‘Send Help’ Was Almost a Streaming Exclusive

Send Help slaughtered the box office like an island hog, raking in over $20 million domestically and well over-performing. The film marks a cheer-worthy return for director Sam Raimi to the vicious, gross, utterly wild horror that made him. Yet the film came this close to not appearing in theaters at all.

Before Raimi took the project to 20th Century Studios, Sony was in talks to release. In an interview with The Wrap, Raimi mentioned how the studio wanted to make Send Help a streaming exclusive. That was an SOS moment for the director.

Said Raimi, “I’m designing this as an audience experience. I wanted the interaction of the theater to make it work, because I know that flavor.”

Raimi knows what he’s talking about. The man created the wildly successful Evil Dead franchise. He directed two incredible Spider-Man films (we don’t talk about the third). He understands how to entertain a theatrical audience. And I can’t believe we live in a time where a studio doesn’t run at the opportunity to release his film in a theater. But, here we are.

In Send Help, Rachel McAdams stars as Linda Liddle, an employee who becomes trapped on an island with her boss, played by Dylan O’Brien. Pushed too far and insulted by him at every turn, ole’ Linda decides to turn the tables.

Dread’s own Josh Korngut wrote in his review of the film, “The best moments of Send Help are the ones that feel most like Sam Raimi: exciting, outrageous bursts of mayhem and cruelty that lean into the absurdity of survival.”

Send Help is thankfully now playing in theaters and not direct to streaming. Go see it so we can convince studios that theaters are still the place to go.