Send Help marks a welcome return to pitch-black, R-rated storytelling from Sam Raimi. Stripped of superhero capes and chainsaw-laden spectacle, the director of The Evil Dead and Spider-Man drills into a small-scale tale of survival, tension, and twisted humour. Early on, you get flashes of Drag Me to Hell in the way Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) takes professional humiliation in her stride with the kind of resourcefulness that made Christine Brown so watchable against the supernatural. Raimi proves again that human behaviour, ambition, and resourcefulness can be every bit as gripping as any life-or-death spectacle.
Linda is a corporate strategist repeatedly overlooked by her new boss, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien). When their plane suffers catastrophic engine failure and crashes into the ocean, the two find themselves stranded on a remote island. Almost immediately, the film sets up their opposing approaches: her practical, level-headed resourcefulness versus his stubborn insistence on authority. Survival challenges and simmering resentment escalate in tandem, and the shifting power dynamic becomes the film’s main engine.
McAdams keeps the film grounded, blending dry humour with a growing assertiveness, while O’Brien’s Bradley is stubborn, unpredictable, and often infuriating. Watching them spar is a highlight, their dynamic demonstrating how power is negotiated through behaviour and action rather than rhetoric, even if some survival beats are familiar.
Raimi matches this energy with confident, rhythmic direction, letting the characters take centre stage rather than relying on flashy spectacle. Every fire lit, every morsel foraged, every spat over who’s the boss drives home the film’s exploration of hierarchy, competence, and the consequences of choice; a stark reminder that, in the right hands, who calls the shots can make all the difference between getting by or getting left behind.
Raimi fans itching for his trademark gory, inventive set pieces will not be disappointed. From the plane crash to the escalating clashes between Linda and Bradley, it is brutal, absurd and darkly funny. The carnage is never really gratuitous either, serving as a reminder that Raimi still has that sure touch when it comes to shock, surprise, and wicked humour.
Ultimately, Send Help runs on instinct, performance, and tonal precision rather than polish, and occasional repetition or lapses in tone do little to diminish its focus on character and tension. Darkly humorous, sharply observed, and unmistakably Raimi, the film offers a largely distinctive take on survival, power, and the unpredictable impulses that shape human behaviour.
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20th Century Studios releases Send Help exclusively In Theaters January 30, 2026
