Pop Culture Happy Hour Send Help and What’s Making Us Happy
Jan 30, 2026
Kristen Meinzer, co-host of The Nightly, offers sharp, enthusiastic takes on tone and gore. Ronald Young Jr., host of Leaving the Theater, brings thoughtful film analysis and critique. They talk Send Help’s shifting power dynamics, Sam Raimi’s cartoonish gore, performances by Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, the knife motif as a plot device, and who might enjoy this revenge-horror comedy.
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Power Shifts Off The Clock
- Send Help uses a desert-island premise to test workplace power dynamics outside office systems.
- Removing institutional context reveals different measures of value like survival skills over social capital.
Survivalist Linda Steals The Scene
- Linda (Rachel McAdams) is an amateur survivalist who proves competent after a plane crash leaves her and her awful boss on an island.
- Her preparedness becomes a running joke and plot device that shifts the characters' dynamic repeatedly.
Gore As Tone, Not Thesis
- The film balances gore and comedy, leaning into Sam Raimi's trademark over-the-top violence as stylistic choice.
- That tonal choice pleases viewers looking for cartoony carnage but undercuts deeper thematic exploration for some.