Sam Raimi "promised himself" he'd work with Rachel McAdams again after she was "underutilized" in Doctor Strange 2: "I saw how talented she was"

(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Sam Raimi was so disappointed with how "underutilized" Rachel McAdams was in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he made a promise to himself to work with her again after the MCU sequel.

The follow-up movie gave her more to do than the Marvel hero's first standalone flick, as she got swept up in the Sorcerer Supreme's timey-wimey shenanigans and we met Christine Palmers from other Earths – but it still wasn't enough for the Evil Dead director. Cue Send Help, his new horror-comedy that sees Dylan O'Brien's douchebag boss Bradley Preston get more than he bargained for when he gets stranded on a remote island with his dowdy employee, McAdams' Linda Liddle...

"She was the perfect person [to play Linda] because she's such a brilliant actress. I had a chance to work with her on my last film, and I saw how talented she was – and actually underutilized – and I promised myself that I would work with her again," Raimi recalls to GamesRadar+. "Then this film came up. Her warmth is wonderful, and the fact that she had not really played a dark character before – as [producer] Zainab [Azizi] pointed out to me – was the perfect set-up for the audience to be surprised. The movie is not a whodunnit, but a 'what comes next?' That's what we did.

Dylan O'Brien in Send Help — (Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

"The movie doesn't want the audience to know what's right around the corner. It turns left when they think it's going to turn right," chuckles Raimi. "That was an important factor – and [Rachel] was great in that she's this good person that we know and love, so it's more of a shock when she becomes this terrible villain."

As Raimi hints, Send Help, which was written by Freddy vs Jason scribes Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, plays fast and loose with the terms "hero" and "villain". At the start of the movie, you're fully backing Linda, after her newly appointed CEO Bradley is cruel to her in the office and passes her up for a big promotion. Survivor super-fan Linda nurses an injured Bradley back to health after their business trip goes awry, too, but as days turn into weeks, their time on the beachfront – and new power dynamic – gets really dark. Think more Misery than Cast Away...

"Likability is so overrated. It's so boring," grins McAdams in a separate interview. "This sounded so fun, to have them flip and see if we could, like, then grab the audience back again. And it's just so much more representative of actual human beings. A little bit of good, and then some not so good."

Send Help is out in US cinemas now, and will be released in the UK on February 5. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.