
Send Help is directed by Sam Rami director of Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), Army Of Darkness (1992), Spider-Man and its two sequels (2002-2007), Drag Me To Hell (2009), Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) and a few others.
After a few franchise films, Sam Rami returns with an original film that brings him back to his roots and what he’s best at. Send Help is everything you can really ask for from a Sam Rami horror project. Excellent act, the perfect blend of horror and comedy and creative writing that puts a spotlight on several different themes that all mesh well together.
The performances from Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien are some of 2026’s best so far. Rachel McAdams goes from being calm and collected to insanity in a snap, it’s an unhinged performance that perfectly captures the atmosphere Rami creates with this film. There’s almost this strategic element in McAdams’s performance that the viewer slowly but surely starts to dive into as the film goes on, McAdams has always been a fantastic actress, but here she really kicks it up a notch. From the moment her character Linda Liddle is introduced you immediately get into her character, we as the viewer slowly watch her slowly change over the course of the film and it’s just a huge blast to see.
Dylan O’Brien is also quite fantastic as well, he plays a complete and total asshole and does quite a great job at doing so. The scenes of him trying to stand against an unhinged Rachel McAdams is some of his best moments, the fear in his eyes and the suspense is the perfect combination. The best however is the dynamic between the two, they work effortlessly together, whether it’s the film’s opening moments of O’Brien’s character Bradley Preston being a complete and total asshole to Linda, or when Linda has Bradley at a brutal point where he has no choice but to listen to her. Everything about McAdams and O’Brien working together in the film just makes a lot of sense.
The writing is quite clever, it ties in themes like generated power dynamics, hierarchy, nepotism and toxic workplace politics in both a humorous and serious way. The film is not saying anything particularly new about these topics, however the way the film manages to tie in these topics into the story (you slowly start to see them come into play as the film goes on) is very interesting and what makes the writing so investing.
As I said before Sam Rami returns to his roots and that means we get some fantastic gore, some well done shots (with the help of cinematographer Bill Pope) and creatively built atmosphere. What makes Rami such a compelling and fascinating director is the atmosphere he builds for his films and that’s no exception here. McAdams and O’Brien are quite easily able to capture the atmosphere the film requires, it’s feel of a film that balances its humor and horror perfectly. The film is able to both make the viewer cackle at a simple joke and make you feel somewhat disturbed by some of the gore. It’s the perfect blend that really hits the ball out of the park.
Overall Send Help is a fantastic film, In a year that has been excellent for horror so far. This is definitely one of the best of the pack.
Send Help is available on all VOD platforms.
10/10 A+








