When Rob Reiner cast Kathy Bates in “Misery,” there was a sense that lightning had struck twice. Not just because Bates was unknown as an actor, but because Reiner truly understood how to use a performer’s perceived softness as its own weapon of suspense. The legendary film from 1990 hinges on Bates’ all-consuming transformation into Annie Wilkes, a mousy woman dismissed by the world only to reveal her vindictive nature when the rules collapse.
Sam Raimi’s “Send Help” operates in a similar register with a crucial, modern twist. Rachel McAdams is not a secret waiting to be unearthed. She’s an Oscar nominee (“Spotlight”), a romantic icon (“The Notebook”), and one of the great comedic villains of the 21st century (“Mean Girls”). Casting her opposite Dylan O’Brien in a two-hander survival horror-comedy might sound, on paper, like a miscalculation. Dropping a full-blown movie star into a role that demands humiliation, restraint, and a willingness to look foolish can backfire. But here, it’s a multiplying factor, and McAdams’ star power doesn’t flatten “Send Help” but electrifies it.
The most purely enjoyable Raimi film in years, the upcoming desert island debacle from 20th Century Studios is an ideal synthesis of the director’s career thus far. It’s got the gruesome ingenuity from his breakout debut, “The Evil Dead,” fused with the pop-comic precision that made him a revolutionary force for Sony’s original “Spider-Man.” Ghastly without being grim and morally queasy without being mean, “Send Help” delivers its biggest laughs and gasps through brilliantly managed physical suffering. That includes what may be Raimi’s finest puke gag since “Drag Me to Hell,” and a vintage gross-out approach to black comedy that’s executed with the confidence of someone who knows where to draw his line in the sand.
“Send Help”©20th Century Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection
Meet Linda Liddle (McAdams), a long-suffering corporate underling dragged on an international business trip after getting passed up for a promotion. Her new boss, Bradley Preston (O’Brien), is a passive-aggressive tyrant with “American Psycho” instincts. But boundless entitlement and a gift for micromanagement can’t save him when their plane crashes in the Gulf of Thailand. He and Linda are the only two survivors, and with HR nowhere to be found, that fact immediately flips their dynamic. The kind of boss who would crawl inside your abdomen instead of turning down the air-conditioning, Bradley suddenly can’t function without Linda. What’s worse, he’s got a bum leg and couldn’t outrun her (or any other threat) if he tried.
Raimi and screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (“Freddy vs. Jason,” “Friday the 13th,” “Baywatch”) waste no time turning the island into a pressure cooker. At first, the setting feels pulled from grounded survival dramas like “Cast Away” or “The Impossible.” But Linda, armed with decades of “Survivor” knowledge and the quiet competence of someone who’s always cleaning up other people’s messes, thrives with cartoonish joy. Shortly after washing ashore, she builds shelter, starts a fire, collects water, goes fishing, and adopts a breezy efficiency that borders on smug. Soon, she’s carved her name into a cup and woven herself a backpack: territorial gestures that mirror the small ways she once claimed space in the office.
Simultaneously, Bradley collapses in the absence of capitalism. He refuses to eat, complains about sunburn, and rejects the reality of the hell he’s living in with relentless tenacity. His attempts at survival are so inept they feel like a self-own, and the jungle’s creatures (rendered with goofy digital effects that are visually consistent enough to feel acceptable) seem to exist solely to punish him. The longer the torture goes on, the more “Send Help” starts to resemble Linda’s wish fulfillment. Caught somewhere between “Office Space” and “I Spit on Your Grave,” it’s a workplace nightmare stripped to its rawest, most relatable revenge components.
That’s where McAdams becomes indispensable. As Linda Liddle (a name that even sounds cut from the same cloth as Annie Wilkes), she’s still an impossibly luminous presence. Introduced trudging around her sad little apartment in an oversized robe, talking to a pet cockatiel, McAdams can’t hide who audiences know her to be. Even after colliding with Bradley on his first day as CEO and promptly spitting a tuna fish sandwich on him, Linda remains quietly glamorous and adorable. But McAdams’ performance is so rigorously committed that dissonance becomes the point and her oceanside glow-up steers the film’s second half.
“Send Help” ©20th Century Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection
Like Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Linda could sacrifice more of her dignity for her boss. But on some level, she chooses not to, and that restraint makes the island’s psychological games all the richer. Trapped but still killing it, Linda isn’t just retaliating; she’s recalibrating a balance that’s been wrong for years. When Bradley and his C-suite cronies mock her “Survivor” audition tape on the flight over, hot tears stream down Linda’s face. But by the time she’s standing over Bradley’s body on the beach, she’s radiant with capability, embodying a reversal of audience expectations that’s both satisfying and clever. In the end, McAdams’ sexiness isn’t incidental, but integral to how she’s been misjudged.
To his credit, O’Brien never overplays Bradley as the monster. Instead, he’s indifferent and greedy, brandishing a laziness that’s suffocating and a demeanor that’s innately manipulative. He’s the kind of man who thinks he’s charming because his employees can’t say no to him, and Raimi shows strong tonal control in how much he lets Linda punish him — allowing Bradley’s torment to feel earned rather than sadistic, even as he blubbers, vomits, and otherwise pays dearly. The parable that follows him could be ripped straight from “Tales from the Crypt,” offering a bold outline to a campy grudge match that shines brightest in its ethically gray framing.
“Send Help” walks a treacherous line between cruelty and catharsis and, despite the dicy subject matter, somehow never tips into nihilism. The violence is sharp, and the comedy is clean, with Raimi observing his world’s details with a hunter’s precision. Whether it’s Linda’s skin warming into a confident tan, or Bradley’s expensive dress shoes growing thick with grime, Raimi almost seems to sit alongside us, gently suggesting whose side we’re on and when. Conversations between Linda and Bradley play like a high-stakes battle of wits, but their director is never so far away as to make the match feel lawless.
The result — labor satire that hits without feeling like a prestige think piece — is uncanny in its timeliness. Linda’s isolated, bachelorette existence and the casual judgment she faces for it mirrors a world that’s increasingly hostile to women who choose to be single (though her backstory proves more complex than that). If “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” proved Raimi could juggle infinite self-referential, superhero jokes, “Send Help” applies that same dexterity to a more universally funny concept. In an era where originality struggles to be rewarded, this feels like a genuine studio win for genre fans.
The opposite of an endurance test, Raimi’s latest ultimately leaves you in a sense of glee. Crescendoing into a perfect punchline (one that satisfies whether you see it coming or not), Raimi doesn’t pull punches — but he doesn’t swing aimlessly either. Rather, he meets the audience’s blood lust with the rare survival thriller you wish would go on longer. Yes, the glossy aesthetic occasionally dulls the impact of the director’s more tactile sensibilities, and a few script contrivances stretch believability. Still, these are quibbles, not cracks, and they’re easy to ignore.
Wickedly lovable with the potential to be timeless, “Send Help” is controlled delirium microwaved on high heat. At 66, Raimi reminds us who he was when he made horror-comedy history with “Evil Dead II,” and more importantly, why his voice still matters. Watching McAdams snarl and strategize, you can practically imagine how much fun Raimi would’ve had handing her a chainsaw in the ’80s. He still splatters her with blood here, proving it’s never too late for the right collaboration, and that neither he nor McAdams should ever be underestimated.
Grade: A-
From 20th Century Studios, “Send Help” is in theaters January 30.
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