Send Help is an upcoming horror-thriller from Sam Raimi, marking the director’s return to the horror genre after 17 years. The film centers on a group of plane crash survivors who find themselves stranded on a deserted island with no escape, forced to work together to survive.
Raimi has been responsible for some of the best horror movies ever made, and his return to the genre is an extremely exciting prospect. Raimi has only made two movies since leaving the horror genre behind with Drag Me To Hell in 2009, placing a lot of pressure on Send Help to bring the director back to the forefront of horror filmmaking.
Send Help’s Premise Is A Lot Like Cast Away
The Two Films Have Very Similar Synopses
While there’s certainly going to be some twist that gives Send Help its own clear idenтιтy and dispels many of these comparisons, there’s no denying that Raimi’s next film, on the surface, sounds a lot like Robert Zemeckis’ Cast Away. Not only do they both take place on deserted islands, but they’re both stories of survival and human endurance.
Cast Away stars Tom Hanks as a FedEx analyst who finds himself the sole survivor of an unexpected plane crash, left stranded on a remote island with no hope of making his way home. The movie is widely regarded as one of Zemeckis’ best films, and the story has become firmly ingrained in pop culture over the decades since its release.
Send Help’s premise sounds very similar to Cast Away, but there’s no doubt that Raimi will bring his own horror-inspired twist to the concept. Despite all the death and suffering, Cast Away is more of a drama than anything else. It focuses on Hanks’ character as he keeps himself sane during a period of extreme isolation, and later as he struggles to integrate back into society.
Conversely, Raimi’s movie is framed as more of a horror/thriller that takes place primarily on the island and focuses on the growing tensions between the survivors who struggle to live alongside each other. Looking at Raimi’s previous films, he’s not the kind of director to pᴀss up the opportunity to make this story as dark as possible.
This would be an interesting development for the filmmaker, proving that his talents aren’t just restrained to one particular subgenre of bloody horror.
While it’s unlikely that Send Help will be as bloody and distressing as films like Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and Drag Me to Hell, the premise offers a perfect opportunity for Sam Raimi to drift towards a more subtle, psychological brand of horror. This would be an interesting development for the filmmaker, proving that his talents aren’t just restricted to one particular subgenre of bloody horror.
