Send Help Reviews Are In: Is This the Wildest Crowd-Pleaser of 2026?

The way people lean forward after the lights go out, as if they’ve been given a secret, is what you notice most about Send Help, not the gore or even the jokes. Someone whispered, “This is the Raimi one,” in the row behind me, as if that were the only explanation for the room’s sudden warmth and alertness. Sam Raimi’s name carries a certain energy that makes you expect mischief, rubbery fear, and laughter that comes half a beat after you realize you’re supposed to be horrified.

The idea seems simple enough to fit on a streaming thumbnail: an employee and her obnoxious boss survive a plane crash and are forced to work together after becoming stranded on an island. However, Send Help doesn’t act like a neat survival film. It acts like a film produced by someone who likes to watch viewers writhe and then rewards them for doing so by allowing them to laugh at their own writhing. That’s a dangerous deal. The movie may seem to be challenging you to keep up.

Most critics appear to have accepted the challenge. At 94% on the critics’ score, the Rotten Tomatoes page reads, “Certified Fresh,” which is like a collective shrug turning into a smile. An R-rated survival horror comedy that seems to be purposefully flirting with bad taste is not the type of consensus that typically belongs to prestige dramas or carefully sanded blockbusters. Nevertheless, the most important word in a theater is the one that keeps coming up in chatter and blurbs: fun. Not “timely.” Not “important.” Fun, as adults say, with a hint of guilt.

Seeing Rachel McAdams use likeability as a weapon is part of the fun. Her character is Linda Liddle, an office worker whose skill has been reduced to a joke by corporate culture and a particularly arrogant boss. McAdams has always had the unique ability to appear as though she is thinking more quickly than the scene allows, and in this case, it turns into a survival tactic. You can practically feel the story’s center of gravity shifting beneath your feet as the movie shifts from fluorescent office corridors to salty air and sun-bleached sand, as if the island itself is changing the balance of power.

As the boss, Dylan O’Brien has the unappreciated responsibility of being the person you want to shake. Not only is he impolite, but he has the casually arrogant demeanor that seems well-researched, a persona derived from a dozen actual executives who have been the subject of drunken complaints. This is where the film’s mean streak is most noticeable, which may be why some viewers find it cathartic while others find it draining. Send Help seems to be more concerned with emotional accuracy than realism—the sensation of being laughed at, undervalued, and rejected before deciding to stop being “nice.”

The Guardian was less impressed, describing the violence as somewhat tacked-on and the plot twists as derivative. If you were hoping for elegance rather than chaos, this is a valid criticism. Raimi has never been one for style. He likes momentum. Even when things are messy and spilling all over the place, he still enjoys momentum. The movie’s tone varies, and there are moments when it seems like it’s trying to see how far the viewer will go before losing their mind. It then retaliates with a large, self-assured set-piece, as though it knows that if the ride continues, you will overlook the excess.

It’s interesting how the same tension appears repeatedly in the reviews: the film is clever, but it’s also a carnival. It is described as “bloody” and “darkly funny” by Common Sense Media, which feels accurate in the same way that a warning label does. The violence serves as punctuation, like an unavoidable exclamation point, rather than realism. Furthermore, the horror doesn’t seem to be occurring in a vacuum because the film is centered on workplace resentment, an emotion that is almost ingrained in contemporary adulthood. It occurs in the same universe as Slack messages, performance reviews, and courteous smiles that you don’t mean.

It’s difficult to ignore how the audience responds differently to the same scenes as you watch this play out. Some people, as if to show they’re aware of the joke, laugh nervously and early. Others remain silent until a twist in the film “earns” their laughter. Send Help transforms the theater into a sort of mood ring, which is one of its strange pleasures. Moment by moment, you can sense the room deciding whether to watch a satire, a thriller, or a simultaneous practical joke.

It’s still unclear if Send Help will endure past the initial hype. Crowd-pleasers from January and February may burn bright and then fade away, leaving only a few memes and a faint recollection of sticky soda on the floor. Raimi’s greatest skill, though, has always been making chaos seem like it was meticulously constructed with a hint of evil. The reviews indicate, at the very least, that people aren’t discussing whether Send Help is “good” in the cliched, courteous sense. They are arguing over whether it is feral or comforting good. And that’s a big difference in 2026.