The poster for the new dark-comedy, psychological-thriller, genre-bending island survival flick Send Help initially made me think “Oh, this is another Sam Raimi horror film.” How wrong I was, and I hope they aren’t sending the wrong message to others because this movie is its own bag, a complete delight to watch and a battle of the wits (and witless) between an underappreciated employee and her dip-sh*t boss who suddenly find the tables turned on their corporate relationship in hilarious and yes harrowing ways.
Although Raimi, as the ads reinforce, is responsible for horror classics like Drag Me to Hell and The Evil Dead, his filmography is remarkably balanced from Spider-Man and Doctor Strange to Westerns, comedies, thrillers — you name it, he’s done it. For me, Send Help is such a crowd-pleasing success because he’s put it all together with elements of a number of different genres, and it can’t be defined by any one of them. Think a mashup of everything from Misery to Lost to Triangle of Sadness to two-hander Golden Age classics like Heaven Knows Mr. Allison and The African Queen, to even 9 to 5, and you will get an idea of what you are in for.
But first and foremost, Send Help from a smart and funny screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift is an original and wildly entertaining to watch thanks in large part to seeing Rachel McAdams tear up the screen in one of her best if not her best role to date.
McAdams plays the plucky Linda Liddle, a valuable but unnoticed asset to making the wheels turn at a consulting firm as a strategy and planning exec. She had been promised a big promotion just before her late boss died but now is overlooked by the new boss, his smarmy son Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), who makes fun of her quirkiness with his stuck-up male colleagues and instead promotes one of them who had only been there six months. Still, she knows all the answers, so to placate her and let her “prove herself” he lets her come along with them on a business trip to Bangkok where he quietly plans to then transfer her out of his sight. On the flight the plane encounters a vicious storm, tears apart and crashes. Only Linda and Bradley — the latter with a badly injured, immobile leg — survive, washed up on a tropical deserted island seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
In no time we see the dynamics change between these two. Linda, a huge fan of Survivor, proves incredibly skilled at bonding with nature and survivalist techniques, while Bradley is at a complete loss. In fact, she nurses him back from the brink of death, keeps him alive with her unique hunting (an encounter with a wild boar is hysterical), fishing and cooking abilities, and gets no appreciation from the boss whose only suggestion is that they put some kind of makeshift raft together and float out to sea in hopes of being rescued.
It is a cat and mouse game throughout with this mismatched pair, but this scenario doesn’t go in traditional movie patterns if you think it is going to turn into one of those “opposites attract” tales. It assuredly isn’t, and in fact Raimi and his writers are not afraid to take us right to the edge of credibility only to reel us back in and to switch sympathies back and forth between the pair. Linda can be a little too nuts at times. Bradley, on the other hand gains,some empathy telling his sad-sack story growing up with his parents including an often absent father. And then when you think you know these two, it zigzags again, complications arrive, the tone gets dark (very dark) and Raimi gets to use his horror bona fides, but just a bit. Again this is not a horror movie, but it is a swell one.
McAdams is simply terrific in navigating the journey of this character and she never misses a beat. I can’t say enough about the dimension she brings to the kind of goofy personality she inhabits but never lets it sail over the top. O’Brien is smart not to come off as a pure Dabney Coleman-esque villainous boss, but rather is just an unlikable smug guy who inherited the job, didn’t earn it, and thinks he knows a lot more than he actually does. Most of the supporting cast is gone after the plane crashes, but Edyll Ismail, playing a model who is Bradley’s fiancée, gets some key moments. Enough said.
Shot in both Australia and Thailand, the locations are gorgeous and production values high. Send Help is the first movie gem of 2026, a devilish treat and welcome respite from the real world. It’s a pleasure.
Producers are Raimi and Zainab Azizi.
Title: Send Help
Distributor: 20th Century Studios/Disney
Release date: January 30, 2026
Director: Sam Raimi
Screenwriters: Damian Shannon and Mark Swift
Cast: Rachel Mc Adams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Dennis Haysbert, Thaneth Wanahulnukroh, Emma Raimi
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr 53 mins
