Sam Raimi’s latest film proves that even in 2025, Hollywood’s most gleefully unhinged directors can still surprise us.
Send Help ditches superheroes and franchises for something far more interesting: a corporate power struggle relocated to a deserted island.
Starring Rachel McAdams and Glen Powell, this twisted workplace comedy-thriller asks uncomfortable questions about ambition, gender, and what happens when professional hierarchies collide with survival instincts.
And yes, it gets wonderfully messy.
When Corporate Culture Meets Island Survival
McAdams plays Linda Liddle, a dedicated employee whose expertise goes chronically undervalued in typical corporate fashion. Her boss Bradley, portrayed by Powell with what critics describe as “a bro version of a Raimi boob complete with Looney Tunes grunts and growls,” embodies every frustrating manager who’s ever taken credit for someone else’s work.
Their dynamic shifts dramatically when they find themselves stranded together on a deserted island.
Bradley’s first instinct? Continue managing Linda like she’s still his underling. He issues what anyone with office experience will immediately recognize: asinine non-suggestion directives that accomplish nothing except asserting dominance.
Bradley ungratefully accuses her of playing ‘homemaker’ on the beach.
The condescension drips from every syllable. Raimi knows this. We know this.
But here’s where things get complicated.
The Unexpected Expert
Linda arrives on this island armed with surprisingly vast knowledge about obtaining water, food, and shelter—all thanks to her obsession with Survivor. Unlike her corporate job where research and preparation go unrecognized, island life rewards her competence immediately.
The satisfaction of meaningful work gives her an extra glow. Her hair even flowers into island curls, a visual metaphor for transformation that Raimi renders with characteristic flair.
Watching McAdams literally go ham by hunting a fearsome wild boar delivers the kind of cathartic empowerment audiences crave. She’s done the homework. She’s taking charge. She’s finally getting recognition.
Good for her, right?
Gender Politics Get Thornier Than Expected
Raimi refuses to deliver straightforward “Good For Her” cinema. Instead, he presents something more unsettling: a protagonist whose liberation might come wrapped in surprisingly regressive packaging.
Early scenes depict Linda as an awkward dork harboring a barely-sublimated attraction to her handsome, younger boss. Not exactly empowering territory.
The film plants an old-fashioned hint that Linda might genuinely enjoy serving as some 1960s-style combination of coworker, subordinate, and domestic partner. On this island, she becomes the Work Wife who won’t be ignored—a premise that grows increasingly complicated as tensions escalate.
Raimi’s Complicated View of Women
Critics note that Raimi’s filmography reveals a potentially limited view of womanhood: damsel in distress, evil hag, or hag in distress. Drag Me To Hell specifically punished a young woman for capitalist ambition by unleashing supernatural horror upon her.
Send Help follows similar patterns. Linda threatens to transform into that classic blood-soaked, Raimi-approved shrieking hag herself as pressures mount.
Both films depict men behaving venally and immorally, yet overshadow those transgressions with what Raimi frames as women’s “unladylike” base designs.
Why This Actually Works
Rather than ruining the experience, these complicated gender politics give Send Help an exploitation-friendly edge that most contemporary thrillers avoid entirely. Modern films often congratulate themselves for progressive messaging while playing it safe narratively.
Raimi goes riskier. Messier. More interesting.
Casting Rachel McAdams transforms potentially regressive material into something far more nuanced. She and Powell deliver what critics describe as “interestingly caricatured” performances that somehow locate surprising emotional range from scene to scene.
McAdams Elevates Everything
McAdams finds genuine hurt and anguish whenever Linda seems ready to heel-turn. She breaks bad with abandon when required. Linda becomes indelible and complicated in ways that previous Raimi protagonists never quite achieved.
Critics specifically note she surpasses the lead character from Drag Me To Hell in depth and memorability.
Classic Raimi Meets Contemporary Complications
Powell channels Bruce Campbell energy—complete with physical comedy and expressive reactions that honor Raimi’s horror-comedy roots. A brief photograph even establishes the spiritual connection to Campbell’s iconic performances.
Meanwhile, Raimi’s camera careens around the sometimes soundstage-like island environment with characteristic flourish. Visual imagination remains undiminished even as thematic concerns grow more grounded.
What makes Send Help genuinely unpredictable isn’t plot mechanics—several turns telegraph obviously despite remaining satisfying. Instead, Raimi and screenwriters keep audiences off-balance by getting playfully coy about who or what we should root for.
Plotting Versus Purpose
Literal story beats follow recognizable patterns. Tensions develop as the pair spends more time without rescue, nursing conflicting ideas about handling their predicament.
But moral alignment? That shifts constantly, uncomfortably, productively.
A Later-Career Shift for the Director
As only Raimi’s second non-intellectual property film since the original Spider-Man, Send Help represents something relatively rare in his filmography: a horror thriller with semi-realistic grounding that doesn’t prevent stylistic excess.
It doesn’t merge fever-pitch flourishes with human frailties quite as masterfully as Spider-Man 2 or Army of Darkness. It’s not as wildly chaotic as earlier genre experiments.
Instead, it suggests a fascinating evolution: comic-book throwbacks colliding with contemporary obstacles without losing go-for-broke loopiness.
Much of the imagery feels like Raimi playing greatest hits. Yet the thematic complexity—workplace dynamics, gender expectations, power imbalances—pushes into newer, thornier territory than fans might expect.
Embracing the Mess
Does everything resolve cleanly? Absolutely not. Send Help gets messy by design, refusing easy answers about ambition, gender roles, or professional hierarchies.
Some viewers will find the gender politics uncomfortable. Others will appreciate Raimi’s refusal to sanitize complicated dynamics for contemporary sensibilities.
Either way, it sparks conversation—which feels increasingly rare for mainstream studio releases.
After decades of franchise filmmaking, watching Raimi return to original material with this much personality feels like witnessing an artist rediscover creative freedom. The result may not please everyone, but it’s undeniably, refreshingly his.
Good for him.