Even if it was no good, Send Help feels like it should be a must-see just as a celebration of  Sam Raimi’s return to the thriller/horror genre. He’s been still steadily working since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell, but even with beats of his trademark maniacal visual touches in franchise fare like Oz: the Great and Powerful and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it’s been a while since we’ve had a movie go full-Raimi. Drag Me and Send Help are the closest cousins to the Evil Dead trilogy in his entire filmography. They aren’t quite as bloody, and they don’t get quite as delightfully out of control, but they both feature that constant assault of satirical comedy, tightly framed shots of faces in distress, and buckets of bodily fluids that make the best of Raimi’s work unmistakable. 

For those who are heavily anticipating the crazy camera angles and gore, Send Help takes its time to get there. There’s plenty of clarity, and some might say too much clarity, in the archetypes of our two main characters. Linda Little (Rachel McAdams) is brilliant but sheepish, cast aside by more “charismatic” people who are far less talented and cunning than her. She’s instantly likable and sympathetic, living a solitary life with her bird and patiently awaiting a coveted Vice President position at her job of seven years. She’s also a huge Survivor fan, which we know will be significant. Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) is quite the opposite. He is Linda’s new CEO, a nepo baby through and through who possesses no discernible talent beyond the luck of his upbringing. 

Bradley’s standout qualities are arrogance and sexism, both of which he projects in an appallingly blunt opening meeting with Linda. He’s repulsed by her, and we’re repulsed by him, so we’re not exactly thrilled to see he survives the plane crash that kills a lot of his frat bro underlings. Linda and Bradley are stranded on a remote Thai island, and she instantly thrives in this new free-willed environment, free from society’s judgements. Honestly, you wouldn’t blame Linda for just letting him die, but she helps him nurse back to health. As more and more time passes, each of their behavior begins to shift a little, then resets, then shifts again, and so on and so forth. Part of the fun is reassessing where these two stand with each other at any time, as hostility and compassion become strange bedfellows, particularly when Linda starts to find her confidence and boldness. 

For the most part, it’s clear where Send Help is going to go, as dangerous consequences lurk around every corner of this island. This is your typical survival of the fittest, alpha versus beta island B-movie, with power and trust giving way to blood and guts on multiple occasions. Even if Send Help threatens to become more predictable than you want it to be, the path that Raimi takes to get there is delightfully deranged. The violence escalates in a way that makes sense—first it’s the wildlife at their throat (Linda has a particularly gory encounter with a CG boar), then it’s Mother Nature testing them, and finally, it’s Mano-e-Mano between Linda and Bradley. 

Raimi’s direction is the real star of Send Help, and its vintage work, with key contributions from frequent collaborators like cinematographer Bill Pope and composer Danny Elfman. But he also picked two perfect actors for this, and they completely give themselves away to these characters. McAdams, no stranger to camp or comedy or B-movies (Wes Craven’s Red Eye was an early standout for her), is having an absolute blast. She’s so beautiful that you barely buy her as this overlooked middle-aged outcast, but as Linda gains power, you really feel her presence in every way. O’Brien takes a character that is not meant to be more than one-dimensional and threatens to do more with it—but reigns it back perfectly when we need to believe that he can actually be a different person. The two of them have great chemistry, whether hostile or humane, and they both are clearly game to have the grossest liquids possible sprayed in their face. 

In the past, Send Help would perfectly fit the bill of the kind of home video cult favorite that made Raimi’s’ entire career. It’s not quite as memorable as the best of his work, but it is nonetheless very entertaining, with the right concoction of squeamish and jump scares. There will be at least 4-6 moments in any Raimi movie that you’ll replay with your friends about on the way out of the theater.

Send Help is in theaters now.