Overview: In Send Help, two colleagues become stranded on a deserted island, the only survivors of a plane crash. On the island, they must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it’s an unsettling, darkly humorous battle of wills and wits to make it out alive.

Verdict: Send Help is a survival horror with teeth and a scathing takedown of corporate power wrapped in a sun-soaked nightmare.

Send Help is proof, if there was ever any doubt, that Sam Raimi is fully back and having an absolute blast. This is horror dragged straight into the corporate world, then tossed onto a deserted island, shaken violently, and laughed at while it bleeds. The result is one of the most entertaining, uncomfortable, and surprisingly sharp survival thrillers in recent memory.

The setup is deceptively simple. Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is the kind of employee every company exploits: loyal, brilliant, awkward, and invisible. She eats at her desk, often wearing the food by accident. She doesn’t care about fashion or optics, just results. Her idea of heaven is going home to her pet bird Sweetie, watching Survivor, and sharing a piece of toast. She was promised a VP position by her former boss, only to watch it evaporate the moment his son takes over.

That son is Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), a walking case study in corporate nepotism. He’s smug, entitled, casually misogynistic, and surrounds himself with college buddies while pushing out the people who actually keep the company running, especially women. When Linda confronts him about being passed over, Bradley insists she isn’t ready, but offers her one last chance to prove herself: attend a company trip with him and the boys.

The plane crash that follows is brutal. Not metaphorically, brutal. It’s easily one of the most terrifying crash sequences put on screen since Final Destination. It’s chaotic, visceral, and relentless. Honestly? I don’t know if I’ll ever get on a plane again after watching it!

From there, Send Help becomes something far more interesting than a standard survival story. Linda nurses an unconscious Bradley back to health, but the gratitude lasts about five seconds before he reverts to his usual behavior, condescending, dismissive, and entitled. Only this time, the world has shifted. The office hierarchy is gone. The island doesn’t care about his last name.

What follows is a brilliant, slow-burn reversal of power dynamics. Linda discovers that in this stripped-down environment, where survival requires intelligence, adaptability, and actual work, she holds all the cards. McAdams plays this evolution flawlessly, letting confidence creep in gradually before tipping into something darker. Linda doesn’t just enjoy the power shift she becomes obsessed with it. She revels in it. And that’s where the movie gets truly unsettling!

Dylan O’Brien deserves serious credit here though. Watching Bradley unravel as his authority evaporates is deeply satisfying and deeply uncomfortable. He’s no longer the predator; he’s prey. Raimi milks every ounce of tension from their psychological tug-of-war, blending pitch-black comedy with mounting dread.

Then comes the third act-and this is Raimi in full mad-scientist mode. The horror ramps up fast and hard. The tone shifts. The laughs curdle. What began as a survival thriller becomes a twisted battle of wills, with moments that feel feral, cruel, and genuinely frightening. Raimi doesn’t just raise the stakes; he lights them on fire!

I’ll keep this spoiler-free, but the final stretch is relentless. You’re on the edge of your seat, constantly questioning who you’re rooting for ... and whether you should be rooting for anyone at all. A must see in theaters whilst you can aka the Big Screen, and possibly the best film of the month. [N.D.]