SEND HELP (2026)

Briefly tempted back to the superhero genre for the fun but forgettable Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), having helped relaunch the genre with his Spider-Man trilogy (2002–07), director Sam Raimi has finally returned home with a new horror film, Send Help. Given he made his name with “splatter-stick” classics like Evil Dead 2 (1987), it’s strange to realise Raimi hasn’t worked in that same vein since Drag Me to Hell (2009). While he’s produced plenty of horror throughout his career, often mentoring new talent and inviting some to helm new Evil Dead instalments, it’s exciting to see this icon of genre filmmaking back doing what he does best.

Send Help eschews the gloom that often permeates Raimi’s horror and fantasy work, opting instead for a sun-kissed tropical island. However, the situation itself is deliciously dark, as if to compensate.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a supposedly dowdy middle-aged single woman working for a financial management company. This is arguably the film’s biggest stretch in casting; it’s akin to trying to convince audiences that Michelle Pfeiffer wasn’t attractive and would go unnoticed as Selina Kyle in Batman Returns (1992) simply because she wears glasses and favours old-fashioned, buttoned-up dresses. Linda lives alone with a pet cockatiel and watches episodes of Survivor (oooh foreshadowing), but no amount of costuming or lack of make-up can disguise the ludicrousness of her being overlooked by every man she works with and shunned even by female colleagues.

Having been passed over for a deserved promotion by Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) — the “nepo baby” CEO who inherited his father’s business and callously takes against Linda because of her eating habits — Linda is somewhat implausibly asked to accompany the execs on a business trip to Bangkok. While it’s a chance to prove her value to the new CEO, their private jet is damaged in a thunderstorm and crashes in the Pacific Ocean. Everyone aboard is killed except for Linda and Bradley, who wash up on an uninhabited island.

What follows is a ‘battle of the sexes’ thriller built around the idea that office power dynamics are flipped when contending with Mother Nature. Linda’s survival knowledge and innate pragmatism prove invaluable; she quickly builds shelter, collects rainwater, and forages for food. Meanwhile, the injured “alpha male” Bradley finds himself totally dependent on this office wallflower he’s underestimated —who inevitably blooms into a confident, capable woman.

For a time, I wondered if McAdams was miscast (as good as she is at “nerdish” behaviour) and whether they should’ve hired a plainer actress. However, by the halfway point, it becomes clear the story needed Linda to be the “ugly duckling” trope so she could achieve a swan-like “glow-up” after washing her hair in a waterfall and fashioning a sexy bikini from her ragged clothes.

Given who’s behind the camera, Send Help flirts with the horrifying potential of its concept. There are signature “Raimi-isms” fans will enjoy —his trademark roving camerawork becomes the POV of a wild boar running through foliage, and there’s plenty of bodily fluid being flung around. However, the movie less predictably follows the arc of a traditional rom-com, at least for a while.

Linda and Bradley develop a bond once he admits he’s useless on his own and defers to her teachings. A spark develops between them, and romance grows through moments of comedy as their guards drop and they see each other with fresh eyes.

But fundamentally, screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason) wanted to explore every avenue of a familiar ‘Robinson Crusoe’ setup. The material plays like Cast Away (2000) if Tom Hanks had been stranded with a bitchier Meg Ryan, offering fun commentary on workplace gender roles before eventually evoking Misery (1990) once Linda’s psychology is explored, so it becomes less clear who’s the hero and who’s the villain.

Maybe Sam Raimi is softening in the autumn of his life. While there are signs of his youthful exuberance in the cartoonish violence, he occasionally backs away from moments that would’ve made Send Help unforgettable for its sheer ballsiness. Fans of Hard Candy (2005) may guess what I’m alluding to; perhaps the ’80s Raimi would’ve dared to go there instead of chickening out to keep a character redeemable.

McAdams is the standout here, and it’s a reminder of how good she is after a long time away from headlining a major film. She clearly bonded with Raimi during Multiverse of Madness, and while it’s impossible to believe Linda is a woman everyone would ignore, she turns in a performance that works because there’s always a hint that her character isn’t entirely sane — or is at least easily driven to awful decisions by years of repressed resentment.

O’Brien captures the grim horrors of an egotistical, chauvinist boss: the privileged son using a business he didn’t build to elevate his male friends. While Bradley is written broadly at times (yes, he has a golf putting machine in his office), O’Brien finds nuances in the material and mines comedy with some facial tics and expressions along the way. By the midway point, he miraculously becomes a plausible romantic partner whose change of heart feels earned. The film relies on his chemistry and rapport with McAdams to work, and on that front, it’s a definite success.

Overall, Send Help isn’t top-tier Sam Raimi, but for a horror film devoid of supernatural elements — save for a few dream sequences that provide an excuse for zombies — he does a fine job of telling a story more focused on character and situation than usual. It perhaps lacks courage at certain moments, and the conclusion won’t work for everyone (though I enjoyed it), but it’s a focused and genuinely funny experience that’s a definite crowd-pleaser.

USA | 2026 | 113 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Sam Raimi.
writers: Damian Shannon & Mark Swift.
starring: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang & Dennis Haysbert.