Send Help is thrilling, hilarious, and gruesome. This is a major crowd-pleaser and a good horror film for anyone wanting to dip their toe into the genre. Any queasiness is worth it to watch Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien give unforgettable performances and to be surprised by the final twist of this shocking film. 

Sam Raimi is back! Send Help is his latest film since Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and his first original film since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell. The trailer for Send Help was ubiquitous. I feel like I’ve seen it a thousand times, and yet I wasn’t prepared at all for the direction it was headed. The premise is simple. Bradley is the young, rude boss (Dylan O’Brien) who undervalues his awkward but kind subordinate, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams), in the workplace and disregards all her hard work. On a flight to a business meeting, their plane crashes, and they are the only two who survive. Bradley expects their working dynamic to carry over to the island they are stuck on, but Linda is the one with all the power here, as she is a survival expert. Their tension only builds from this point, with many twists and turns to keep the audience locked in to the film.

I am not a Sam Raimi expert by any means, but I’m dying to see more. While I had seen the Spider-Man films growing up, I never realized just how special they were. It wasn’t until I saw Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that I understood just how radical his directing style was. I didn’t even know that films could be so creatively captured (especially MCU films). Send Help is no different. Raimi is determined to make every shot and transition as exciting as possible. Without his stylish direction, the film wouldn’t be nearly as special as it is. Also, the tone of the film switches between scary and funny so often, yet he balances it perfectly. He directs McAdams and O’Brien right in the sweet spot between the two tones while simultaneously allowing them to maintain a looseness to their performances.

The quality of the film relies heavily on the hand-in-hand performances of McAdams and O’Brien. McAdams is selective with what films she chooses to star in, and she hasn’t been in a film since 2023’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. She previously collaborated with Raimi on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. I’m so thankful they must’ve connected on set, because she is excellent in Send Help. She portrays both the frumpy office worker and the badass survivalist with equal amounts of believability. The character of Linda Liddle is smart and eccentric, but she’s also joyful and kindhearted. McAdams’ comedic chops are as sharp as ever. Her sweet demeanor in Send Help is reminiscent of her performance in Game Night, which is now considered one of her most beloved performances. You can tell how much fun she is having, which, in turn, made me enjoy the film even more.

Dylan O’Brien is a 2010s heartthrob that I somehow never caught on to, which is surprising, knowing my teenage personality. Last year, when I saw Twinless, I immediately became a fan because of his brilliant performance. When I saw the trailer for Send Help and saw he was collaborating with Raimi, I knew I would be there opening night. O’Brien is utterly hilarious as the overly dramatic nepo-baby. The subtleties of his facial movements and his funny vocalizations put his performance over the top. Just like McAdams, O’Brien has his own delicate line to toe. He is automatically the asshole due to his frat bro mentality, but he has to be charming and emotionally aware enough that we root for his redemption. I’ve watched some earlier films in his filmography post-Twinless, and while I knew he was a good actor, creating a performance like this in a genre film is quite an accomplishment. I hope these great career choices continue.

One of the most surprising aspects of Send Help is how hilarious the film is. Nothing in the trailer even hints that humor is a major part of the film. This helped the gore feel more manageable to a scaredy cat like me. I was lucky enough to bring my mom to see the film, and she is a great indicator of how the general audience will react to a film. There were moments when she laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes. Yet somehow, it never takes away from how psychologically twisty and scary the film is. Send Help is the perfect movie to see right now. It feels so right to escape into this movie and see the privileged elite like Bradley actually struggle and face consequences.

While Send Help is fun and teeters into camp in some scenes, one aspect that stuck with me was how Linda was portrayed in the pre-crash scenes of the film. Linda is characterized as being so dowdy and ungainly that Bradley’s refusal to promote her to VP is not fully without merit. Her appearance and deportment are below the expectations of executives in a Fortune 500 company. There was no need to make Linda so unkept. Simply rooting their issues in Bradley’s sexist mindset would’ve been enough to get the audience to feel sympathy for Linda. While I don’t think it was intentionally written to be misogynistic, the decision to write Linda that way has undertones of it. Both writers and the director are men, so it’s easy to see why it never passed through their minds.

On a positive note, writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon do a great job balancing which character the audience is feeling sympathy for throughout the film. Linda gets her chance to stick it to Bradley a few times, and she doesn’t stay the meek woman she was at the beginning of the film, yet Bradley gets to have a few emotional scenes as well. The main purpose of Send Help is entertainment, but it subtly makes a point about hoping someone changes for the better, no matter how much they resist it. Also, there are so many gross and nasty moments of various bodily fluids, all of which made my stomach churn (in a positive way). The makeup team did a great job with our two leads. The only major knock against the film is how fake the visual effects appear. The plane crash and even parts of the island itself just felt artificial. Although there was one moment when Linda was hunting an animal in the forest that made me grateful that the visual effects looked rough in that scene, because it lessened the pity I felt for her prey.

January is typically a rough month to release a new film, but between 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and now Send Help, horror is spoiling us moviegoers this month. The title “Send Help” sounds blasé, but the film is anything but. Send Help is thrilling, hilarious, and gruesome. This is a major crowd-pleaser and a good horror film for anyone wanting to dip their toe into the genre. I recommend all viewers have a strong stomach because Send Help is unafraid to put its audience through the wringer. Any queasiness is worth it to watch McAdams and O’Brien give unforgettable performances and to be surprised by the final twist of this shocking film. 

Grade: B+

Oscars Prospects:
Likely: None
Should Be Considered:

Where to Watch: In Theaters