Send Help (2026) – Review by Andrea Carnevali

Dylan O’Brien in Send Help

Send Help ⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’ll probably play well to Raimi fans, especially those who miss the messier, meaner days. For everyone else, I suspect it’s a harder sell. The blood, the b-movie confidence and enough genuinely inspired nastiness are all there, but not enough consistency, or fear, to sing ‘Raimi has returned’

Director Sam Raimi is back, and, after the grand Hollywood scale of his recent blockbusters, he’s come crawling back to the sort of small, nasty energy I always associate with him. The budget might not be operating at ‘event cinema’ volume. But the violence is proudly, gleefully on full display… and very Raimi.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Sam Raimi. He was my way into gore and splatter back in the 80s with Evil Dead, which I watched way too young and, yes, introduced to my even younger sister, but that’s a whole different kind of story for a whole different kind of place… (probably the psychiatric office).

Then, of course, he made a string of Spider-Man films, which I am very fond of, and that actually felt like they had the director’s fingerprints all over them. But after that Hollywood heat started to burn him slightly, he went back to where he belongs: small, independent B movie horror with big impulses and even bigger laughs. Drag Me to Hell was delirious and properly funny.

Send Help is, on paper, a deliciously stupid premise: a survival horror comedy where a socially awkward woman (Rachel McAdams, who’s clearly having a lot of fun!) is stranded on a desert island with her hideous, smily, entitled boss (played by a surprisingly good Dylan O’Brien). The result is a bit of a hit-and-miss film.

After a sluggish start, the first real ‘Raimi moment’ finally hits 24 minutes in: during a plane crash sequence, with a twist. From there, the film does find its feet in an escalating blend of in-your-face absurdity. The kind of stuff that only Raimi can do without blinking.

There are moments of inspired, over-the-top nastiness (gore, blood, vomit galore), which are quite delightful (if you like that kind of stuff). The movie knows it’s stupid and it’s unpretentious about it, wearing its B-movie tag with pride. There are echoes of Raimi’s past, from those POVs in the forest and even a dream sequence with a zombie, so unmistakably Evil Dead that it nearly felt like a wink from the director himself.

My issue is that, for a film that’s almost two hours, it doesn’t always keep that sense of fun switched on. There are way too many stretches where it slows down, repeats the same emotional gear (panicked survival / annoyed banter / more escalation), and it’s not really as wild as it thinks it is. Cutting around 20 minutes would have probably helped.

Raimi’s earlier films gave you heroes you could get behind; here, the characters are… let’s say ‘annoying’ (obnoxious is also available), and it’s pretty hard to care about either of them.

The other big thing: it’s just not scary enough. With Raimi, even when you’re laughing, you’re also supposed to feel that little pinch of dread, like the movie is having fun but also creeping under your skin. With Send Help, the dread never really arrives. It’s mostly splatter and momentum, with the horror dial turned a bit too low.

In the end, it’ll probably play well to Raimi fans, especially those who miss the messier, meaner days. For everyone else, I suspect it’s a harder sell.

It’s got the blood, the b-movie confidence, and enough genuinely inspired nastiness, but just not enough consistency, or fear, to sing ‘Raimi has returned’.

Streaming on Disney+

Andrea Carnevali is a Bafta winning film maker who lives in Chiswick, and a co-creator of the Chiswick In Film festival.

Read more film reviews on The Chiswick Calendar