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Send Help review: GLOP! Youre not ready for Rachel McAdams latest… but I love it
Bless Sam Raimi. With the Evil Dead trilogy, this subversive American filmmaker bestowed upon horror fans an outrageous collision of horror, comedy, and gross-outs gags that became truly iconic. His madcap energy made the Spider-Man trilogy a foundation in superhero cinema, and then the grisly Drag Me to Hell (2009) assured fans that his foray into family-friendly fare didn't mean he'd lost his touch. Now, nearly 45 years since The Evil Dead debuted, he's once again serving up gloppy, gnarly, and hilarious horror with Send Help.
2026 is off to an incredible start in terms of horror cinema, thanks to Nia DaCosta's epic 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. And even though that zombie movie involves a prolonged scene of torture and flaying, Raimi's Send Help is far more likely to have audiences gagging, thanks to an almost gratuitous amount of glop. We're talking blood, sweat, vomit, and whatever else might ooze in quantities that had a packed theater of critics gasping and yelping in shock and deranged delight. But all this gross spectacle is just the start of what makes Send Help a totally twisted thrill ride.
Send Help plays like Romancing the Stone meets Triangle of Sadness… meets Misery.
Credit: Brook Rushton / 20th Century Studios
Rachel McAdams stars as middle-aged pencil pusher Linda Liddle; she's diligent, smart, and has a lot of unexpected skills, thanks to her deep love of Survivor. So, she's pretty pissed off when her nepo baby boss, Bradley Preston (Twinless' Dylan O'Brien), decides the promotion she deserves will go to one of his frat bros. However, their power dynamic shifts dramatically when a business trip leaves them both shipwrecked on a desert island.
While a wounded Bradley is useless in building shelter, foraging, hunting, or gathering water, Linda's untapped survival skills make her a force to be reckoned with in the wild. So, yeah, it's basically like the third act of Triangle of Sadness, when the sunken yacht's cleaning lady, Abigail (Dolly de Leon), takes charge of the spoiled, rotten rich folk who've washed up on shore. However, Send Help's screenplay — by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift — pushes this premise beyond the expected "eat-the-rich" comedy into terrain that is both familiar and strange.
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Some scenes hint at an enemies-to-lovers arc, where, forced to survive together, Linda and Bradley find the good in each other, despite their differences. Perhaps, in the wild, they'll get past their egos and fall for each other like Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas did in Romancing the Stone? There's certainly enough tousled curls and bared flesh for the possibility. However, other scenes suggest that Linda's interest in Bradley isn't so simple. Her obsession with not only showing him her worth, but also making him pay for his bad behavior leads to scenes that are jaw-dropping in their menace. As she flashes the only knife they have at him, I couldn't stop thinking about the hobbling scene in Misery, wondering just how dark Send Help would go. And in this weird space of genre mash-up, McAdams is riveting and darkly, darkly funny.
Rachel McAdams is unexpectedly brilliant in Send Help.
Credit: Brook Rushton / 20th Century Studios
No shade to the Oscar-nominated Canadian movie star, but for the first half of this movie I thought she'd been miscast. The premise of Send Help and some of its flirtier scenes might suggest that a rom-com icon like The Notebook star would be well-suited to the role of Linda. However, from the opening frames of this film, Raimi paints Linda not as a standard quirky-but-cute heroine, but as a repulsive mess. Her attire is ill-fitting, as if every piece of it is fighting with the next. Her hair is flat and greasy, as if she's forgotten that her hair even exists. And she brings a sloppy tuna salad sandwich to work every day for lunch, which ends up smudged onto her desk, her face, and even her boss' hand. When he coldly tells her there have been complaints about the "noxious" smells at her desk, you can practically get a whiff of the tuna and Miracle Whip through the screen.
I marveled at why Raimi would cast McAdams in a repulsive role that felt like a riff on Roseanne Barr in She-Devil. It's strange to see this elegant movie star dressed badly, making cringeworthy, socially awkward conversation. But this discomfort is intended, as she will bloom like the She-Devil anti-heroine. Incredibly, Linda's time on the island leads to her getting a natural glow-up as she rediscovers her confidence. Frolicking under a waterfall, this is the romantic heroine McAdams audiences are familiar with — but not entirely.
Always under the surface of Linda, there's something off about her. Despite her being the protagonist of the film, there's the unnerving sense that we can't really tell what's going on in her head. Sure, at first, audiences might well relate to the "eat-the-rich" fantasy of thriving on a tropical island while a shitty boss' life is in your hands. But McAdams never leans fully into her charisma, always keeping an edge to Linda that flickers like her annoyed eyes or the blade of her knife. Raimi wrings excitement out of a cat-and-mouse game between Linda and Bradley, where your empathy might well shift from one to the other and back again, and again, and again. By the film's end, McAdams has transformed, not just physically, but from a pitiable heroine in distress to something far more camp and thrilling, putting her performance here in the good company of Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in one of my all-time favorite comedies, Death Becomes Her.
Send Help is a gross and glorious good time.
Credit: Brook Rushton / 20th Century Studios
McAdams feasts on every frame of this movie, and O'Brien — who thrilled critics with his astounding double act in last year's dark comedy Twinless — is her perfectly paired scene partner. At the start, his Bradley is an archetype of a rich asshole, brashly bullying his employees and casually sexually harassing any hot woman in his orbit, while wearing obscenely expensive clothing. On the island, however, the power dynamic shift pitches him into sulking, whimpering, or cajoling — all done with a keen comedic awareness. His torment is meant to be horrifying and hilarious, and it is, not only because of Raimi's mastery at building tension but also because O'Brien has sly but stellar skill for the playing the fool.
He and McAdams collide so sensationally in this movie that it could have been fun, even if it were less gross. But honestly, the sheer amount of glop that Raimi flings at his stars and onto the screen enhances the sense of mayhem and suspense. Just as the script slams genre elements of romantic fantasy, dark comedy, and psychological thriller together to keep the audience off balance, the glop and gore knocks us out. For example, just when you think a scene is done with the vomit (or the blood), there will be another burst of fluid. Then another. And again. And each time, the audience I was part of screamed in horror, shock, and awe.
This was an incredible viewing experience; Raimi took me back to being a kid again, watching Evil Dead 2 on VHS and squealing at the sheer outrageousness of it all. All these years later, I'm much harder to shock — and yet he did it again. Watching Send Help, my stomach churned, my jaw dropped, my eyes bulged, and I threw my hands over my face a few times to guard from the gross explosion on screen. Then I walked out cackling and giddy, because Send Help is not just one of the grossest movies I've seen in the last decade. It's also a rip-roaring, no-fucks-to-give good time.
Send Help opens in theaters on Jan. 30.
Bad Bunny promised good vibes and a whole lot of dancing during his Super Bowl halftime show, and he didn’t disappoint. But beneath the perreo-ready hits and viral clips was something deeper.
The performance unfolded as a densely layered visual essay, moving from Puerto Rico's sugar cane fields to New York bodegas, from reggaetón history to quiet political protest, and packing decades of memory, migration, and resistance into just 13 minutes of television.
From set pieces referencing the island's ongoing infrastructure collapse following Hurricane Maria to cameos honoring small-business legends and community elders, nearly every frame carried meaning. Some references were immediately legible. Others were designed for the fans who know where to look.
It was a case of storytelling: a reminder that Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio didn't just bring Puerto Rico to the Super Bowl. He brought its history with him. Here are some of the Easter eggs you may have missed.
Returning to the roots of the sugar cane fields
Before fireworks, choreography, or surprise cameos, Bad Bunny began his Super Bowl halftime show in a quiet, sunlit sugar cane field, worlds away from the stadium spectacle to come.
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Sugar cane fields are deeply woven into Puerto Rico's history, tied to colonial exploitation and the agricultural labor of generations of working-class people. By opening the performance there, Bad Bunny grounded his global moment in the island's past, honoring the people whose work and resilience built Puerto Rico long before it became a cultural export. It was a reminder that everything that followed grew from this soil first.
Bad Bunny's "Ocasio 64" jersey carries history
When Bad Bunny stepped onto the Super Bowl stage in a custom Zara jersey stitched with the name "Ocasio" and the number "64," it immediately sparked speculation. The name referenced his full surname, Martínez Ocasio. The number, however, carried a heavier weight.
On a personal level, "64" honors his late uncle, who once wore the same number as an athlete. But it also echoes the Puerto Rican government’s initial claim of just 64 deaths after Hurricane Maria in 2017 — a figure later revealed to be a devastating undercount.
Falling into YHLQMDLG
Midway through "Party," Bad Bunny plunged through the roof of the casita into a family's blue living room, a moment that felt both unexpected and deeply intentional.
The visual mirrored the aesthetic of his 2020 album YHLQMDLG, whose blue-hued visualizers defined an era fans never got to see live. The pandemic canceled that tour, making the Super Bowl moment a belated love letter to longtime listeners who’ve been riding with him since the beginning.
Toñita's surprise cameo
Among the star-studded spectacle, one of the night's most meaningful appearances belonged to someone far from the pop spotlight: Maria Antonia "Toñita" Cay, the beloved owner of Caribbean Social Club.
A fixture of Puerto Rican life in Williamsburg for decades, Toñita has been name-checked in Bad Bunny's lyrics and embraced by the Nuyorican community. Her presence in the show was about honoring the everyday institutions that keep culture alive.
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Victor Villa and the power of the side hustle
Another blink-and-you'll-miss-it guest was Victor Villa, the founder of Villa's Tacos. You'll see Benito pass a Villa's Tacos truck during "Tití Me Preguntó."
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Villa's journey — from selling tacos in his grandmother's yard to running acclaimed brick-and-mortar locations — mirrors Bad Bunny's own narrative of grassroots success. His cameo not only celebrated immigrant hustle but also spoke to Bad Bunny's larger message of believing in where you come from, a belief he made explicit when he told Super Bowl viewers that he never stopped believing in himself and that others should believe in themselves, too.
Coco frío and island street life
During "Tití Me Preguntó," Bad Bunny moved past dancers gathered around a coco frío cart, a small detail loaded with nostalgia. Fresh coconut water, sold by street vendors across Puerto Rico, is part of daily life on the island. By centering it in a Super Bowl spectacle, Bad Bunny elevated an ordinary ritual into a symbol of home.
"Gasolina" and the lineage of reggaetón
No, your ears did not deceive you. After blending "Yo Perreo Sola" and "Voy a Llevarte Pa’ PR," Bad Bunny pivoted into a snippet of "Gasolina" by Daddy Yankee, a defining anthem of the genre.
The track, inducted into the Library of Congress in 2023, helped globalize reggaetón in the 2000s. Bad Bunny's performance also sampled Tego Calderón's "Pa’ Que Retozen" and Don Omar's "Dale Don Dale," situating himself within a living musical lineage.
Concho the toad makes an appearance
Before launching into "Monaco," the camera cut to an image of Concho, the animated amphibian mascot of Bad Bunny's latest album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos. Modeled after the endangered Puerto Rican crested toad, Concho represents environmental fragility and cultural survival.
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Jíbaros, power lines, and "El Apagón"
Men in straw hats (pavas) and white clothing — jíbaros, Puerto Rico’s traditional mountain farmers — appeared climbing power lines, blending folklore with modern crisis.
Historically associated with rural life and folk music, jíbaros symbolize resilience. Here, their placement on broken infrastructure referenced post-Hurricane Maria privatization, rolling blackouts under LUMA Energy, and the economic displacement explored in the song "El Apagón." It was a visual essay on who gets left behind when "progress" arrives.
Ricky Martin's Spanish-language reclamation
When Ricky Martin joined to perform "Lo Que Pasó a Hawaii," the moment felt both nostalgic and quietly radical. For an artist long associated with English-language crossover hits like "Livin' la Vida Loca" and "She Bangs," returning to a Spanish-language ballad on the Super Bowl stage carried its own symbolism.
The song reflects on migration and loss. Singing entirely in Spanish, sitting in a monobloc chair, marked how far Latin music has pushed the mainstream. What once felt risky now feels inevitable.
The light blue flag of Puerto Rican independence
At one point, Bad Bunny held la bandera con azul celeste, the light-blue version of Puerto Rico's flag linked to the independence movement.
Once associated with calls for Puerto Rican sovereignty and traced back to pre-U.S. colonial revolts, the light-blue variant of the Puerto Rican flag has become a symbol of resistance and cultural pride. Historians identify azul celeste as the original shade tied to late-19th-century independence movements, and its use today often signals a deeper conversation about the island's identity.
Bad Bunny previously featured it in "La Mudanza," and bringing it to the Super Bowl transformed a political statement into a global broadcast.
A quiet nod to Haiti's visual history
In one of the show's most subtle visual callbacks, a woman waving Haiti's flag wore a green-and-orange ribbed knit top that closely echoed Jay Maisel's 1973 Haiti series, particularly "Haiti No. 59." The styling — easy to miss amid the spectacle — felt deliberately precise, mirroring the texture, color, and composition of Maisel's iconic image.
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Lady Gaga and the maga flower
Lady Gaga’s baby-blue dress, paired with a red floral brooch resembling Puerto Rico's national maga flower, was more than a fashion moment. Designed by Luar founder Raul Lopez, the look wove national symbolism into couture, reinforcing the night’s emphasis on Puerto Rican pride.
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"La Marqueta" and the roots of diaspora
During "NUEVAYoL," Bad Bunny walked past a New York-style streetscape featuring a storefront labeled "La Marqueta."
The real La Marqueta in East Harlem was once a hub for Latino immigrants, helping shape Spanish Harlem in the mid-20th century. Its inclusion honored the diaspora communities that carried Puerto Rican culture beyond the island — and brought it back, amplified, to the global stage.
"Together We Are America"
Toward the end of the halftime performance, Bad Bunny — notably speaking in English — said, "God Bless America." He then expanded the phrase to encompass all the countries of the Americas, not just the United States, re-framing it as a message of unity and belonging. Holding up a football emblazoned with "Together We Are America," he made the point explicit.
Then, switching back to Spanish, he added: "seguimos aquí" ("we’re still here"), before spiking the ball and launching into "DtMF." The moment crystallized the show's larger thesis: presence as resistance, visibility as power, and community as the foundation of everything.
Dyson Supersonic Nural
(save $150)
Dyson Airwrap i.d.
(save $150)
Valentine's Day is less than a week away, but if you haven't bought a gift just yet, Dyson's giving last-minute shoppers a pretty sweet deal.
Well, technically two deals. As of Feb. 9, you can grab the Dyson Supersonic Nural hair dryer for $399.99, saving you $150 on the $549.99 list price. The same discount is also available on the Dyson Airwrap i.d. multi-styler, which comes down to $499.99 from its full price of $649.99.
At the time of writing, neither tool is on sale at Amazon, and while the Airwrap i.d. is on sale at Best Buy for the same price, the Supersonic Nural is still at full price. Sephora, on the other hand, has both the Airwrap i.d. and Supersonic Nural on sale, but only in the amber silk colorway, whereas Dyson's site offers more variety.
So which is the best to pick up for your boo (or yourself)? As Mashable's beauty tech expert, I broke it down below.
Dyson Airwrap i.d. deal
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Why we like it
I've tested every Supersonic model available, and while I maintain the supremacy Shark FlexStyle in a pure value sense, the Airwrap i.d. is the multi-styler that made me most get Dyson's popularity. Typically, the curling barrels on multi-stylers provide more of a blown out than truly curled look — and if your hair has trouble holding a style, the wave you do get might not last.
The Airwrap i.d. makes this process better by including a conical barrel in the attachments for tighter curls, and automatic temperature cycling — meaning the hair is hit with properly timed hot then cool air with the press of a button — making styling with this tool as mindless as it should be. In addition to the conical curling attachment, you'll get five more attachments (which vary slightly depending on whether you opt for the straight and wavy or curly and coily model).
Dyson Supersonic Nural deal
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Why we like it
This is not the hair dryer for the dupe lover. This is the hair dryer for the person who rarely air drys, and wants one of the fastest and easiest hair dry experiences on the market. It comes with smart attachments that automatically adjust temperature and air speed, a scalp protect mode for closer and more comfortable drying, and automatic pausing. For textured hair folks, the diffuser has a removable center that's especially useful for pixie diffusing and maximizing your volume potential.
SAVE $800: The 57-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 curved gaming monitor is on sale at Amazon for $1,499.99, down from the normal price of $2,299.99. That's a 35% discount.
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Sometimes, bigger is better. Think that bag of potato chips from Costco, getting upgraded to the seats with extra legroom on the plane, or streaming your favorite Olympic sports on a giant TV. The same can be applied to gaming on a giant monitor. If you need something bigger (and better), check out this Amazon deal.
As of Feb. 9, the 57-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 curved gaming monitor is on sale for $1,499.99 at Amazon, marked down from the standard price of $2,299.99. That's a 35% discount that slashes $800 off the price.
So long as your computer desk has room, gaming on a giant 57-inch curved monitor could be incredible. Samsung makes some top-tier gaming monitors that'll massively level up your experience. Of course, it comes with a nice 240Hz refresh rate, a 1 millisecond response time, and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. There's also something to be said about gaming on a Quantum Mini-LED display.
Nice extras include the ergonomic stand from Samsung and the DisplayPort 2.1, HDMI 2.1, and USB hub. There's also the Samsung Picture-by-Picture feature which gives you access to viewing two sources at the same time in their native resolution.
While we're still in the depths of winter, upgrade your gaming set up with the 57-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 curved gaming monitor. Since you'll be saving $800 thanks to Amazon's sale price, you'll be able to snag new game titles or maybe even an ultra-comfortable gaming chair.
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