Sam Raimi's SEND HELP (2026)

 "No help is coming. You got to make it on your own."

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Sam Raimi's (gender-swapped) SWEPT AWAY, with all of the twisted and maniacally funny rich vs middle class satirical, gloopy-violent, darkly comedic connotations that implies (this is to say I would like to think Wertmuller would smile watching this far more than Guy Ritchie's version).

What makes Send Help more than just a crackling good popcorn thriller is that there is a confluence of three things: 1) a filmmaker with a good script that he can take even further with his own exacting and electrified attention to detail - he is one of those gifted filmmakers, Edgar Wright is often like this and Stephen Chow used to be as well, where the camera and editing make jokes and create dynamics (I have to wonder how those extreme close ups of the tuna fish and the nostrils come off in 3D); 2) stars who are so perfectly cast it should be too much but they both go further than we might expect (Adams has shown her comedy chops when she can for decades, but O'Brien is the further revelation here, creating this mass of white privilege and pathetic self aggrandizement, and look at those eyes when he thinks *that* is about to happen after eating the octopus); and 3) they all take the time to make these fully fleshed out people in the midst of this story that takes full advantage of its twists and turns.

We know who these two are as soon as they are on screen, but that is as far as the "types" go (come to think of it it makes me wonder if Raimi was a fan of the 90s Ninja Turtles cartoon, with Linda as like a IRL embodiment of Irma, but I digress), and yet there is more that the script gives them than would usually meet the eye.

 It's one thing that we find out that Linda's obsession with Survivor is not just some OCD which also includes that video audition, rather that she has read up enough and practiced enough to know enough what to do to keep herself and the O'Brien character alive. This leads to a lot of opportunities for character development as both are equally amazed and disgusted with one another's abilities and contempt respectively, and of course for the raucous humor (the boar scene, A plus plus, no notes, put the head in the Ampas museum in a few years).

But it is another thing that the script also gives enough time for background and it isn't forced; I'm suddenly reminded of Raimi's Spider-Man movies in the sense of giving time to just see these two people bond and learn about one another (when we find out about Linda's past especially that brings up a question the movie leaves hanging to the last). Only difference is... what if the Spider-Man leads were total headcases, like avtual ones? This is escapism and a pulpy genre piece, but it does take the world that Linda and Bradley are living in seriously and we can recognize what this is ourselves. Like, they aren't us but they could be someone we know? Or would want to throw in a volcano?

I've read that this was pitched as Cast Away meets Misery and I can see all of that (the raft set piece for sure, guess Bradley missed that movie), but OG Swept Away seems to closer comparison and why this movie feels thorny ideologically (or if you need a more modern title, the third act of Triangle of Sadness, though I believe this was in development before that came out).  Something about how the world of work and how seemingly easily and accepted it is that *they* can say and do all of *that* - largely made as it is by the idea of Golf meaning you are acceptable as an "executive" person - is on fire here, and the movie is about not simply how civilized people easily break down but hoe it *could* go into not that... until it doesn't. 

You do get the blood-curdling violence, but it doesn't come out of nowhere. This is the kind of action and suspense that is more cathartic really; there is so much that bottles up, specially because it feels like midway through there is a sort of bait and switch that this could, maybe, become an unlikely romantic comedy (Six Days Seven Nights hive rise up?) 

Then again, if you have seen a Raimi movie, even a sort of "tamer" one like Multiverse of Madness, you can expect the pushing of the buttons is part of the charm. And I should mention again these actors are so game for what is asked of them and yet they never go into unbelievability and it may be one of McAdams' greatest pieces of film acting, like imagine this woman did the mom in Are You There God, it's Me Margaret to *this*??  

....It took so long (what year was Drag Me to Hell?) but it's so fucking good to have this Sam back.  Put Dylan O'Brien's cackle in the rotation for government torture soundtracks.

Also, that Boar! We all know how bad they can be.