Send Help review – Rachel McAdams badly miscast in Sam Raimi’s survival horror | Films | Entertainment

Evil Dead and Spider-Man trilogies director Sam Raimi returns to his unique take on horror with Send Help.

The trailers promised a pretty dark take on the genre, when in reality it’s much lighter and comic than is being sold.

Rachel McAdams stars as Linda Liddle, a workhorse strategist at a financial management company who is overlooked for promotion by her entitled nepobaby of a CEO, Bradley Preston, played by Dylan O’Brien.

The leading lady, reteaming with Raimi after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, is a superb actress but her skills can’t hide how wildly miscast she is in this particular picture.

McAdams is a gorgeous Hollywood star trying to pass for a frumpy, awkward 40-something singleton, who everyone in the office is nasty to for no particular reason other than wearing grey cardigans and eating tuna sandwiches.

Sure, Raimi’s zany touch somewhat displaces realism for comic purposes, but the suspension of disbelief still ends up dropping from the outset.

After a jarringly awkward office-based opening that even Raimi’s signature crash zooms and extreme close-ups struggle to keep from being irritating, the two leads are off on a private jet for a work trip. Joined by some other cartoonishly horrible colleagues who bully Linda, it’s not long before the pair end up being the only survivors of a plane crash near a desert island. In a Triangle of Sadness-style power-dynamic swap, suddenly an injured Bradley is reliant on Linda, who just so happens to be a survival expert. (Again, how does that fit with her already established character?) It’s not long before she’s built a Disney-fied Swiss Family Robinson shelter on the beach, and the two are forced to work together. Only thing is, unbeknownst to her boss, Linda decides to avoid rescue on purpose so she can prolong the newfound respect she’s been getting from him.

As usual, with Raimi’s comic-horror, there are some very funny over-the-top blood and vomit moments, and the plot progresses in an entertaining enough way. But Mark Swift and Damian Shannon’s script is all over the place to the point of irritation and unbelievability. The film seems more interested in making a point than telling a coherent story, leaving the viewer with an unsatisfying ending. It’s all rather silly and not in a good way.

Send Help is in cinemas from February 5, 2026.