Entertainment
Darkman Director's New R-Rated, Island Thriller Is In Tune With His Best
By Chris Sawin
| Updated
Send Help is director Sam Raimi’s first feature-length horror film since 2009’s Drag Me To Hell and is the first of Raimi’s films to be R-rated since 2000’s The Gift. Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Baywatch, Friday the 13th 2009, Freddy vs. Jason), Send Help follows a socially awkward workhorse named Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams). The company Linda has worked so hard for over the last seven years sees Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), the new CEO, taking over from his late father.
Linda was promised the VP role by Bradley’s father, but Bradley decides to give it to Donovan (Xavier Samuel), his frat brother and golfing partner. Bradley continues to humiliate Linda in the office for her looks, diet, and demeanor. Linda tags along for a big merger mostly because she’s told it’s a last chance to impress Bradley for the VP role, but Donovan and Bradley use it to humiliate her further.
After their plane crashes, Linda and Bradley are the sole survivors. Linda, prepared for such scenarios, adapts quickly, while Bradley, injured and used to being a selfish boss, must change. To survive on the deserted island, they must utilize Linda’s skills and learn to cooperate or tolerate each other.
Send Help Feels Like Drag Me To Hell’s Spiritual Successor
The story of Send Help goes in an expected direction. There’s one side of the island that Linda points out to Bradley later on in the film, which is too treacherous and dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. What lies on that side of the island, as well as what happens during the finale, you can probably guess. But what makes Send Help so entertaining isn’t its writing; it’s the performances of Rachael McAdams and Dylan O’Brien.
Send Help feels like a return to form for Sam Raimi. While the horror elements of Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness were the best parts of the film, Send Help feels like a spiritual successor to Drag Me To Hell and is more in tune with Raimi’s The Evil Dead franchise and even Darkman.
The best parts of Send Help unfold as the film shifts from suspenseful horror to sharp, irreverent comedy, particularly when Linda and Bradley struggle to survive on the island. There’s the setup of how they get there and the last half hour or so where they partake in a brutal war against one another, but the moments in between feature the film at its funniest, nastiest, and most amusing, often juxtaposing its comedic and horror elements.
Sam Raimi Returns To Form
There’s an old Looney Tunes gag where castaways lost at sea or stuck on an island go crazy from hunger and start imagining each other as a hot dog, a hamburger, or a turkey leg. The Chuck Jones-directed short from 1943, “Wackiki Rabbit,” is a great example. Send Help taps into a similar kind of chaotic behavior, especially given the performances’ unhinged nature.
Sam Raimi’s horror films have always blended horror and comedy, and Send Help continues that trend. It’s interesting to witness how Linda looks in the office compared to how she looks after she’s spent more than two weeks on the island. Linda begins the film as very plain-looking, pigeon-toed, and socially inept to a cringeworthy degree. Her hair is stringy, and she never wears makeup. Saying she’s homely at first isn’t fair because it’s more than that. She prioritizes her career during the opening moments of the film, and her physical appearance is the last thing she’s worried about.
On the island, she suddenly has volume in her hair, and she’s forced to wear more revealing clothing so you can see the shape of her body. Her skin now has a slight tan to it, and being on the beach makes it seem like she just stepped off of filming some sort of glamorous commercial. She has replaced working hard in the office with building shelter, finding food, and doing whatever it takes to keep both her and Bradley alive. So it’s not like she’s spending more time on vanity; it’s more like her body responds positively to the changes.
Meanwhile, Bradley’s physical appearance is the reverse of Linda’s. Before the crash, he probably had this Patrick Bateman from American Psycho kind of skin routine. After waking up on the island and still treating Linda like she’s beneath him, his skin begins to dry out and look like a peeling sunburn, particularly on his face.
Dylan O’Brien Is Masterfully Smarmy And Rachel McAdams Is Complex
Dylan O’Brien is masterfully smarmy here. He never shakes the fact that he’s an overinflated mega dick, but he softens slightly over the course of the film. O’Brien’s performance is a comedic powerhouse that only becomes more impressive as his character grows more desperate. The character is obnoxious, but O’Brien’s contorted facial expressions, frustrated behavior, and maniacal laughter make him so much more memorable than the typical asshole boss.
Rachel McAdams has an even more complex performance as Linda. The audience sympathizes with Linda right from the start. Linda is a little weird who probably smells like a constant mix of bird feces (she has a pet bird that she talks to constantly and watches Survivor with) and crusty tuna, but she means well, has the best work ethic of anyone in the film, is treated poorly for no reason, and is secretly a badass. McAdams is a shining light of positivity and purpose the majority of the film, but there’s a dark twist to Linda that shatters initial conceptions of her. Even as Linda, as a character, slips up and makes mistakes, McAdams never misses a step with her powerfully mesmerizing performance.
It wouldn’t be a Sam Raimi film without a bunch of gross-out humor. Send Help showers the screen with blood and snot during Linda’s battle with the warthog that somehow isn’t entirely spoiled in the trailers. Later on in the film, whatever wasn’t already covered in blood and snot is doused with projectile vomit, and there are at least two eyeball gags that will leave you wincing and clamoring for more.
Gushing with frenetic humor, two magnificently cutthroat performances, and some well-placed grimy moments of gore, Send Help blows snot, spurts blood, and gauges eyes the only way Sam Raimi knows how.
Send Help releases theatrically nationwide on January 30, 2026.
Entertainment
AI stocks are cooling — this ChatGPT trading tool keeps delivering
TL;DR: A ChatGPT-powered investing platform that helps you find and manage stocks with clearer signals—lifetime access for a one-time $54.97.
Credit: Sterling Stock Picker
The AI trade has seemingly had its moment — big runs, big headlines, big expectations. The AI fun is not over by any means. But now that things are settling, the real question is what comes next?
Instead of chasing whatever’s trending, Sterling Stock Picker leans into a more grounded approach: using a ChatGPT-powered assistant (Finley) to help you understand what’s actually happening inside a stock. You can ask questions about companies, sectors, or your own portfolio and get explanations that are tied to real data — not just surface-level summaries.
Mashable Deals
It also handles the heavy lifting most people avoid. The platform analyzes financials, growth metrics, and risk, then surfaces signals like whether a stock is worth buying, holding, or avoiding. There’s even a “North Star” system that simplifies that call into something actionable.
Mashable Trend Report
If you’re building from scratch, there’s a done-for-you portfolio builder that aligns with your risk tolerance. If you already have positions, it can suggest adjustments based on your portfolio’s performance.
One thing that stands out is how it balances guidance with transparency. You’re not just handed picks — you can see the reasoning behind them, which matters if you’re trying to build a repeatable process.
Have a lifetime way to pressure-test your judgment — especially in a market that’s moving past hype and into something more selective.
Get lifetime access to the ChatGPT-driven Sterling Stock Picker while it’s on sale for a one-time $54.97 payment (reg. $486) through May 10.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Entertainment
Get 2TB encrypted cloud storage and collaboration tools for just $112.49
TL;DR: Lifetime access to 2TB of secure Drime cloud storage is on sale for a one-time $112.49 (reg. $299.99) through May 10.
$112.49
$299
Save $186.51
Cloud storage is one of those things that quickly turns into a monthly bill you forget about. That’s what makes a lifetime option like Drime worth a closer look.
You can currently get 2TB of storage for a one-time $112.49 (reg. $299.99), which means no ongoing fees just to keep your files accessible.
Mashable Deals
But this isn’t just a place to dump files and forget about them. Drime leans more toward being a full workspace. You can upload, sync, and access files across devices, but also edit documents, leave comments, and collaborate with others without switching tools. It’s useful if you’re juggling projects, clients, or even just shared folders with family.
Security is a big part of the pitch. Files stored in the encrypted Vault are protected by end-to-end encryption, and everything is hosted in Europe in compliance with GDPR standards. This means your data isn’t floating around unsecured, and you have more control over who sees what.
There are also a lot of small quality-of-life features that make a difference over time — like version history for restoring older files, advanced link sharing with passwords and expiration dates, and even built-in e-signature tools.
It’s a simple way to get more control over your files without adding another monthly expense.
Mashable Deals
Get lifetime access to 2TB of Drime Cloud Storage for a one-time $112.49 (reg. $299.99) through May 10.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Entertainment
The Bear still doesnt know how to write romance
Whenever The Bear introduces a new female character, I pray she doesn’t become a love interest for one of the male leads. Not because I hate romance, but because I specifically hate the way The Bear does romance.
The clearest offender is Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) relationship with Claire (Molly Gordon). A childhood friend who re-enters Carmy’s life, Claire is less a real human character than she is a walking self-help book for Carmy. She spends almost every moment she’s on screen talking about him: her memories of him, his mental health struggles, his relationship with his family. In theory, she has a life apart from Carmy — her defining character trait outside of being his girlfriend is vaguely “nurse” — but in watching The Bear, you wouldn’t know it.
Usually a great performer (see: Shiva Baby, Oh, Hi!, and more), Gordon is reduced to two modes here: luminous love interest hanging onto Carmy’s every word, or calming therapist. She’s not the only Bear character to meet this fate. As The Bear builds Ever staffer Jessica (Sarah Ramos) into a possible match for Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), it replaces her level-headed expertise with empty platitudes designed to ground him. (Season 4 line “honesty is sanity” made me want to drive my head through a wall.) Elsewhere, Richie’s ex-wife, Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs), acts as a similar pillar of support.
Their heads constantly askew, their eyes lit up in adoration, their mouths always ready to offer up an eager laugh or some cornball advice, these characters morph into The Bear‘s single idea of a Woman In Love. Now, The Bear‘s standalone episode “Gary” offers a new addition to this pantheon: Sherri (Marin Ireland) from Gary, Indiana.
Mashable Top Stories
Sherri is a woman whom Richie and Mikey (Jon Bernthal) meet at a bar while on a work trip to Gary. She immediately strikes up a rapport with Mikey, playing a private game of “Fact or Fiction” with him, listening to his complicated woes while nestled together in a bathroom stall, and stealing his beanie and wearing it like a middle schooler trying to get a rise out of a crush. It’s a level of blindly supportive compassion we haven’t seen since Claire Bear, and Ireland, typically a huge asset to any project, soon becomes trapped in The Bear‘s love interest archetype. (Someone please ban affectionate head tilts from the set of The Bear, effective immediately.)
While Sherri feels like she was meant to be a moment of bright connection in Mikey’s life, maybe even “the one that got away,” she really just comes across as an empty vessel for him to pour his trauma into. “What are you looking for, Michael?” she wonders. Later, when he asks permission to do a bump of cocaine, she simply responds, “I want you to be you.” It’s a series of faux-deep exchanges that even two great performers can’t sell. (It doesn’t help that Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach wrote the episode.)
That faux-deepness is what sinks The Bear‘s other romances, too. The show tries to force these deep, cosmic connections, but it forgets that these relationships should be a two-way street. Perhaps that’s why many viewers are drawn to shipping Carmy and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri). While the showrunners have affirmed that their relationship is platonic — and I personally agree with that choice — what sets this hypothetical pairing apart is that they each have such rich lives, both in their work together and their time apart. That’s because The Bear is invested in both of them as characters, rather than just using one as a device to unlock the other. You simply can’t say the same of The Bear‘s other romantic pairings, and the release of “Gary” further proves that romance is the recipe The Bear has yet to master.
“Gary” is now streaming on Hulu. The Bear Season 5 premieres this June on Hulu.
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