‘Send Help’ Review: A Fun and Twisted Descent Into Savagery

There are few horrors more universal than being stuck with your toxic boss—and Send Help wastes no time turning that fear into a survivalist nightmare. Marooned on an island in the Gulf of Thailand, a timid office nerd and an egotistical CEO are the only survivors of a terrible plane crash. What happens when corporate hierarchy is stripped away, and the power-play dynamics are inadvertently switched? 

It’s an audaciously savage setup, one that befits Sam Raimi’s long-awaited return to the horror genre. For the past few decades, the director had rarely been able to indulge in original passion projects. In the early 2000s, Raimi helmed the original Spider-Man trilogy, dabbled in fantasy with Oz the Great and Powerful in 2013, and returned to the comic-book genre once again with 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 

For fans who yearned for Raimi’s gonzo blend of absurdist horror, dark comedy, and campy elements as seen in Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell, Send Help is the return to form that plays on the director’s strengths. Equal parts survival thriller, workplace satire, and cautionary tale, it’s a gleefully sadistic feature that will surprise you at every turn.

[Minor spoilers ahead!]

TO KILL OR NOT TO KILL

The plot of Send Help perfectly sets up a wicked disaster waiting to happen. No one wants to spend time with their boss outside of work, let alone on a deserted island where he’s also a misogynist menace. 

After all, Linda Liddle (played by a gloriously deyassified Rachel McAdams) has been through the woodworks with her jerk of a boss. Linda is a mousy and hardworking employee in the strategy and planning department who is excellent at her job, so much so that her previous boss was going to promote her to vice president of the company. 

However, all that goes down the gutter when odious nepo-baby Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) takes over the company and decides to hand over the promotion to his equally insufferable frat brother, Donovan (Xavier Samuel). The awful office politics only continue. Colleagues take credit for her work, she’s often shamed or judged for her frumpy appearance, and Bradley even tells her she’s not passing the VP vibe check because she doesn’t play golf.

From the moment they are marooned on the island, this dynamic is instantly flipped. Linda, armed with survivalist know-how and tricks thanks to her die-hard obsession with the reality programme, Survivor, is thriving on the island, whilst Bradley is rendered useless due to his ineptitude and banged-up leg.

More of a psychological thriller than a straight-up horror, the first half of Send Help is a delicious slow burn, with the subverted power dynamics keeping us on our toes.  

The mood switches between tense and nervous, where it feels like they’re really going to kill each other, to friendly and even sweet at times, as Linda and Bradley share some personal stories over the campfire. But Raimi never allows us to be comfortable for long, as character motivations change on a dime, and you’re left constantly guessing if the niceties are hinting at a genuine friendship or hiding something sinister.

The third act is much more direct as both protagonists finally reach their limits and descend into savagery à la Lord of the Flies. It’s no longer about surviving the island but surviving each other. This heady momentum leads to an explosion of violence that feels both cruel and cathartic; indulgently gnarly in the way Raimi knows how.

(UN)LIKEABLE CHARACTERS

As my favourite TV show, Lost, has taught me, the island can change you for the better or for the worse. In the case of Send Help, it’s both. McAdams has established herself as a comedy star (Mean Girls, Game Night), romantic icon (The Notebook, About Time), and inspiring heroine (Spotlight, Red Eye), but her performance as Linda Liddle, a meek and mild-tempered numbers cruncher with a questionable moral compass, is a revelation. 

McAdams does a great job of making us feel connected to Linda. It’s hard to imagine the actress as anything but beautiful and charismatic, but McAdams imbues her trademark warmth through all of Linda’s awkwardness and occasional social faux pas, making her a painfully relatable and tangible character to root for…at least in the first half.

Linda’s transformation from timid and overlooked to a force of nature on the island is captivating to watch. Shortly after washing ashore, she builds a shelter, collects fresh water, catches fish, and even weaves herself a backpack out of palm leaves with breezy efficiency. 

But the longer she’s on the island, the more this transformation turns into a terrifying evolution. Awe soon turns into fear. Where do we draw the line between saviour and captor? McAdams commits to this suspenseful duality with relish and lip-smacking hunger.

Meanwhile, O’Brien delivers the perfect performance as the smug and douchey boss who mansplains his way around the boardroom and the beach, even after being saved by Linda. It’s easy to turn his character into a cartoonish caricature, but O’Brien imbues just the right amount of annoying charm and suffocating vanity that makes him a thrill to watch. 

Beneath the veneer of basic office pleasantries and campfire stories, the two are constantly engaged in a psychological game of cat and mouse, prey and predator. Power shifts like the tide as they weasel in and out of each other’s good graces. There are no heroes or villains in this story, just two people becoming the most destructive versions of themselves in the battle for supremacy. With both McAdams and O’Brien clearly revelling in the unsavouriness of their characters, they deliver a violently entertaining two-hander horror-comedy.

VISUALS

If you’re a fan of Raimi’s work, then you’ll be happy to know that Send Help has all the classic Raimi signature over it. The director is just as much a character in this film as McAdams and O’Brien are with his distinctive visual style. 

From the indulgent yuckiness of the special effects (yes, there is a projectile vomiting scene because duh!) and twisted violence that is almost over-the-top for what the scene calls for to the dark comedy that erupts at strange moments, you Send Help is Raimi in his most sadistically gleeful state. 

In saying that, it is noticeable that Raimi is depending much more on CGI rather than practical effects compared to his previous horror flicks. With the filming taking place on location in Thailand and Australia, some of the clearly computer-generated graphics of wildlife (a certain boar scene comes to mind) look terrible and contribute to the silliness of the film in not the best way.

FINAL VERDICT

Overall, it’s great to see Raimi return to form with Send Help. In a lusty mix of Cast Away and Triangle of Sadness, the survival thriller delivers an irreverent and off-kilter two-hander with blood-soaked humour. While the final act stumbles slightly with a few plot contrivances that stretch the film’s logic a little too far and arrive at a predictable end, these are flaws that ultimately have minimal damage to its overall enjoyability.

The director’s command of tone, coupled with two ferociously committed performances, ensures Send Help hits all the right beats of a classic Raimi film. Just don’t let your toxic boss see it. Or, maybe do…

Final rating: 7/10

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