Send Help, starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, is the quintessential Sam Raimi movie, teeming with every cheap thrill, cheaper gore and unexpected pop-up horror trick from his Evil Dead playbook. It is also the most genuine fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time.

Linda Liddle (McAdams), a dorky, unkempt financial strategist, is very hardworking and very, very adept at her job. However, her new boss, Bradley (O’Brien), the son of the former CEO of the company who inherited his father’s top seat, doesn’t see it that way. In fact, he’d rather not see anything at all from Linda.

Bradley is repulsed by her very existence. Linda, on the other hand, is very attracted to him. The relationship dynamic is strained and painful to watch in the best way possible; one just can’t take their eyes off the screen for one second.

The strain amplifies when Bradley is forced to take Linda on a boys’ business trip — all of them just as cruel to her, with Bradley playing the top douche — until the plane hits turbulence and cracks open mid-flight.

Director Sam Raimi’s Send Help is a fast, fun, campy experience that more than covers the price of popcorn and drinks

Linda washes up on an island and soon, so does Bradley. Thus begins the most warped war-of-the-roses between man and woman since Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner turned savages in Danny DeVito’s The War of the Roses.

Linda is a survivor who always had the guts and acumen to tame the environment. Bradley, on the other hand, is an incompetent wimp whose privileged upbringing would have made him a dead man as soon as he hit the island.

Linda, of course, is also a good soul. The script by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift never forgets that part. However, living with a man who hates your guts turns a woman scorned… and you know how that saying goes.

Send Help reminds me of Drag Me To Hell — another fun, Raimi horror movie where the scares happen in cheap pop-ups and not jump-scares. Raimi’s strict adherence to staying true to his Evil Dead roots, while keeping the film light and fun and serious at the same time, gives the film’s core half of its strength.

The other half comes courtesy of the screenwriters, McAdams and O’Brien. Both actors, in tune with their characters, nearly commandeer the screen with that lost Old-Hollywood charisma — though, there is never any doubt about who is running the show.

Seeing a director stick to his trademark is a rare feat these days; rarer still is delivering a fast, fun, campy experience that covers the price of the cinema’s popcorn and drinks three times over.

A 20th Century Studios and HKC release, Send Help is rated ‘A’ for adult audiences for gore and gruesomeness. I’d say for anyone above the age of 15 it’s good to go

The writer is Icon’s film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 22nd, 2026