"Send Help" Review: Just Some Gold, Old-Fashioned Movie Making

Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien make a dynamic duo in Sam Raimi's much-needed horror-comedy.

February 7, 2026

In middle school, there was “that” girl. She hissed at people as they walked by her in the hallway and sat in the back of class drawing pictures on her jeans. You thought she was weird, potentially even dangerous, but last Tuesday, you saw her at the supermarket with her two children buying pasta sauce and said to yourself, “Huh.”

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It’s never the “weird” ones you have to watch out for; they’re likely harmless. The ones you really have to be careful of are the ones who float in the middle. They don’t hiss, but they’ve never heard of conditioner. They don’t draw pictures on their pants, but they do shove unfinished tuna sandwiches into their desk drawers and talk to you with food on their face.

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Linda Little, one of the protagonists of Sam Raimi’s new horror-comedy, Send Help, is one such individual, and it's that choice that underlies why the movie, on the whole, works so well. In the beginning, she’s just your typical overqualified office worker with a zany disposition that puts off her coworkers. She’s a woman in a man’s world, promised a VP position by a guy who’s passed his company on to his misogynistic, douchebag son, Bradley, who interviews assistants as inevitable sexual partners (despite his engagement). She needs a comb and to make more considerate lunch choices, and perhaps to calm down a bit. You like her, but as insanely scummy as Bradley is, you agree with him when he tells Linda she won’t be getting the promotion. Nothing about her says “executive,” that she could close a deal. For God’s sake, she just shoved a tuna sandwich into her desk.

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We learn early on that she’s a massive fan of Survivor, even in its 47th season (yes, you are old), which explains how she’s able to so expertly navigate getting stranded on a deserted island with her asshole boss. When Bradley and his lemmings pull up her audition video and mock her as she sits mere feet away on the doomed aircraft, we hate him and feel for her, but also still sense that something’s off. She’d likely make fantastic television, but there’s something not quite right. Her video is overflowing with quirk, but not in a self-aware, wink-at-the-camera sort of way. She’s someone you’d likely hate to play the game with, or work with, and probably wouldn’t want to promote.

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If Linda was Ms. Hissy or Bradley too raging a jerk, they’d feel too much like caricatures for the film’s premise to work. When they’re stranded on a deserted island together, we’d find her off-putting, and he’d be too obnoxious to endure. But tempered, they’re a duo well-equipped for some raucous laughs in a film that’s all too rare in modern Hollywood: an original idea executed well.

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Of course, genre-blending is always tricky, especially when the genres are polar opposites. Romance and comedy are easy: who hasn’t made a fool of themselves in the pursuit of love? But horror and comedy? Sadly, Raimi’s perhaps too old-fashioned to pull off that balancing act. In its horrific moments, it relies on darkness and jump scares, which, while effective, are the cheapest way to accomplish your goal. It isn’t atmospheric, which is a shame, because a deserted island is designed for that kind of horror. Raimi smartly chose to make the island beautiful but not overly picturesque, making it clear that Linda’s desire to remain is born from her lunacy, but the sharp choices with setting end there. The film’s humor, though on the money when it really hits, is too unevenly distributed, and you wish there had been more of it because it’s truly the film’s bread and butter.

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Still, Send Help is well-paced and consistently entertaining, and for one (or two, depending on how you look at it) reason: Rachel McAdams is so good, as is O’Brien. The pair’s comedic timing, whether with resuscitating vomit or weird drunk guffawing, is impeccable. The film’s WTF moments are sold by their chemistry and skill. It’s heartwarming, in a bizarre sense, to see them both pull this off so expertly. O’Brien has roots in silly MTV supernatural dramas and piss-poor YA adaptations, and while McAdams has an Oscar nod and an iconic mean girl under her belt, she’s still under-regarded. It’s unlikely Send Help will become a box office megahit and reframe their career trajectories, but damn if it isn’t great to see them deliver by understanding the assignment so well. They have to be who they are, but not too much. Neither can be too much their character, or everything falls apart.

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Unfortunately, that very truth is ultimately why Send Help does fall apart in its final minutes. Although the film limply tries to sell us to the contrary, this is not a movie with any twists or turns (which is a good thing, by the way), so by the time all is revealed, neither character is likable enough for you to root for them. It forces a couple of last-minute angles the preceding action doesn’t justify, and isn’t particularly thrilling or frightening, or funny, so the whole thing goes limp. You know the entire time that only one of them is leaving the island, so if neither is going to be rootable in that respect, you at least have to give a brutal fight to the death. The final showdown certainly starts that way, but it derails under the assumption that Linda is someone we actually want to have “win,” so the ultimate conclusion - and how we arrive there - is disappointing. Ultimately, you just feel like Dylan O’Brien’s fantastic ass goes to waste (and jealous of McAdams for having beheld it in person).

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Still, it’s refreshing to find a movie that is exactly what you expect, where you get what you pay for, and are (mostly) satisfied by the end. It relies on its two stars to laugh-out-loud effect, is free from the restrictions of an existing IP, and is truly just an artist in the late stage of his career doing whatever the fuck he wants. It’s rare to find that sort of freedom and carefree joy in a movie theater nowadays, as the moviegoing experience becomes more niche and the majority of its participants sniff their own farts as they rave over whatever middling arthouse melodrama has captured them this week. Send Help is just good, unorthodox fun, and we sure do need a whole lot more of that.