- Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien, Dennis Haysbert
- February 5th 2026
- 113
- Sam Raimi
Rachel McAdams plays a disgruntled employee who washes up on a desert island with her sexist boss after a plane crash.
Rachel McAdams has been away from our screens for three years, but now she’s back with a bang in Sam Raimi’s horror-comedy Send Help.
She plays Linda Liddle, a loyal strategy and planning employee who has been promised a promotion for several years.
However, the promotion is given to a younger, less experienced man when her boss’s son Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) takes over the firm.
Soon after, they go on a work trip to Bangkok, Thailand and endure a plane crash. When they are the only two passengers to wash up on a deserted island, their roles and power dynamics are reversed.
As a long-time fan of the reality TV show Survivor, Linda knows exactly how to make shelter and fire, obtain drinking water and catch food, while the once-powerful Bradley is injured, hopeless, and weak. He hates how much he needs her help and how easy she makes it look.
Linda isn’t just surviving; she’s living her best life and has transformed from a dowdy, messy employee to a powerful, confident warrior.
She is in charge, the hunter-gatherer and provider, and Bradley doesn’t like it one bit – especially when it becomes clear Linda has no intention of leaving.
Send Help is a highly entertaining survival thriller with interesting power dynamic shifts, hilarious moments and plenty of gore, violence and disgusting moments that might make you feel queasy.
Screenwriters Mark Swift and Damian Shannon impressively manage to sustain a 115-minute movie that is mostly just two former enemies trying to get along with each other to survive.
While you’ll probably be on Team Linda at the beginning, your allegiance to her will be tested over the course of the movie after she makes some questionable choices (Bradley does too).
It’s not perfect, though. Some of the decisions regarding Linda don’t feel true to her character towards the end, the CGI is of rather poor quality, and the film didn’t need to be so long. The ending is also sure to divide viewers.
It’s a delight to see McAdams back on-screen, especially in such an unexpected role and film. She should do more horrors and comedies because she seems to be having a blast here.
O’Brien is responsible for a lot of the laughs because he really commits to playing the pathetic loser and making himself look silly.
Send Help is a fun, original film with plenty of Evil Dead director Raimi’s hallmarks. It delivers on the laughs and violence, but some of the character decisions don’t ring true.
In cinemas from Thursday 5th February
By Hannah Wales
© Cover Media