Sam Raimi on ‘Send Help,’ Whether Linda Beats Ash in a Fight [Interview]
Send Help is a dark comedic spin on the classic psychological cat-and-mouse thrillers featuring gruesome power shifts, buckets of blood (and snot), edge-of-your-seat terror, and many ‘good for her’ moments.
The film follows Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams), a brilliant and highly motivated but undervalued strategist at a consulting firm. Nepo baby Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) just got a CEO bump up after the untimely passing of his father (hail to the king, baby). Linda had been promised a promotion, but Bradley sets up his own raging boys club spillover from the golf course with drinks and sexy assistants– the new takeover doesn’t have room for Linda and her awkwardness at the table, no matter how exceptional her work is.
Forced into inviting Linda on one last work trip before she gets axed—Linda, Bradley, and all his backstabbing, kiss-up office bros take flight, and it becomes clear Bradley is not just a nightmare boss, but also a miserable human. The plane hits a storm, is torn apart, and everyone is sucked out of the plane except Linda and Bradley, who end up stranded on a deserted island.
Power dynamics shift in a darkly hilarious, chaotic battle of wills and wits, while Bradley is injured after the crash and dependent on Linda’s survival skills. Reality sets in for the boss we love to hate that Linda isn’t going to be kicked around anymore, so he needs to play nice and team up with Linda, who seems to be right at home and thriving—you know if he wants to survive and ever see that golf course again.
I recently sat down with horror icon Sam Raimi to see what his fans should expect in Send Help– so hold onto your popcorn.
Check Out the Interview Below:
DC: Send Help and Drag Me To Hell both feature soul-crushing office jobs and performances from kick-ass women. What other DNA do these films share?
Sam Raimi: Well, they both are trying to create moments of eeriness. Both want to make you laugh. Both want to scare you. Both want you to invest deeply in the main character, even though Drag Me To Hell is more of a horror tale, and this is more of a survival story. Genres are different, but they both really want you to identify with the main character, one who is not so lucky, and one who’s a little more lucky, but woe to us for who survives. And I won’t say which one.
DC: You’re famous for a distinctive visual style. Can we expect to see any of your signature camera work this time around?
SR: I think much less so, because this movie is more focused on the characters and their interactions, without a lot of cool shots. And I say that’s partially due to genre. When it’s a more realistic drama like Send Help, you really don’t want to become aware of the camera, but when your job is to present the supernatural, that unseen thing, you want to give the audience the creeps.
Part of that is how things are photographed, or how the camera moves, or taking the point of view of something evil and slipping and sliding around the set like you’re some unseen force. You’re tasked with presenting that which doesn’t exist from the world beyond. For filmmakers, it really calls upon camera technique and experimentation, and for this, it calls upon more restraint and trust in the actors.
DC: Speaking of the film’s undervalued character, Linda Liddle, what’s the most hellish or bizarre day job you have faced before breaking into the industry?
SR: First one was loading washing machines and mattresses from a warehouse and bringing them to people’s homes. There was always unexpected things in these people’s homes, like weirdness going on or incredible kindness. I remember some woman showed me her grape vines that were in an arbor over an outdoor little plastic table in her backyard.
It was beautiful, and she took such pride in it and made me homemade coffee. But the bad things—that job also had its horrors, too. I mean, meeting creepy people in scary places where they don’t care to meet you.
DC: I have to ask Sam, who wins in a fight between Evil Dead’s Ash Williams and Send Help’s Linda Liddle?
SR: She would definitely outthink him. She would definitely outsmart him, outplay him, but
he’s got the chainsaw! I think he’s so good at taking down those Deadites, so my money’s on him.
DC: The most important question! What’s your favorite horror film?
SR: I’d say Robert Wise’s The Haunting, based on Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of
Hill House.
Being a lifelong Raimi fan, I was initially cautious about Send Help not quite meeting my usual standards for wacky Raimi horror films—but let me tell you—Send Help is everything you want in a Raimi film! Visceral, relentless tension, tour de force performances from McAdams and O’Brien with bold storytelling, hidden Easter eggs, zany, sudden turns, and all the diabolically gross effects a Raimi fan could ask for.
Send Help had me screaming, laughing, and puking out loud!
Support horror and catch Send Help in theaters nationwide January 30th!
Categorized:Interviews