Sam Raimi’s latest film “Send Help” is a little naughty genre film you can exactly expect from its director. While you can clearly see how the story will end in one way or another, the movie has some vicious fun from the increasingly tricky power dynamics between its two main characters, and you may chuckle more than once just like I did during my viewing.

The early part of the film establishes how things have been quite frustrating for Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams), who has worked as a mere employee of the Planning and Strategy Department of some prominent consulting company. She hopes to get some promotion as promised by the former CEO of the company before his recent death, but, alas, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), the new CEO who is also incidentally the son of his predecessor, casually disregards her and then promotes her direct supervisor instead just because he is an old college friend of Bradley.

Mainly because Linda impresses him in a rather negative way, Bradley soon considers firing her sooner or later. However, she happens to be really necessary for the latest big deal of the company right now, so he decides to let her join his business trip to Thailand along with his several executives before eventually firing her later, and we come to wince more as these obnoxious dudes cruelly laugh at her behind their back.

And then something unexpected happens. Their private jet airplane crashes into the ocean not long before arriving in Thailand, and we get a nasty moment of fun and thrill as everyone on the airplane gets killed except Linda and Bradley, who are subsequently swept onto the shore of a nearby tropical island. Although the situation looks quite daunting to say the least, Linda is not despaired at all because, well, she knows about a lot of survival skills as an avid fan of American TV reality show “Survivor”. Because Bradley cannot move that well now due to getting injured in one of his legs, Linda has to do all those things including securing fresh water for their survival, and Bradley has no choice but to depend on her at least for a while.

Needless to say, Bradley is reminded again and again that he does not have any power over Linda anymore in contrast to when he did in their company. While he gradually gets recovered from his leg injury, he remains disadvantaged in more than one aspect, and Linda is usually one or two steps ahead of him in their following power game.

As these two main characters push and pull each other along the story, the movie doles out a series of darkly amusing moments to make you laugh or cringe. In case of a humorously tense scene which will surely take you back to Raimi’s classic horror film “The Evil Dead” (1981), you will be tickled by how this scene becomes much gorier than expected in the end, and you will also appreciate how deftly it swings back and forth between broad comedy and bloody horror under Raimi’s skillful direction.

Above all, the movie steadily generates constant tension between its two main characters. As Bradley comes to assist and cooperate more with Linda, the movie naturally toys with how long their reversed relationship can be maintained, and the mood remains ambiguous even when they supposedly open themselves a bit more to each other at one point later in the story.

After a certain plot turn during its last act, the screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift becomes rather predictable. Nevertheless, the movie keeps rolling toward its inevitable ending at least, and Raimi ably dials up and down the level of suspense and comedy along the narrative with ample amount of dark amusement for us.

It surely helps that the movie is supported well by the talent and presence of its two good lead performers. Rachel McAdams, who can be quite serious as shown from Tom McCarthy’s Oscar-winning film “Spotlight” (2015) but is also capable of being very hilarious as shown from John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s “Game Night” (2018), shows considerable commitment as dexterously balancing her acting between comedy and suspense, and she is particularly effective when her Linda comes to show how far she can go for showing Bradley who the boss really is during one disturbingly funny scene, which is reminiscent of that chilling scene in David Slade’s “Hard Candy” (2005).

On the opposite, Dylan O’Brien, who has steadily been matured since he drew our attention in Wes Ball’s “The Maze Runner” (2014), functions as a solid counterpart for his co-star. While Bradely is your average obnoxious jerk at first, O’Brien brings some life and personality to his role besides being quite convincing during several key scenes in the film, and that is the main reason why the movie works to the very end of the story.

In conclusion, “Send Help” is a modest but effective genre film which shows that Raimi has not lost any of his touch yet. Although he seemed to be on autopilot in his two recent previous films “Oz the Great and Powerful” (2013) and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (2022), “Send Help” demonstrates that he is still a talented (and naughty) filmmaker who gave us “A Simple Plan” (1998) and “Drag Me to Hell” (2009), and I sincerely hope that he will continue to entertain us as he successfully did several times.