Send Help - new Sam Raimi tropical survival thriller horror comedy

Had a wild time at this last night. There doesn't seem to be any discussion about it here, so just wanted to flag it for any Raimi fans, who should absolutely see it as soon as possible. Great performances from the leads, particularly Rachel McAdams, who absolutely shines. Plenty of bloody, gorey, stabby Raimisms.

As far as downsides, there are some scenes where the CGI doesn't quite work. It's no spoiler to stay that this movie revolves around a plane crash and the plane looks terrible, but this is forgivable.

Also, a little weird that we don't seem to have a long-running dedicated Raimi thread on ILX.

Raimi superfan Walter Chaw was kinda cool on it: https://filmfreakcentral.net/2026/01/send-help-2026/

not been interested in Raima for a while, but trailer for this did look pretty good

xp: Bummer that he didnt like it. It sounded like everyone in my theater was having fun.

Another critic I trust re Raimi, Vern, hasn't posted a full review yet, but put it pretty low in his overall Raimi rankings on Bluesky. That's too bad, because the trailer sold me 100%. I'll check it out when it hits Amazon or HBO.

Blank Check pod dropped an episode today abt this & they all dug it. I def want to see it!

I thought it was a lot of fun, but yeah another good film spoiled by lousy computer effects (the plane scenes were the least of it). Definitely worth your time.

Saw it today and had a blast. The story ultimately went in a direction I didn't really want, but it executed that choice enthusiastically and interestingly. The handful of CGI moments aside, this is exactly the kind of movie I'd want to see Raimi making at this point, he's sooooo in control of the tone.

Loved this.

The power dynamic tug of war was so good

This could have been a lot sharper, but it was still solid, silly fun. Basically "Misery" but, well, comedy.

Plus Swept Away!

"Misery meets Triangle of Sadness" was my take. Had a blast with it.

Oh, the latter (which had more than its share of bodily fluids itself) for sure, which is what made the twist (I guess?) so predictable. Seems like they could have done more with that, though subverting/inverting the end of "Misery" was amusing.

I saw some concerns about McAdams's character, namely that she was not a figure of empowerment because they made her "batshit crazy", and i understand where people are coming from, but I don't really agree that she *is* batshit crazy.

The more likely read to me is she's been abused by men in her homelife and the office, by mediocre men who have held her back through the unearned power they wielded over her, and now that she is in a scenario where the man with power has none, and she is thriving, she cannot bear to go back to the "real world" and rejoin that horrible, patriarchal power dynamic. Also, she's been traumatized by the event itself- so it's not as if she was secretly a sociopath this whole time. Her role, unclear as it is, in her husband's death was survival. She had men trying to force her to give up her seat and sacrifice herself for them as the plane was crashing. She finally had enough and turned the tables. Doesn't mean all of her actions are defendable but that makes her more interesting.

I liked this very much.

xpost That's kind of what I meant by sharper. This movie feels like it's missing just a few beats here and there that might have fleshed out its themes some more. I don't think it needed that stuff, necessarily - the movie is enjoyable - but I do think a little more (of her) character development might have made the movie slightly better.

Would it? It's a genre piece. Doesn't need more than scares and alert performances.

Gonna watch this as soon as it hits streaming.

xpost Yeah, I think it might have benefited because, as per Neando, there *is* more than just scares and alert performances, just enough to make you notice but not enough to really work as well as it might have. Scares and alert performances are definitely enough, enough for me to recommend it but maybe not enough to make me want to watch it again.