance, but McAdams gave me something I was not aware she could do. I sincerely apologise, Rachel; I was not familiar with your game.
Spoilers also for Triangle of Sadness below if you care
I think I would be remiss not to point out the obvious parallels between this and Triangle of Sadness. I did really enjoy Triangle of Sadness, but I felt that this film explored the dynamic between the survivors in a much more enjoyable way. Both explore the reversal of a power dynamic caused by a change in setting, but Triangle of Sadness is much more about exploring class divide. As a result, while I thought on the island it did a great job, the ending of the boat sequence felt extremely heavy-handed and sententious. Raimi, however, manages to explore very similar themes in a much less preachy and more enjoyable way. The dynamic between McAdams and O’Brien mostly drives the film, with asides from the first act involving O’Brien’s goons. Send Help trims a lot of fat and cuts to a more focused story, which gives more space to establish a more interesting and deep relationship between the survivors. It has fewer characters to juggle, doesn’t have an hour of build-up to the island act, but still brings enough baggage from their former lives to make the ending spectacular.
From the moment Edyll Ismail arrives on the boat, this film kicks into top gear. McAdams lets the reins loose and goes full psycho in a brilliant final 15 minutes. Raimi refuses to take the film too seriously, which results in a brilliant jump scare on the beach as the zombie-like revival of Edyll’s character literally looks down the lens to the viewer, almost like a wink from the director to emphasise the more light-hearted delivery of what is ultimately quite a harrowing final act.
At times, however, I can feel Raimi briefly stepping past a point of theatrics, which for me broke immersion and felt slightly “silly”. I felt the hog fight scene was excessively violent but still was enjoyable, but as McAdams drives off the golf course in a full-sized car and then drives on this ludicrous winding bridge road, I felt the film was just on the borderline of my personal preference for camp.
Overall, this was a brilliant film but with some moments that were not to my taste, and given the questions of how much of this plot was truly original and how much was copied from a film only released two years ago, I feel a four out of five is the highest I can give this film…but it’s a solid four and a big HEART from me.
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