Sam Raimi is back with “Send Help.”
And this is not the for-hire Sam Raimi that gave us the enjoyable studio products “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” or “Oz the Great and Powerful.” This is the Sam Raimi who deployed certifiably gonzo classics like 1987’s “Evil Dead II,” 1990’s “Darkman” and 2009’s “Drag Me to Hell.”
It’s so good to have this Sam Raimi back, and to hear the filmmaker tell it, he’s glad to be back in this mode too — even if 20th Century Fox executives were initially hesitant to greenlight an original thriller.
In “Send Help,” written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, Rachel McAdams plays an undervalued office drone who is stranded on a desert island with her oafish boss, played by Dylan O’Brien. The longer they stay on the island, the power dynamics shift, with McAdams, a dedicated survivalist and “Survivor” fan, getting the upper hand and becoming the dominant force, while O’Brien’s beta male executive becomes a subordinate. It’s a wild ride, veering from drama to comedy to horror and back again.
The last time we spoke to Raimi, it was for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” with the director saying that he was merely moving a train from one station to the next. He wasn’t attempting to put his stamp on the Marvel universe.
So it must be nice for him to make a really-for-real, original concept Raimi movie, right?
“It’s an original that two writers, Shannon and Swift, wrote, and I heard the pitch, and I loved it, and they developed the pitch, and I would give notes, and it’s really their story and their themes,” Raimi demurred. “But I love their script for the movie. I love the performances of Rachel and Dylan. And then we recognize great things in the script and tried to bring them to life.”
While it might seem relatively straightforward, it was a long and winding road to “Send Help.” Shannon and Swift first wrote the movie in the late 1990s but had trouble securing talent. In 2019, it was announced that Raimi was attached to direct “Send Help” at Sony.
“We tried to get financing different ways but then COVID hit and the studio, at the time, said, ‘We can’t make this as a theatrical film. We could make it as a lower-budget, controlled streaming film,’” Raimi explained. He told the studio that he wasn’t interested in the movie showing up directly to streaming.
“I don’t mean to be a snob but I’m designing this as an audience experience. I wanted the interaction of the theater to make it work, because I know that flavor, and I need that. I design my movies to play upon the audience in the theater. I really do. I think it’s a different approach you take,” Raimi remembered telling the executives at Sony.
He decided to take the movie elsewhere, and he and his producing partner finally settled on 20th Century, run by Steve Asbell and now part of the Walt Disney Company, which had produced “Oz the Great and Powerful” and his “Doctor Strange.”
“They considered it and finally said, ‘Yes, we’ll go forward with it. We’ll take it in turn around’. And the development process kind of started over a little bit then, because they have their opinions and needs,” Raimi said. He and the new studio continued to develop the movie “in a very healthy way,” and he described the script at the end of the process as “an improvement.”
Much to Raimi’s surprise, the studio told him that “they wanted more energy, more outrage.”
“They wanted to support every direction that was unusual that it went in. I think the creative executives realized that was only the strength of the filmmaker like me,” said Raimi. “What they hoped was that we made something unusual and outrageous. It’s hard to find somebody in the market for that – that has a joke and wants to tell it with you.”
Raimi said that 20th Century Studios happily got behind “Send Help,” when others would have tried to finesse it into something it wasn’t.
“They recognized what we were trying to do, and they were on board with that. Instead of taking this feathered fish and trying to cut off the feathers or trying to remove the scales, they said, ‘Yes, this is a unique thing. Changing it would not be for the better.’ Just embrace what it is. It’s just different.”
Also different for Raimi’s was the studio’s input.
“They supported us, and their notes were really, really good notes. I’ve never been in that studio situation before,” Raimi said. “They really were courageous to take this step. All of 20th took it, and they were aware it was the dangerous step, and they said, ‘We usually just do sequels now or franchise titles.’ And they said, ‘There’s imagery we draw from, there’s a flavor we draw from the precedent setters, the early versions of them, and now we amplify and find new aspects of it.’”
“It was a challenge for them too, they said, ‘Thank you. We hope we’ve risen to the challenge.’ And I said, ‘You have in presenting an original movie to the audience, they have no reference for it. It’s a mixed genre, and it takes some courage for the audience to get out there and see something new.’”
Clearly audiences have risen to the occasion. In its opening weekend, “Send Help” made more than $20 million domestically and more than $8 million overseas, for a total of $28 million. It was also warmly reviewed by critics, with the New York Times dubbing it “Raimi at peak pulp. I’ll happily take it.” Not bad for an original, modestly budgeted R-rated thriller, Raimi’s first since 2000’s “The Gift.”
And while it might seem different from Raimi’s mega-budget work, he said that there was a fair amount of effects work – an early plane crash sequence required him flying people around on wires (like in the “Spider-Man” movies), a raft escape sequence was shot in a wave pool in Australia and a sequence where a wild boar attacks McAdams required a combination of practical pig puppet and, later, a computer-generated version of the beast.
“That was all puppet on set, and Rachel reacted great to those in those plates. Those plates of her reaction in a real environment that looked real, with great reactions, blood hits” were essential, Raimi said. He said that McAdams had to know the sequence intricately, for all the little moments that they had to capture on set.
“She had to know this like a piece of music, so I storyboarded the whole thing with my great storyboard artist, Doug Leffler,” Raimi said. “We practiced the thing, but she had to understand, for me, every moment of suspense building we’re doing. She had to perform everything and make it real and hold that timeline in her head so I could shoot any of those moments at any time. And she did.”
After they shot the sequence, Raimi handed it over to the magicians at Industrial Light & Magic and gave notes, a process that he honed on the “Spider-Man” movies and continued to utilize on things like “Oz” and “Doctor Strange.” One of his notes on the boar – “Get rid of the sheen on the fur that makes it look too friendly.” Good note.
When we asked if Raimi preferred this space, working on a smaller budget, more control and, presumably more freedom, compared with the monolithic studio productions he got into the groove of making, he said it really didn’t matter the size of the production. It wasn’t about budget or rating, he insisted.
“It’s just about, do you have a group that supports the idea, believes in you, will get in that tune that you’re singing and then offer harmonies to make it fuller and better – that’s what it’s all about,” Raimi said. In his choir this time around were some of his oldest and most trusted collaborators, including cinematographer Bill Pope, editor Bob Murawski and composer Danny Elfman.
Raimi first worked with Elfman and Pope on “Darkman,” and we wondered if there would be a return to that world. He said that he has developed a new screenplay for a “Darkman” movie with his production company Ghost House, to be directed by “Don’t Move” filmmakers Adam Schindler and Brian Netto but that, much like “Send Help,” they’re having a hard time finding a backer. “I’m having a slow time of it,” Raimi admitted.
Another Raimi-produced movie we were curious about was a sequel to 2019’s “Crawl,” arguably the greatest alligators-run-amok-in-a-hurricane movie you’re ever likely to see. A follow-up had been put together, with original director Alexandre Aja set to return and the setting moved from swampy Florida to a partially-submerged New York City.
“We’ve been trying to get a go from the studio, and they changed hands, Paramount Pictures did, and now the new group that’s come in I’ve worked with before, the ladies and gentlemen that are great at development, and they’re interested in ‘Crawl 2.’ That’s all I could really say right now, is now I’ve got a new hope to make it,” said Raimi.
“It’s a little bit, I think, embarrassing to make an alligator in the basement picture. I don’t know if that’s what their lofty ambitions were but I think there’s a crowd that loves those kinds of films, if they’re well-made and honestly trying to make this suspenseful and scary and get to know the characters, if they’re really trying to do that, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Yes, it’s a B movie but it’s a blast. I really like that kind of picture.”
As for whether Raimi’s next movie will be an existing property, with rumors circulating for the past couple of years that he’d return to Marvel Studios for a third “Doctor Strange” installment, or an original concept like “Send Help,” the filmmaker said he’s somewhat agnostic.
“It doesn’t have to be original. An existing, great character from book or fiction works or I’d like to have a really solid plot, and they’re worthy of developing,” Raimi said. Occasionally it helps when the audience already knows the character.
Before we left, we asked Raimi if he had a movie that he looks back on and thinks, Wow, I really did great work there. After much hemming and hawing, Raimi settled on “A Simple Plan,” his note-perfect adaptation of Scott B. Smith’s novel of the same name. (Smith also wrote the screenplay.) In typical Raimi fashion he downplayed his involvement in the movie’s specialness.
“I think that’s where the actors and the writer knocked it out of the park. And I was just tasked to stay out of the way of the magic,” Raimi said.
When we referred to him as a visionary, he pushed back.
“I guess the visionary thing about ‘A Simple Plan,’ is I recognized how great Billy Bob Thornton and Bill Paxton were, and Bridget Fonda and the rest of the cast, and knew what a great book it was, and what a great screenplay that Scott Smith had made from his book,” Raimi said. “When I read, I thought, would I let ignition happen?”
Yes, he let ignition happen on “A Simple Plan” just like he let it happen on “Send Help.” How lucky are we?
“Send Help” is in theaters now.
