The Reel Review
A brilliant but mercilessly bullied employee turns the tables on her insufferable boss when they alone survive a corporate jet crash that strands them on a remote island off the coast of Thailand. Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien star in this absurdist, darkly comic horror/thriller about the psychology of workplace politics.
Those who love gross-out horror will be in their element in this gleefully bonkers mashup of Castaway and Misery, tinged with the vomit-filled aftertaste of Triangle of Sadness. Director Sam Raimi, the filmmaker behind such wide-ranging movies as The Evil Dead, Drag Me to Hell, The Gift, and The Quick and the Dead, delivers his trademark gore, slapstick comedy and jump scares, as poor put-upon Survivor fan and survivalist enthusiast Linda Liddle (a splendid, all-in McAdams) thrives in her new environment. She repeatedly outwits, outplays and outlasts the consistently arrogant, entitled and stupid nepo-baby Bradley, deliciously played by O’Brien (Anniversary, The Maze Runner trilogy).
The story goes way off the rails in the final act, and some of the wild boar/cryptkeeper CGI looks disappointingly fake, but even so, the film’s ultimate message, about how you can only count on yourself, because no one is coming to save you, is eerily on point in our current morally bankrupt era.
REEL FACTS
• Sam Raimi’s last film was the 2022 Marvel fantasy Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which starred Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer.
• As illustrated in the movie, spreading wild berries on the inside of your forearm and waiting 15 minutes for a reaction is considered a last resort for determining whether they are poisonous. White and yellow berries are usually poisonous, with red berries poisonous 50% of the time.
• Sam Raimi’s next film will be as a producer for July 2026’s Evil Dead Burn.
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