Darkman Director’s New R-Rated, Island Thriller Is In Tune With His Best

By Chris Sawin
| Updated 1 hour ago

Send Help is director Sam Raimi’s first feature-length horror film since 2009’s Drag Me To Hell and is the first of Raimi’s films to be R-rated since 2000’s The Gift. Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Baywatch, Friday the 13th 2009, Freddy vs. Jason), Send Help follows a socially awkward workhorse named Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams). The company Linda has worked so hard for over the last seven years sees Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), the new CEO, taking over from his late father.

Linda was promised the VP role by Bradley’s father, but Bradley decides to give it to Donovan (Xavier Samuel), his frat brother and golfing partner. Bradley continues to humiliate Linda in the office for her looks, diet, and demeanor. Linda tags along for a big merger mostly because she’s told it’s a last chance to impress Bradley for the VP role, but Donovan and Bradley use it to humiliate her further.

After their plane crashes, Linda and Bradley are the sole survivors. Linda, prepared for such scenarios, adapts quickly, while Bradley, injured and used to being a selfish boss, must change. To survive on the deserted island, they must utilize Linda’s skills and learn to cooperate or tolerate each other.

Send Help Feels Like Drag Me To Hell’s Spiritual Successor

The story of Send Help goes in an expected direction. There’s one side of the island that Linda points out to Bradley later on in the film, which is too treacherous and dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. What lies on that side of the island, as well as what happens during the finale, you can probably guess. But what makes Send Help so entertaining isn’t its writing; it’s the performances of Rachael McAdams and Dylan O’Brien.

Send Help feels like a return to form for Sam Raimi. While the horror elements of Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness were the best parts of the film, Send Help feels like a spiritual successor to Drag Me To Hell and is more in tune with Raimi’s The Evil Dead franchise and even Darkman.

The best parts of Send Help unfold as the film shifts from suspenseful horror to sharp, irreverent comedy, particularly when Linda and Bradley struggle to survive on the island. There’s the setup of how they get there and the last half hour or so where they partake in a brutal war against one another, but the moments in between feature the film at its funniest, nastiest, and most amusing, often juxtaposing its comedic and horror elements.

Sam Raimi Returns To Form

There’s an old Looney Tunes gag where castaways lost at sea or stuck on an island go crazy from hunger and start imagining each other as a hot dog, a hamburger, or a turkey leg. The Chuck Jones-directed short from 1943, “Wackiki Rabbit,” is a great example. Send Help taps into a similar kind of chaotic behavior, especially given the performances’ unhinged nature.

Sam Raimi’s horror films have always blended horror and comedy, and Send Help continues that trend. It’s interesting to witness how Linda looks in the office compared to how she looks after she’s spent more than two weeks on the island. Linda begins the film as very plain-looking, pigeon-toed, and socially inept to a cringeworthy degree. Her hair is stringy, and she never wears makeup. Saying she’s homely at first isn’t fair because it’s more than that. She prioritizes her career during the opening moments of the film, and her physical appearance is the last thing she’s worried about.

On the island, she suddenly has volume in her hair, and she’s forced to wear more revealing clothing so you can see the shape of her body. Her skin now has a slight tan to it, and being on the beach makes it seem like she just stepped off of filming some sort of glamorous commercial. She has replaced working hard in the office with building shelter, finding food, and doing whatever it takes to keep both her and Bradley alive. So it’s not like she’s spending more time on vanity; it’s more like her body responds positively to the changes.

Meanwhile, Bradley’s physical appearance is the reverse of Linda’s. Before the crash, he probably had this Patrick Bateman from American Psycho kind of skin routine. After waking up on the island and still treating Linda like she’s beneath him, his skin begins to dry out and look like a peeling sunburn, particularly on his face.

Dylan O’Brien Is Masterfully Smarmy And Rachel McAdams Is Complex

Dylan O’Brien is masterfully smarmy here. He never shakes the fact that he’s an overinflated mega dick, but he softens slightly over the course of the film. O’Brien’s performance is a comedic powerhouse that only becomes more impressive as his character grows more desperate. The character is obnoxious, but O’Brien’s contorted facial expressions, frustrated behavior, and maniacal laughter make him so much more memorable than the typical asshole boss.

Rachel McAdams has an even more complex performance as Linda. The audience sympathizes with Linda right from the start. Linda is a little weird who probably smells like a constant mix of bird feces (she has a pet bird that she talks to constantly and watches Survivor with) and crusty tuna, but she means well, has the best work ethic of anyone in the film, is treated poorly for no reason, and is secretly a badass. McAdams is a shining light of positivity and purpose the majority of the film, but there’s a dark twist to Linda that shatters initial conceptions of her. Even as Linda, as a character, slips up and makes mistakes, McAdams never misses a step with her powerfully mesmerizing performance.

It wouldn’t be a Sam Raimi film without a bunch of gross-out humor. Send Help showers the screen with blood and snot during Linda’s battle with the warthog that somehow isn’t entirely spoiled in the trailers. Later on in the film, whatever wasn’t already covered in blood and snot is doused with projectile vomit, and there are at least two eyeball gags that will leave you wincing and clamoring for more.

Gushing with frenetic humor, two magnificently cutthroat performances, and some well-placed grimy moments of gore, Send Help blows snot, spurts blood, and gauges eyes the only way Sam Raimi knows how.

Send Help releases theatrically nationwide on January 30, 2026.