- This topic has 22 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 1 day, 8 hours ago by
.
- Posts
Sam Raimi is set to return to the horror genre and direct a horror-thriller titled “Send Help” with Sandra Bullock being eyed for the lead role.
(Via: @DanielRPK) pic.twitter.com/qWLzECwVbR
— Sam Raimi Updates (@SamRaimiUpdates) October 31, 2023
Maybe a Chris Young gig….
Rachel McAdams to star.
Oh I am so here for this movie.
The writers seemingly confirm Elfman’s involvement.
https://x.com/shannonandswift/status/1851505152743633380?t=-pYEvdq1Kd0B3WFsng7dpA&s=19
Has started shooting.
The writers have seemingly (and recently) deleted their tweet which suggested that Danny would score, Bill Pope would lens and Bob Murawski would edit.
30th January 2026 – release date.
https://deadline.com/2025/02/elio-disney-release-dates-1236289608/
Elfman confirms his involvement here.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1042285544670727&id=1100427675235092
Possibly! This is ultimately a Disney movie, so that’s more telling about how the industry is viewing the allegations than a European movie (Dracula) or an indie thriller (Dead Man’s Wire).
I’m curious to see if Burton was able to keep Elfman on Wednesday.
Elfman said he’s ‘in the middle’ of scoring this last night in this interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5VR6-d0ho
He says near the start of this that he’s been recording it remotely in Sydney.
https://www.dekmag.com/lounge/2025/29/09/dannyelfman
Elfman acknowledges his good fortune in having long-term working relationships with such inventive directors as Tim Burton, Gus Van Sant and Sam Raimi. “It was a fun year working with all three of them back-to-back,” he notes, having scored Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire either side of his work on Besson’s Dracula; now he is about to start recording the soundtrack for his latest collaboration with Raimi, Send Help, which will be released early next year. He describes the plot as “whacked. I don’t know what to say about it! It’s about this power dynamic on a desert island, shifting between these two people, and it gets more and more crazy until – I don’t want to give away too much – things get pretty out of control.”
Both Dracula: A Love Tale and Send Help have given Elfman the chance to work on a genre for which he feels a particular affinity – “It’s a little frustrating for me that, even though I was a horror kid and grew up on horror and it’s defined my entire life, I’ve done so few horror films” – whereas many of his previous collaborations with Raimi have been on superhero films such as Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. “I love working with Sam,” Elfman says. “He’s the funniest, nicest guy on the planet. So when we do a session, it would probably take me an hour to an hour and a half to present all the music I’m going to have, but we’ll probably sit there for three because Sam is going to be telling jokes and entertaining – he’s one of the most fun people ever to work with.”
So excited for another Raimi film.
Really not sure what the score’s going to sound like, which makes it all even more exciting. Maybe Red Dragon strings with some tribal percussion.
It was always a bummer to me that Elfman hadn’t scored a horror movie for Raimi, so I’m really happy we can check that off.
Reviews are out. Notices for Elfman are largely positive.
A second critically well-received movie in a row. The 2016-2021 period of Elfman almost exclusively scoring panned movies is well and truly over.
As I said over on the Celluloid Tunes messageboard:
“I saw SEND HELP today [ie this Monday], at a press screening – the new Sam Raimi film with an Elfman score. It was a decent film (CAST AWAY meets LORD OF THE FLIES meets THE WAR OF THE ROSES) with some old-school Raimi “gore” touches, but also problematic in some ways (there is no sympathetic character, no “centre”). While I didn’t care much for Elfman’s suspense and action music here, there were some really cool bits, like wordless female vocal, ethnic percussion and the kind of lowkey music he mostly does for indie films, which is what we talked about earlier. I’m very curious to hear how it holds up on album.”
I saw Send Help at an early ‘secret screening’ (it’s not out here till Friday).
The movie’s an absolute blast. My face hurt from grinning so much. McAdams is incredible and fits Raimi’s sensibilities ridiculously well. Loved it.
The score is really interesting in context. Someone on FSM mentioned that the opening credits (!) music (Linda’s Home) reminded them of what Morricone would’ve written for a giallo back in the day. I hear that too, and given that there’s a musak version of Morricone’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage theme in Drag Me To Hell, I think there’s every chance this was a conscious decision. Beyond that general sound, though, it reminds me of those scores in how detached it is. Linda’s theme is played sadly, but never too sad. There are cues that sound almost romantic – almost. Listening to the album, it felt like Elfman was maybe holding back. In context, it all made sense.
This is a movie that constantly shifts perspectives. We side with one character, and then we flip and side with another. The movie really puts a surprising amount of trust in the audience – there’s a great scene in which both characters open up to each other, and we’ve absolutely no idea as to whether they’re telling the truth or not. Tellingly, this scene is unscored. There was clearly a conscious effort to avoid nudging the audience too much in one direction.
Still, the music fully follows the trajectory of Linda’s character. Her theme is all over this score, and it spins off into several musically linked sub-themes, which makes the score cohesive despite it going from horror to romcom to comedy to thriller at any given moment.
I don’t think it makes for a particularly pleasant or enjoyable listen a lot of the time, but it really does work wonders in context and is very well thought out. I think it’s an interesting counterpoint to Young’s Drag Me To Hell. The main character’s theme in that score is beautifully sad. It makes for a lovely listen, but it really doesn’t reflect that character. It recurs, but it doesn’t really follow her. Here, the score is much less enjoyable as a standalone listen, but the musical storytelling is much more thorough.
Interested to hear what other people have to say after seeing the movie.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.