ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — “Send Help” stars Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien as workplace rivals stuck on a paradisiacal island turned deadly hunting ground. After 17 years away from the genre, “Evil Dead” director Sam Raimi returns to his roots with a fantastically campy piece of horror filmmaking. Read our review below.

“SEND HELP” (2026, 113 min., directed by Sam Raimi)

In “Send Help,” McAdams plays Linda Liddle, a frumpish corporate strategist for a finance company run by Bradley Preston, a fratty CEO played by O’Brien. Linda was promised a promotion by Bradley’s dad, but after Bradley takes over the company, he passes her over for one of his toadies. Thus begins what appears to be a “Devil Wears Prada”-esque war of the workplace.

Raimi being Raimi, however, “Send Help” gets a little more devilish than mere masthead animosity.

Unlike Raimi’s other scary movies, “Send Help” kept its horror cards close to the chest for longer than I expected. For the first 20 minutes, the most horrifying thing in it is an extreme close-up of a glob of tuna fish stuck to McAdams’ lip. Instead, the film chooses to build a relationship between the audience and its protagonist over building toward scares.

After her office rejection at the beginning of the film, we follow Linda home, witnessing her single life as a parakeet mom – he feeds her bird, Sweetie, like a mama bird, which is also a little horrifying, come to think of it – and devotee of the TV show “Survivor.”

Watch the “Send Help” trailer

McAdams is the queen of eliciting empathy for her characters through sheer force of likability. As uncomfortably awkward as Linda is, the earnestness inherent to McAdams makes it impossible not to root for her.

After petitioning Bradley for a second chance at her promotion, Linda is invited to join her new boss and his lackeys on a plane ride to Thailand, where the macabre factor of the film takes off. Literally. Whilst in the air, Linda is again humiliated by Bradley, who has discovered her clumsy “Survivor” audition tape, which he shows his buddies to snickers and snorts. The bullies are swiftly punished for their behavior, however, when the plane is torn apart by a storm. The only survivors of the plane crash, Linda and Bradley wash up on a desert island.

Trouble in paradise

Once on the island, “Send Help” casts off its “Office Space” aspersions, quickly settling into a twisty, gross and gut-busting blend of “Castaway” and the vomitous delights of “Drag Me to Hell,” Raimi’s previous outing as a horror director.

The careful character set-up of the first act pays off in spades. Thanks to the “Survivor” exposition at the beginning of the film, Linda’s transformation into a survival guru feels incredibly natural. McAdams plays the shift from hapless to experienced perfectly, sprinkling more confidence into Linda’s personality the more success she achieves. McAdams imbues the island version of her character with a blend of Cinderella, Zaroff and Miranda Priestly, but never deviates from her core as a generally sensitive personality.

Bradley, meanwhile, starts the movie mean and only grows more deranged as it goes along. In the crash, the boss took a nasty injury to the leg, forcing him to rely on the employee he dismissed. O’Brien depicts Bradley’s surrender of control to his female subordinate like a man grappling with insanity, which is admittedly broad satire of toxic masculinity. The tone O’Brien strikes for his character is entirely over-the-top, but it completely works for Raimi’s silly sensibilities. When O’Brien whips out his maniacal chortle or drops in a muscular pratfall, you can imagine the director laughing behind the camera.

The cartoonishness of “Send Help” is a major part of its success. I watched it in 3D, an often hit-or-miss experience, but one that hits, hits, hits in “Send Help.” The format amplifies the gonzo energy of the movie. With its big expressions, slapstick gags and combative characters, “Send Help” often feels like a Bugs Bunny short, but one caked in blood, barf and CGI boars. One of the most hysterically funny scenes in “Send Help” pits McAdams against a very angry, very snotty pig, which makes the best case for the wonders of 3D since the first “Avatar.”

If you want it, there is some thematic material to mine in “Send Help,” especially regarding workplace dynamics, gender roles and inherited trauma. However, setting its satirical elements aside, it works just as well as a twisty thriller. The film is endlessly unpredictable and so much fun.

Let’s put it this way. I would never want to be stuck on a desert island with Bradley and Linda, but if it’s anything like “Send Help,” I would take another vacation with Raimi, McAdams and O’Brien in a heartbeat.

Rating: 4.5/5

“Send Help” is now playing in theaters nationwide.