Sam Raimi Teases Outrageous Mayhem In New Horror Thriller Send Help

Sam Raimi went off and made a Marvel movie, but he did not forget his love for gnarly, pressure-cooker horror. His next one is called 'Send Help', and during a new chat with Empire he labeled it, in classic Raimi fashion, "really outrageous." That fits the vibe.

What is 'Send Help' and who is in it?

This is a 20th Century Studios horror thriller that Raimi is both directing and producing. Rachel McAdams leads the cast, with Dylan O'Brien, Chris Pang, and Dennis Haysbert on board. Cameras rolled in early February, the first trailer hit online last month, and the studio has it earmarked for a theatrical release on January 30, 2026.

• Cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien, Chris Pang, Dennis Haysbert
• Director/Producer: Sam Raimi; Producer: Zainab Azizi (President of Raimi Productions)
• Studio: 20th Century Studios
• Production: Filming began in early February
• Trailer: Dropped last month
• Release date: January 30, 2026 (in theaters)

The hook: 'Misery' meets 'Cast Away'

The movie is a two-hander set on a deserted island — and when they say two-hander, they mean it: the story locks in on two people, period. The setup: two colleagues survive a plane crash, wash up on an island, and have to work together despite ugly history. It starts as survival, shifts into a battle of wills, and turns into a test of who can outthink whom.

Early chatter compared the tone to 'Misery' smashed into 'Cast Away', and that line is still how the film is being positioned. The logline that made the rounds: a put-upon female employee and her jerk boss are the only survivors of a company flight gone down; she has real survival skills, and he very much does not, which makes her his only lifeline. Character notes that surfaced along the way described:

Linda: the smartest person in the room, constantly underestimated; casting needed to feel credible in a straight corporate setting (Sandra Bullock was reportedly eyed at one point). Bradley: Linda's misogynistic boss. That gives you a sense of the power dynamics at play.

"It is a battle of wills. Its theme is that of power dynamics being turned on their head. The fellas pitched the story, and I laughed and couldn’t believe they were doing this. It was really outrageous, even for me, who makes outrageous horror films. There is a similarity to my Evil Dead work, but it’s not some outside force they’re dealing with here. What they’re coming to terms with is who they really are. And as the layers start shedding, we see certain conflicts emerge."

How this project zig-zagged to the screen

This island thriller has had a long, very behind-the-scenes journey with writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (they wrote 'Freddy vs. Jason' and the 2009 'Friday the 13th'). Back in 2007, Raimi was rumored to produce a fantasy project from the duo — that fizzled. About a decade later, he flirted with a Bermuda Triangle movie that had them in the mix; Raimi stepped away, and that one later passed through Scott Derrickson and more recently Marc Webb. Then in 2019, Raimi signed on to direct an untitled island horror thriller from Shannon and Swift — which is effectively what became 'Send Help'.

The pandemic hit, Raimi diverted to 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness', and after that he circled back to this. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (the 'A Quiet Place' duo) came in for a rewrite. If those names ring a bell with Raimi, that is because they worked with him on '65' (yes, the Adam Driver dinosaur movie) and the anthology series '50 States of Fright'. They also wrote and executive produced 'The Boogeyman' for 20th Century Studios — so the studio knows their brand of dread.

Bottom line

Raimi saying "really outrageous" is exactly the energy you want for a two-person survival thriller that doubles as a workplace reckoning. With McAdams headlining, a nasty-funny premise, and a team that knows how to twist the knife, 'Send Help' just jumped way up my watchlist for 2026.