Let’s continue into 2026 with our next review and that involves spoilers for “Send Help”!
“Send Help”
As we all well know by now my stance on the horror genre has soften – am I still terrified of it?Absolutely. However, I’m starting to soften on it. Could it be the cast? Direction? Script? For now let’s say it falls into the bucket of a case by case basis.
Directed by Sam Raimi there’s a harrowing entry of the workforce place meeting “Survivor” and it works. Led by Rachel McAdams in this horror-esque thriller comes the survival tale of a woman who breaks the mold. She’s resourceful, smart, clever and unafraid to make you feel uncomfortable. Do you root for her? Or do you despise her? It’s really up to your perspective after getting to know Dylan O’Brien’s character, Bradley Preston.
McAdams plays Linda Liddle is the epitome of struggle in the working day in the corporate grind. She’s waiting for a promotion that continues to struggle to fruition, but when a change in guard occurs with Bradley (O’Brien) occurs she’s looked over yet again in the boys club we’re presented throughout the film. However, when we shift to a trip gone awry and we have Bradley and Linda being our sole survivors on an island that may seem like paradise, but not without its struggles.
Credit should be given to O’Brien though because he has the extra task of maintaining a limp that gradually improves as both Bradley and Kinda have to maneuver their way for survival on “paradise”. We see how Linda’s love for survivor activities comes to play as she is able to acclimate herself to the island and thrives better than before.
Bradley is on the other end of the spectrum where the “boys club” mentality or having the arrogance of a typical power player serves as his downfall. Charm, arrogance and quite frankly ignorance can only get someone so far and it quickly crumbles at Bradley’s feet as we see the film develop. However, we have an interesting knife twist (literally and figuratively here) where all what seems to be happening has a bigger crux to Linda and Bradley’s fate.
Speaking into more spoiler territory we see how this island of survival wasn’t truly of Linda’s excellent gather and supply tactics, but rather this island belong to a rich billionaire and Linda has been using it resourcefully. She had the capability to escape the island many times before, but she wanted to stay and Bradley became part of her plan. She didn’t want them to leave and she felt at her most powerful and self on that island. Yet when we have surprises that pop in along the way such as Bradley’s fiancé, attempted rescue attempts gone wrong and a duel to death.
Tomorrow I’ll go into more detail on my podcast regarding full spoilers, but stay tuned! We have Sundance coverage tomorrow as well!
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