Sam Raimi loved returning to R-rated movies after long gap: "It was fun tossing the blood again!"

It's been more than 15 years since Sam Raimi made an original, non-franchise movie, but with new release Send Help he's returning to the kind of bloody genre filmmaking with which he first made his name.

The hugely entertaining comedy-horror stars Rachel McAdams as Linda Liddle, a mildly eccentric woman who works as a strategist for a financial management company and is obsessed with the reality TV show Survivor

Linda is frequently belittled by her nasty corporate boss Bradley (Dylan O'Brien), but when a dramatic plane crash sees the pair stranded on a desert island, their dynamic completely flips on its head – with Linda now very much the one in control.

The script for the film was penned by screenwriting pair Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who first pitched the idea to Raimi's producing partner Zainab Azizi several years ago. Azizi instantly knew it was an idea that would pique Raimi's interest – and right enough he went all in on the premise after she took it to him.

"Originally I was just going to produce it with Zainab," Raimi explained to RadioTimes.com in an exclusive interview. "But after working on the script with Zainab and the writers and doing storyboards for the movie I fell in love with it and realised finally I did want to direct it."

"Sam loves to root for the underdog," added Azizi when asked why the initial pitch was the right fit for Raimi. "[It] was very original – universal and also very unique. What sets it apart from other island pictures is that she is this Survivor fan, so when she gets to the island she knows what she’s doing and I loved that. But I knew that Sam would be drawn to the underdog story."

Raimi evidently agreed with Azizi's first impressions, and he loved getting to explore two characters whose true natures are exposed by the new surroundings – and situations – they find themselves in during the film.

"The big theme of the film is [there are] these two people who come from the business world, and she has to stay in her place and he lords it over her and others like her because he’s the boss," he said.

"But these are all artificial constructs of the hierarchy of business, and once they get to this virgin place [where] there is no existing hierarchy, we get to see who they really are. Part of it is a growth of them doing what they have to do to survive – and she’s very knowledgeable and capable and is a hard worker but all he knows what to do is to boss others around.

"So his skills are very limited in this place, and it’s fun to see them come to those realisations: her that she’s useful and powerful and him that he’s – in his current state – pretty useless. But it’s as much about them growing into these positions as it is about the island being a place where they are revealed.

"She’s always been capable, but never in our society had a chance to express it. And he’s always been worthless, but no one ever could see through him because he held this position of power."

Of course, in addition to this central thesis, one of the other great joys of the film is to see more of the bursts of cartoonish violence that so characterised Raimi's landmark work on the Evil Dead franchise early in his career.

There are several enjoyably grisly scenes – including one standout moment with a wild boar and no shortage of bodily fluids – and Raimi clearly had a lot of fun finding himself back in that R-rated creative space.

"I love the audience reaction to sequences like that," he smiled. "I love putting them to use to show what this character Linda Liddle has to go through to survive on this island... and it was fun tossing the blood again!"

Send Help is released in UK cinemas on Thursday 5th February 2026.

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