If you’ve been waiting for Sam Raimi to get back behind the camera and do something that feels distinctly him, the wait is over.
On this bonus episode of the Grave Tone Podcast, hosts Meaghan and Arthur rushed to record their thoughts on Send Help after catching it in theaters. They couldn’t not talk about it. And honestly? This movie is a blast.
The Long Road to Theaters and the Team Behind the Film
Before we even get into what happens on screen, there’s a pretty wild backstory to how this movie came to exist. The film was actually announced back in 2019, and Sony was originally set to distribute it. Then COVID happened, and Sony pushed for a streaming-only release.
Sam Raimi said no. “Good for him,” Arthur noted, and we honestly agree. Raimi held out, kept working on the project for years, and it was finally picked up in 2024 for a full theatrical release. So while Send Help feels shiny and new, the concept and development have been cooking for a long time.
Raimi directed the film but didn’t write it. That duty fell to Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, a screenwriting duo known for collaborating on genre projects. Their credits include Freddy vs. Jason, the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot, and, somewhat surprisingly, Baywatch in 2017.
“Interesting, that’s a pivot, but alright,” Arthur joked about that last one. But Meaghan pointed out that the mix of horror with comedic elements is exactly what makes them a natural fit for Raimi. “We do a little bit of both here, we don’t take ourselves too too seriously with what we’re doing,” she said, describing their style. That balance comes through in the finished product, and it works really well.
The film also brought on Kylie Furneaux, an Australian survivalist expert, as a consultant. She helped build actual camp shelters, tools, and weapons for the production and specifically trained Rachel McAdams on things like building fires and collecting drinking water.
It’s that kind of commitment to realism that grounds the movie even when things get completely unhinged later on.
Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien Steal the Show
Let’s talk about the cast, because this is basically a two-person movie for about 95% of its runtime, and both leads absolutely crush it.
Rachel McAdams plays Linda Liddle, a strategist at a Fortune 500 company and a full-blown survival enthusiast who keeps how-to survival guides at home and is genuinely into this stuff. When the private plane she’s on crashes in the middle of the ocean and she washes up on a deserted island, she’s actually somewhat equipped for the situation.
McAdams gets to go through a full emotional and psychological arc here, from competent survivalist to someone hitting a level of mania that the hosts thought was incredibly compelling.
“She’s just not made for the city, man, that’s just what it is,” Meaghan laughed. Arthur was equally impressed: “Halfway through this movie, I’m like, she looks like the hottest Survivor cast member I’ve ever seen in my life.“
Dylan O’Brien plays Bradley Preston, her new boss who’s just inherited the CEO title after his father’s death. He’s the definition of a nepo baby, surrounded by dude bros, and he immediately cancels Linda’s hard-earned promotion because she doesn’t fit “the vibe.”
On the island, he’s useless and insufferable. O’Brien, though, is fantastic in the role. The hosts highlighted the specific frat bro laugh he developed for the character. “Every time he laughed, it just reminded me of Aziz Ansari,” Arthur said.
“His face changed on the screen for me.” Meaghan also made a point of noting how great it is that O’Brien has been able to move past his Teen Wolf days and take on roles like this. “He’s been able to shed the teen thing,” she said, “and go off and do other things, and I think that’s really cool.“
The supporting cast gets a mention too. Dennis Haysbert shows up as Franklin, a senior executive at the company, and Xavier Samuel plays Donovan, the douchey colleague who gets Linda’s promotion.
Samuel has some horror cred himself. He played Riley in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and starred in the 2009 Australian horror film The Loved Ones, which the hosts have seen and recommend.
Who’s the Villain? It’s Not That Simple
This is where the conversation gets really interesting, and it’s the question Arthur asked Meaghan on the drive home from the theater: Who is the villain of this movie?
The beauty of Send Help, according to both hosts, is that it lives in a gray area. We want things to be clean in stories. Good guy, bad guy, hero, villain. But this film doesn’t play it that way.
“Two things can be true at the same time,” Meaghan explained. You can sympathize with Linda. She worked her ass off, got screwed out of a promotion by a guy who inherited his position, and then found herself stranded on an island with that same guy.
On the other hand, she also becomes increasingly unhinged as the movie goes on. She waves off a boat so they won’t get rescued. She becomes “purposefully obstinate” about staying. And then, well, she kills two people. “Killing Bradley’s fiancée Zuri and that poor man who she had hired to help her search, I was like, poor Zuri,” Meaghan said.
Zuri, who had continued searching for Bradley long after search parties ended and seemed genuinely happy to find both survivors, gets the worst of it.
And Bradley? He’s a dick, sure. But is he a villain, or is he just a product of his upbringing and environment? The hosts discussed how shifting your entire mentality when you’ve been raised a certain way your whole life would be incredibly difficult.
Linda tried multiple ways to make him realize he was a terrible person, and “it just didn’t work at all. Not at all.” The film doesn’t let you comfortably root for one side, and that’s what makes it so compelling.
Arthur, ever the comedian, had his own answer for who the true villain was: “I think the villain of the movie was actually his fiancée. She ruined everything. They had a good thing going on that island.“
Survival Skills, the Crisco Can Theory, and Real-World Takeaways
One of the things the hosts genuinely appreciated about the film was how realistic the survival elements felt, thanks to the on-set consultant work. There’s a great early moment where Bradley suggests making a bonfire and writing HELP in the sand, and Linda basically tells him that’s not how survival priorities work.
Your first concern is your body temperature. Then shelter. Then water and food. Signaling for rescue comes later.
This led the hosts into a fantastic tangent about a military survival questionnaire they’d heard about. Given 12 items to choose from (rope, knife, lighter, food, water, a can of Crisco, etc.), most people pick something obvious like a knife or water container.
But the “correct” answer is apparently the can of Crisco. It sounds absurd until you break it down: the can itself catches water, the pull-tab lid is sharp enough to cut things, the shiny surface works as a signal reflector, and Crisco itself is a great insulator that can protect your skin from the sun and elements.
There might even be a way to make fire with it since it’s a fat-based product. “Just always keep a can of Crisco in your pants,” Arthur joked.
The whole tangent speaks to what makes this movie stick with you. It’s entertaining as hell, but it also makes you think about practical stuff. Arthur literally left the theater wanting to buy survival books with a gift card he had for a bookstore.
Meaghan’s response to his “what if our plane crashes” scenario was a bit more grounded: “Why can’t there be something like we get lost in the cold wilderness of Canada?“
Sam Raimi’s Fingerprints and Danny Elfman’s Score
While Send Help is not a traditional Sam Raimi horror in the vein of Evil Dead, some moments are unmistakably his. The hosts pointed to a sequence where Zuri emerges from the ocean looking like a zombie, which was “very Sam Raimi coded.”
The vomit scenes also got a nod. “He really likes people throwing up really gross stuff,” Meaghan observed. “It never stops coming out.“
Danny Elfman’s score also earned praise. The tense moments landed because the music supported them. The moments of levity felt properly light. And there’s a particularly clever use of an almost romantic score near the end of the film when Bradley, desperate to survive, starts telling Linda he’s in love with her.
The music shifts immediately when things take a turn, because of course, this isn’t that kind of movie. “That would be stupid,” Arthur said flatly.
The hosts also drew comparisons to Triangle of Sadness, noting that both films deal with class dynamics and survival situations, but in very different ways.
Triangle of Sadness leans heavier on social commentary and is “a quieter movie,” while Send Help is “much more in your face about what it’s doing.” Both are worth watching, though, and if you haven’t seen Triangle of Sadness, the hosts recommend checking it out.
Final Ratings and What’s Coming Next
Both Meaghan and Arthur landed on a solid seven out of ten for Send Help. Arthur noted that a couple of the more overtly stylized Sam Raimi sequences, particularly some dead body and maggot imagery in a dream sequence, took him out of the film’s realism a bit.
But overall, the chemistry between the leads, the humor, the fast pacing, and the scathing commentary on nepotism in corporate America made this an easy recommendation. “I didn’t need a ton of understanding of what was going on to really follow it,” Arthur added.
Audience scores back them up: the film was sitting at 87% on the Popcorn Meter, 7.2 on IMDb, and 3.5 on Letterboxd at the time of recording.