Send Help
A P(3D)SA
“Yeah, I’m here, I know how to throw blood.”
I wish I could have opened this with a quote from the movie, but if I had taken my phone out, I fear it would have been ejected from my hands like a certain bro from an airplane. But take my word for it, this bloodbath has some zingers. May this post help it enter the zeitgeist and bring us all closer together.
I’d like to take 1000 words to recommend you go see Send Help in 3D. The strongest case I can make for it is that I saw it twice in two days. Once in 2D in a packed theater and once in 4DX in a theater with only four other people. Both experiences were stomach turning, gut busting mayhem.
In looking for showtimes, I saw that the movie was playing in 3D, a format I have become a fan and ambassador of. So unless the movie was dogshit, I was pretty confident I would be seeing it again. After all, I was considering seeing Mercy simply because it was in 3D. Thankfully I could forgo Mercy and instead book another trip to a stranded island. Turns out seeing Send Help in 3D wouldn’t be as easy as my previous A-List endeavors. But I have unearthed more than 30 second-hand 3D blu-rays and acquired some bootleg originals so I’m not stranger to putting in a little sweat for some pop-outs! I don’t have the skills to survive on a deserted island, but if tracking down 3D movies ever becomes essential, I’ll be Robinson Crusoe.
Send Help was not playing in 3D very many places at very many times. In fact I could not find an AMC showtime that worked with my schedule. Which meant I had to look other places and other places did not have solo 3D. They only had 4DX. If you’re not familiar with this format, the chairs rock, fans blow, water sprays and they even pump smells into the theater. It’s close to the Terminator or Simpsons 3D ride at Universal Studios. I saw F1 in 4DX and left feeling like I had got my lifetime fill. But this was different. This was Send Help.
Send Help is phenomenal. It holds up to the rewatch test. The first time I did not know what was going to happen and my eyes were glued to the screen except for when I turned to look at my partner’s face during a disfigurement scene. On the rewatch, there were so many little things I noticed from clever lines of dialogue to an oddly prescient, somewhat inspiring, and mildly radical message at the end. It’s bold beyond belief with comedic heightening and self-aware scumminess.
Not since Jim Carey in Me, Myself and Irene has an actor done so much face acting as Dylan O’Brien. His laugh is Simpson level iconic. He was not someone I was familiar with but his highs and lows were played with such reckless abandon of vanity that I fell in love.
And Rachel McAdams might be the coolest actor on the planet. She’s holding an actor’s hand of Melissa McCarthy’s character in Spy, Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant and Sir Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. And she plays them all like a Royal Flush. I once heard a story about a great action screenplay about a bounty hunter that never got green-lit because it put the lead in too many humiliating situations. The one I recall was that the hero was hiding under a bed as a woman shaved a man’s pubes such that the pubes fell all over the man. The argument was the movie wouldn’t get made because you wouldn’t be able to find a leading man who would subject himself to the degrading set pieces that made the script great. Well Rachel McAdams just proved that being unflattering can be cool and sexy. She has some of the best line deliveries, physical reactions and emotional beats I’ve seen in a comedy, action or drama. There is a fucking brawl in this movie that is so disgusting I was giddy to see that for the most part it looked to be the actors and not stunt doubles. And that brawl is almost forgettable compared to my favorite scene in the movie. It’s hard to talk about this movie without giving anything away, but please please go see it. Before it’s too late.
I had to get a Regal Cinemas account, then I got a Groupon for a Premium ticket so that I could see Send Help in 4DX for $17. A movie I had already seen. 24 hours earlier. It was the easiest double-click to purchase I’ve made. This time the theater had only five people in total, but you would have thought it was packed. After the wild boar scene, all five of us were laughing uncontrollably. We were also lucky that one of the attendees was an older woman who was talking back at the screen. This can be annoying, but in a movie where the chairs rock, they spray you with water to simulate blood spurts, and pump smells of fish into the room, you will appreciate a woman going “I’m glad they ain’t pump in no smells for that,” during the puke scene. She also said “Oh no” during the negotiation scene and cheered something like “uh huh, that’s right Linda!” near the end.
Now I’m not advocating for seeing it in 4DX. The jostling was a bit much. The visceral experience of being sprayed in the face every time someone purges blood, spit or vomit is a lot. It felt like a cross between a two hour roller coaster and the boat ride in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory helmed by Gallagher. But if you have the option of seeing the movie in 2D or 4DX, go 4DX. Don’t skip out. But only go see the movie if you enjoy blood, guts and gore. This is not an all ages recommendation. If you have seen the movie, I’d recommend going to see it again in 3D and if you can’t find 3D, go 4DX. I cannot for the life of me understand why Disney green lit this movie and forked over the money for 3D. It’s the perks of minimal locations and a small cast. Sam Raimi got to spend the extra on depth and buckets of blood. Good on him. Strategy and planning.
3D aside, which is a big aside, I implore you to see this. Twice. If you can, see it in 3D or if you want to have your cap peeled back, 4D. It was like if Nickelodeon Guts was an amusement park. Hit me up if you see it so we can talk about that ending. 5 mega stars for this movie. God I hope they put out a 3D Blu-Ray.