‘Send Help’ Review

‘Send Help’ is the most Sam Raimi a Sam Raimi movie has felt since 2009’s ‘Drag Me to Hell’, with playful jump scares, fun camerawork, cartoony violence, and vomit and blood splattering people in the face in moments both horrifying and hilarious. While it drags a little in the second act, becoming a little repetitive in its cycles of trust and mistrust, ‘Send Help’ nevertheless delivers as a ‘Survivor’-infused horror comedy with incredible performances and a gruesome sense of humor.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a ‘Survivor’ enthusiast and a strategist at a high powered consulting company, who is amazing with numbers and not-so-amazing with people. After seeing men take credit for her work again and again, she hopes that a new CEO, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), will open up the opportunities so long denied to her. But when Bradley turns out to be more of the same, passing over Linda for a promotion in favor of an old fraternity brother, Linda realizes that the only future for her at this company is a never-ending string of humiliations. In hopes of stringing her along further and taking advantage of her talent and desperation, Dylan invites her on a business trip to Bangkok.

When the flight crashes, Linda and Bradley wash up on a deserted island, where Linda’s skills are the only thing that keeps them alive. Their fortunes reversed, the two coworkers embark on a life or death power struggle as they try to survive the elements and each other.

‘Send Help’ reminds me of the back half of Ruben Östlund’s 2022 satire ‘Triangle of Sadness’ in its exploration of how corporate power dynamics are inverted when a group of people finds themselves stranded far away from civilization, with survival the only occupation. While that film has a larger cast of characters, here we only have McAdams and O’Brien in a delirious cat and mouse battle to gain power over one another.

O’Brien seems to relish every detestable quirk of his misogynistic nepo baby of a CEO: exploiting Linda’s hard work, knowing he’ll never promote her; not-so-subtly requesting sexual favors from prospective secretaries; glaring at people who dare expect him to move.

While Dylan O’Brien is a delightful scumbag, Rachel McAdams elevates ‘Send Help’ far above similar genre fare. As Linda Liddle, McAdams is a character who comes face to face with corporate misogyny unjustly keeping her from the title and pay she rightly deserves. We sympathize with her plight, without necessarily liking the character. Linda is the kind of coworker everybody has experienced at some point: socially inept yet unjustifiably confident, inserting herself into every conversation, unable to read a single social cue no matter how obvious.

Once on the island, Linda’s confidence grows in real time as she recognizes that she possesses the only power that matters, the ability to survive, and she uses all of her cleverness, her ambition, her pent-up frustration to torment her boss endlessly. McAdams believably plays mousy and earnest, heartfelt and sentimental, vindictive and intimidating, creating a unique character who walks a fine line between sympathy and madness.

McAdams and O’Brien’s power struggle is the dramatic engine of the film. From scene to scene, the viewer is challenged to figure out who they trust, and whether these two characters trust each other. It’s a testament to the film and these strong performances that each character will have a moment doing something sadistic, only to illicit so much sympathy only moments later.

In a perfect world, ‘Send Help’ comes in at a brisk 90 minutes, but being stretched thin at almost 2 hours results in some plodding drama, with cycles of camaraderie and betrayal repeated again and again. Despite its overlong runtime, and some lackluster CGI scenes, ‘Send Help’ prioritizes fun over anything else and is elevated by Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien seemingly having the time of their lives.

Send Help
Rated R for strong/bloody violence and language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 53 minutes

Director Sam Raimi
Writers Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Stars Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien
Rating R
Running Time 113 Minutes
Genres Horror, Thriller