Send Help Review: Rachel McAdams Is Delightfully Unhinged In Sam Raimi's Bloody Horror Comedy

Movies were invented so Sam Raimi could get a little silly, and the maestro is back in top form with "Send Help." Raimi burst onto the scene with his low-budget cult-favorite "Evil Dead" films before graduating to bigger blockbusters like the "Spider-Man" trilogy and that "Wizard of Oz" prequel with James Franco that no one remembers even though it made a bajillion dollars.

While Raimi is most associated with horror, he's been a bit absent from the genre (at least in terms of directing) since 2009's wacky goo-fest "Drag Me to Hell." Meanwhile, he returned to blockbuster superhero flicks when he directed the sequel "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" in 2022. That film had some of Raimi's signature touches, but the filmmaker seemed a bit hobbled by the Marvel machine.

Now, he's decided to come back to the genre that made him famous with "Send Help," a delightfully nasty horror-comedy seemingly created so Rachel McAdams can let her freak flag fly. "Send Help" feels like a spiritual successor to "Drag Me to Hell," in that the film has an intentionally wonky "Looney Tunes" tone and is loaded with scenes where characters scream while blood (and other fluids) splash into their faces and open mouths. I don't think anyone is going to call this one of Raimi's best movies, but gosh, it's a lot of fun. Welcome back, Sam Raimi.

McAdams needs no introduction, as she's already built a steady, successful career. But no one has given her as much freedom as Raimi does here, allowing her to create a charmingly unhinged character that we can't help but root for. McAdams is Linda Liddle, a mousy, awkward, somewhat annoying numbers whiz who was promised a major promotion at the company where she's toiled away for almost a decade. Unfortunately, the head of the company died before promoting her, and now his jerk of a son, Bradley (Dylan O'Brien), has taken over.

Bradley is instantly turned-off by the socially inept Linda and decides to give her promised promotion to one of his college frat buddies instead. Linda is heartbroken but thinks she can change Bradley's mind, especially when she gets invited along on a business trip to Bangkok. Unfortunately, a horrific plane crash kills everyone on the flight — except Linda and Bradley, who wash up on a deserted island.

Bradley is injured in the crash, but even if he weren't, he'd still be rather helpless: he's a spoiled rich-kid who doesn't know to survive without access to his wealth. Linda, however, is a nerd who loves the long-running TV series "Survivor." She's even auditioned to be a contestant. This, coupled with knowledge she's gained from survival guide books, makes her uniquely prepared for this dire situation, and she almost instantly springs into action, building shelter, gathering water, and finding food while Bradley looks on, stunned. 

There are several directions this premise can go in, and Raimi, working with screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, goes in all of them. Will this turn into a modern riff on the Tom Hanks flick "Cast Away"? Will Linda and Bradley become "enemies-to-lovers," that popular romance-lit trope? Will they become friends who learn to appreciate each other? Will they hate each other's guts? Will they become murderous? The answer to all of those questions is, more or less, "yes." "Send Help" doesn't just want to be one thing, it want to be all the things, and Raimi and his two leads are clearly having a hell of a time cutting loose.

All of this might get real old, real fast, were it not for Raimi's stylish tricks (the man loves an uncomfortable close-up!) and McAdams and O'Brien matching each other's freak. McAdams' Linda is the real focus here, becoming increasingly deranged (and blood-drenched) as the saga unfolds, but O'Brien is just as good. The actor, who recently gave one of the best performances of his career in the dark comedy "Twinless," manages to find ways to make Bradley, a rude sexist jerk who can't handle the idea of a woman being in charge of his survival, both detestable and somewhat sympathetic (at least up until a point).

Shannon and Swift's script is also more clever than you might anticipate, finding ways to keep things interesting by unveiling a slew of twists and turns. You might be able to predict where some of these twists are going, but that doesn't diminish how entertaining they end up being. And through it all, Raimi keeps finding new ways to play the hits (at one point he has a Deadite-like ghoul deliver a nightmare jumpscare just because he can).

While "Drag Me to Hell" made the most of its PG-13 rating, "Send Help" is firmly R, which allows Raimi to drown McAdams and O'Brien in fake blood on multiple occasions, with hilarious results. "Send Help" is never scary in any sense of the word, but that doesn't diminish the film's charms, all of which are aided by a playful score from frequent Raimi collaborator Danny Elfman.

Raimi has done far better thing than this (see: "A Simple Plan," a full-blown masterpiece that doesn't get the love and respect it deserves, or even his gonzo Western "The Quick and the Dead"), but that doesn't change the fact that "Send Help" is a blast to watch in all its goofy glory. Sure, the film stumbles a bit — there's a few instances of CGI blood that immediately took me out of the movie, and the final moments, while successful, feel a touch rushed.

And yet, I had oodles of fun watching Raimi go wild and give McAdams a chance to play the type of unhinged weirdo she hasn't really played before. This is the type of sturdy, bloody, silly January genre programmer we need on the big screen again.

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10

"Send Help" opens in theaters on January 30, 2026.