Here’s a great fun 2026 black comedy survival horror film directed by the legendary Sam Raimi. It stars Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien as two busy corporate professionals suddenly stranded on a remote desert island.
Almost everything is played for laughs, with a great script and performance, plus some genuinely brilliant dark comedic moments, all it headed by the fantastic lead actors. We had a blast with this one, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Misery Meets Paradise in Send Help
Okay, that trailer really does a bad job of selling what this film is. Send Help establishes very early on it’s a black comedy with slapstick and a lot of laughs, not a tense Hell in the Pacific type horror jaunt the above depicts.
Thankfully, that screw up didn’t affect the film’s success as it did well at the box office.
It follows the misadventures of socially awkward corporate strategist Linda Liddle (McAdams) and her obnoxious egomaniac boss Bradley. At their office, he refuses to give her a promotion and instead finds ways to humiliate and mock her.
But he does, with his corporate bros, agree to bring her on a business trip to Bangkok on his private jet where he offloads all the work onto her.
However, during the flight the plane goes down in a ball of flames into the ocean. This is where the pitch black humour really does kick in, as even the crash is very amusing. Rachel McAdams is just brilliant throughout with all of it.
Once on the island, Bradley has a badly injured leg and Linda (who had an interest in survivalism outside of her day job) is immediately in her element. She sets up a camp, finds food, gets water, and keeps them alive.
He’s very reliant on her, so she begins to manipulate the situation. His obnoxious CEO traits never do drop entirely, so viewers end up watching these two trying to outfox each other (in between beating each other up).
Thus, we have an inverse of the obnoxious CEO bossing everyone around, suddenly becoming the bossed around underling on a desert island. It plays out a bit like Rob Reiner’s terrifying Misery (1990), but with lots of laugh. Crucially, Send Help doesn’t take itself very seriously. It’s self-aware, but also does have the occasional impactful serious moment.
The rest of the time it’s a showcase for the comedic chops of the two actors. Both are great and riff off each other really well.
McAdams is hilarious throughout. It’s a physical role and she has to do a lot of romping around, with even the plane crash being funny. There’s also a very well timed puking scene that’s one of the best bits of the film. Plus, a very full on scene where it’s joked she may be mutilating Bradley that’s impressive the film went there.
In the other camp, Dylan O’Brien has to take a lot of humiliating pulverisation throughout Send Help and he takes it all on the chin like a champ. It really makes rooting against him, and occasionally for him, quite the journey.
His emotional reaction to a bug eating scene is particularly impressive. Never has comical disgust been quite so effective.
Great stuff, then, even if the film does meander a little bit at times. Overall, it’s a hell of a great jaunt and we suggest you drop everything for the night, rent this, and just bloody well enjoy yourselves.
The Production of Send Help
Straight up, you can tell Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien get on very well. They riff each other to great effect in the film, so it’s a comedic relationship that works wonders (off set, too).
They’re right to be happy as the film made $94 million off its $40 million budget. It also receive widespread critical acclaim for its sense of very dark humour and horror theatrics.
Director Sam Raimi is famous in the horror community, he wrote and directed the cult classic Evil Dead trilogy between 1981 and 1993 (Evil Dead 2 from 1987 is the best). He didn’t write Send Help, that went down to Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, but it is his first horror film since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell.
The film was extensively delayed. It was supposed to run in 2020, but Columbia Pictures wanted it to go straight to streaming due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sam Raimi refused and so the film was delayed so it could receive a full cinematic launch. Columbia Pictures pulled out of the project, with 20th Century Studios picking it up in 2024.
Everything was shot in either Sydney, Los Angeles, or in Thailand. The shoot ran from January to April 2025. As a marketing ploy, a fake Survivor audition video with McAdams was released on YouTube.
The special effects crew went all out with this, creating the likes of a fake insect packed with gelatine and chocolate. Strawberry and vanilla scents were added to the outer layer, so when Dylan O’Brien munches down on the thing it’s quite a visceral overload for all concerned.
Send Help also poses a unique proposition for viewers. Who do you root for? Whilst the CEO is made out to be an obnoxious and slimy dickhead, once on the island Linda’s behaviour does get a little psychotic. She’s revelling in her revenge against him and her corporate overlords, so we went all in on Team Linda and rooted for the underdog.
We’re sure any CEOs watching would be all in for Team Bradley. But then we should imagine the film would be just too scary to watch, as all their powerplay fantasies would be crushed. Oh dear.
