Send Help (2026)

Meet Linda Liddle … She’s from strategy and planning. She’s the boss now.

Genres have a funny way of circling back to their rawest instincts. They rise, fall, get reinvented, stretched thin, then are resurrected again — sometimes by the very people who helped define them in the first place. Horror has had its prestige era, its elevated era, its arthouse glow-up … but every now and then, it’s nice to see a filmmaker grab the camera, throw us into the dirt, and remind audiences what messy, gleeful genre filmmaking actually looks like. That’s where Sam Raimi comes in. After dabbling in studio spectacle with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Raimi comes roaring back with Send Help, a stranded-island horror ride splattered with the manic energy that got him his name in the first place. And while this isn’t quite Evil Dead levels of full-throttle insanity, it lands closer to Drag Me to Hell (2009): Raimi back in his element, splashing around in blood, bile, black comedy, and pure, mischievous delight.

The setup is deliciously simple. Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is an intelligent, long-overlooked corporate employee, stuck under the thumb of her arrogant boss Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), a nepotistic CEO-in-training who embodies every workplace nightmare in human form. When a company trip to Thailand goes catastrophically wrong, their private plane crashes during a storm, leaving Linda and Bradley as the only survivors on a remote island. No rescue teams. No coworkers. No comfort. Just sand, hunger, fear … and each other. At first, survival is the priority: food, shelter, water. But as the days stretch on, Send Help becomes less about nature versus humanity and more about something sharper — a battle of ego, resentment, shifting power dynamics, and psychological warfare between two people who would rather die than admit the other might be useful. It’s Cast Away by way of workplace satire, filtered through Raimi’s twisted grin.

“So … about that promotion.”

The best thing about Send Help is simply this: Sam Raimi is having fun again. And so are we. From the moment the film starts leaning into his trademark “Raimi-isms” — hyperactive camera moves, sudden POV shots, aggressive close-ups, kinetic editing — it becomes instantly clear this isn’t some anonymous genre exercise shot on autopilot. This is a Raimi joint. And with that, he packs the movie with gleeful gross-out gags, sudden bursts of violence, and the kind of tonal whiplash he’s always thrived on.

One minute we’re watching two people scrape by in desperation — the next we’re wincing at something squishy, sharp, or wildly unpleasant. An early tuna fish moment is pushed to maximum disgust. A wild boar encounter escalates into full creature-feature, blood-soaked mayhem, Raimi’s POV mania cranked all the way up. Then, when it feels like things can’t possibly get any nastier, he lands a perfectly revolting vomit gag that had the audience squirming. And just when it seems the film might settle into survival mode, he can’t resist tossing in a classic horror jolt: a ghoulish, blink-fast jump scare straight out of his old playbook. It’s grim. It’s funny. It’s nasty. Even when the film veers into absurdity, Raimi’s confidence keeps it electrifying — a reminder that few directors can still make horror feel this physical, unpredictable, and alive, blending laughter, dread, and revulsion in the same breath.

The splatter factor is alive and well.

Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who previously penned 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason, Send Help doesn’t settle for a simple survival tale. Instead, it keeps shifting. Just when the film seems like it’s one thing — man vs. nature — it becomes something else entirely: woman vs. boss. Then it pivots again, sliding into psychological breakdown, moral revenge, and a series of unexpected reversals. Comparisons to Cast Away (2000), Misery (1990), and even Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness (2022) have been inevitable, but the film takes those familiar deserted-island ingredients and twists them into something nastier, funnier, and far more Raimi. The story is full of turns that keep the tension alive, even when it isn’t always clear where it’s heading next. Raimi isn’t afraid to throw in the occasional left-field shock, either — including a wince-inducing moment involving a blue-ringed octopus that had the screening audibly squirming. Sometimes it threatens to go a little too far, but that unpredictability is part of the ride — and very much part of Raimi’s mischievous appeal.

Underneath the gore and the madness, Send Help has teeth — and it has a devilish time sinking them in. This is a movie about power: who has it, who loses it, and what happens when corporate hierarchies evaporate overnight. Linda and Bradley’s relationship becomes a grim (and often darkly amusing) parable about sexism, entitlement, and social roles, with Raimi clearly enjoying the push-and-pull of watching these dynamics collapse in real time. The island strips everything down to raw humanity, forcing both characters to confront what they are without titles, money, or systems protecting them. Survival becomes less about simply staying alive and more about what kind of person emerges when there’s nothing left to hide behind.

She’s not stranded. She’s strategizing.

Visually, Send Help is striking. Cinematographer Bill Pope — a Raimi regular — captures the island with sun-bleached beauty and creeping menace. Wide shots make the landscape feel isolating and endless, while Raimi’s signature close-ups trap us in every grimace, injury, and moment of panic. The picture constantly swings between “this place is paradise” and “this place will kill you.” And hovering above it all is Danny Elfman’s score, a welcome reunion. Elfman brings nervous energy, dark whimsy, and escalating dread, perfectly matching Raimi’s tonal balancing act. It’s genuinely great to hear Raimi and Elfman together again, like a horror symphony clicking back into place.

Rachel McAdams is really solid here. There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing her tap back into that sharp-edged intensity — a hint of Mean Girls venom weaponized for horror survival. Linda is also framed as a survival nerd of sorts — a Survivor obsessive with enough enthusiasm (and absorbed know-how) that, once the situation turns real, she’s far more prepared than anyone expects. She’s funny, furious, vulnerable, and terrifyingly capable, and McAdams goes all the way with it. Dylan O’Brien is equally strong, playing Bradley as a smug corporate parasite who gradually becomes unglued as control slips from his hands. He’s obnoxious by design, but O’Brien lets small flashes of vulnerability leak through once the veneer starts to crack. Their chemistry is vicious. It works best when it’s just the two of them bouncing off each other, swinging between dark comedy and genuine menace as the island turns their dynamic into something brutal, unpredictable, and perversely entertaining.

Synergy has left the chat.

Smaller roles around the margins add some extra texture. Xavier Samuel makes an impression as Donovan, the conniving colleague who takes credit for Linda’s work — a smug corporate snake who exists purely to embody everything she’s been overlooked for back at the office. Edyll Ismail pops up as Zuri, Bradley’s fiancée, a brief but welcome presence that helps flesh out the world beyond the island before the film strips everything down to its brutal two-hander. And Raimi fans, of course, will be smiling at the inevitable Bruce Campbell appearance — a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as Bradley’s father and company founder, slipped in with the kind of cheeky ease only Raimi can manage.

Send Help is messy, mean, funny, and frequently gross — a nasty stranded nightmare that feels like Sam Raimi cracking his knuckles and remembering exactly what kind of filmmaker he is. It won’t work for everyone. The characters are intentionally abrasive, and the ending is bound to divide audiences. But as a piece of modern Raimi genre fare? It’s a blast. Because sometimes cinema doesn’t need to be polite. Sometimes it doesn’t need to save anyone at all. Sometimes the “help” never comes — and that’s exactly where Raimi has the most fun.

4 / 5 – Recommended

Reviewed by Dan Cachia (Mr. Movie)

Send Help is distributed by 20th Century Fox Australia