With Send Help, Sam Raimi reminds us that he is a master at balancing horror and comedy, turning a simple scenario into a great movie experience. 

Rachel McAdams is Linda Liddle, a hardworking, intelligent employee from strategy and planning who is overlooked by her superiors and mocked by her co-workers. She’s mousey and socially awkward, but resourceful and ambitious, something highlighted by her love of the outdoors and dream of competing on Survivor.

She’s invited on a business trip with her new handsome but smarmy prick of a boss, Bradley (Dylan O’Brien), who is repulsed by her very presence and plans to exploit her hard work and fire her. 

But as fate would have it, their private jet goes down, and the two find themselves stranded on a deserted island. Now Linda’s skills are the only thing keeping them alive, and as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson once said, the hierarchy of power is about to change. 

Send Help is economic in scale with a bare-bones premise from writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, and the entire focus centers on our two main characters. It’s a brilliant move because it allows McAdams and O’Brien to really flex their skills and Raimi to bring his trademark horror comedy fun to the filmmaking. 

O’Brien is fantastic at being just the worst dude. Bradley is every narcissistic tech bro and nepo baby rolled into one, but he’s never a complete idiot. He may be spoiled and incompetent, but he’s manipulative in a way that feels very true to the type of sociopaths who usually succeed in the world.

McAdams is the true star of the film, making Linda lovable but just psychotic enough to be terrifying. In our post-Luigi dystopia, who wouldn’t want the opportunity to turn the tables on their horrible boss? Linda is easy to root for, but also just unhinged enough to give a Misery vibe that hits a great balance between comedy and horror.

Similar to Triangle of Sadness, the film throws our characters into a survival situation in which the class and privilege that created such stringent lines of power become irrelevant, and the wealthy suddenly see the value of those they’ve dismissed. Because it’s Raimi, it’s also filled with over-the-top gore and lots of fun twists. 

Send Help is an ideal film to watch with a crowd in a packed theater because it brings the laughs and the gasps in an old-school horror way that is perfect for a communal experience. Raimi loves gooey, gloopy, gross moments that make us squirm and then burst out laughing at the extremity of the situation, and Send Help is filled with tension, horror moments, and enough wild twists to make it a total blast.