Sam Raimi Admits He Was Wrong After Creative Clash With Dylan O’Brien on SEND HELP
When Sam Raimi signs on to a horror-comedy, you expect things to get uncomfortable with all the blood that the filmmaker likes to play with. But on his new film Send Help, the discomfort didn’t just live on screen.
It also showed up in a creative tug-of-war between the director and his leading man, Dylan O'Brien. And in the end, Raimi happily admits the actor won that one.
In Send Help, O’Brien plays Bradley, an absolutely miserable boss who somehow manages to be smug, clueless, and cruel all at once. Raimi initially envisioned a version of the character that didn’t push quite so far into awful territory. O’Brien saw it differently, and he wasn’t shy about pushing back.
“Dylan and I had disagreements about how dark his character could be in the office,” Raimi tells GamesRadar+. “I would say to him, ‘Dylan, remember, we’re going to do this unusual thing where we’re going to have the audience stop identifying with her, and I want them to identify with you at this point?
“We’re gonna reveal things. We’re going to have actions take place that will make that happen. But I’m afraid if you push it as hard as you are, we’re going to have trouble getting back.’”
Bradley starts the movie as a nightmare human being, especially toward Linda, the long-suffering assistant played by Rachel McAdams. Raimi worried that if Bradley went too far early on, the audience would check out before the movie had a chance to flip expectations.
O’Brien didn’t buy that fear. Raimi explained: “He said, ‘But that’s what makes it worth it.’ And I said, ‘Okay, let’s try it. Let’s try it as hard as you’re talking about, and we’ll see what happens.’ And he was right.
“It was only worth it by going that far – to come back and be surprised that we’re now almost rooting for Dylan’s character. So, yeah, it was a game of puppets and strings to play the audience a little bit. And [Dylan] wasn’t afraid to go all the way to the edge. He was gung-ho, he loved this job.”
The setup for Send Help gives that pivot plenty of room to breathe. Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the film opens with Bradley inheriting his father’s company after his sudden death. It’s a great deal for his lazy office buddy Donovan, played by Xavier Samuel. For Linda, who was promised a major promotion before the old man died, it’s a gut punch.
When Donovan gets the job instead, Linda understandably loses it, forcing Bradley to drag her along on a business trip meant to smooth things over. That plan goes sideways when their plane crash-lands in the Gulf of Thailand, stranding the pair on a remote island.
Suddenly, the arrogant boss who once held all the power is completely out of his depth and reliant on Linda, who turns out to be a Survivor-obsessed wildcard with her own sharp edges.
That moral whiplash is exactly what excited O’Brien about the role.
“I love that. I love that. I don’t know that we’re ever heroes…” O’Brien laughs, when we commend the movie’s ability to portray Bradley as both hero and villain. “But yeah, it was a fun game, and it was really freeing.
“I just don’t think that, like, a flawed character necessarily equates to unlikability. I love watching flawed characters, so I guess I just don’t understand that conversation, that sort of takes place behind the scenes. Sometimes people can be, like, a little scared of that. I don’t know, I feel like all my favorite characters in my favorite movies are flawed.”
That philosophy lines up with what Send Help ultimately becomes. It’s a movie that lets its characters be messy, petty, and occasionally terrible, then trusts the audience to stay engaged through the chaos. Raimi’s willingness to listen, experiment, and admit when an actor has the better instinct paid off in a big way.