“I just wanted to prepare him and torture him,” director Sam Raimi jokes.

Sam Raimi pranked Dylan O’Brien into thinking he had to eat real bugs for Send Help: ‘They’ve been cleaned’

"I just wanted to prepare him and torture him," director Sam Raimi jokes.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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January 29, 2026 10:00 a.m. ET

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Dylan O'Brien as Bradley Preston in 'Send Help'. Credit:

20th Century Studios

There's a scene in *Send Help*, director Sam Raimi's survival horror-thriller and borderline comedy, in which Dylan O'Brien's Bradley Preston eats a gnarly bug. The toxic new boss of his late father's company finds himself stranded on a deserted island with a quirky grunt worker, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams), whom he cannot stand.

In an attempt to survive on his own, he hunts for food. Sadly for Bradley, the only creature he can find is a creepy crawly.

"I prepared him to eat a real bug," Raimi shares with **. "He was ready, and we had them, but at the last minute, I told him we're going to eat a fake bug. I had never really planned to have him eat a bug. I just wanted to prepare him and torture him."

O'Brien doesn't necessarily see this as a prank. "You know how he commits to his bits," he says, turning towards McAdams in a separate interview with his costar. "Which I love, and I'm always finding so funny when he is doing it, usually, but typically it's in little ways."

Dylan O'Brien's Bradley Preston in 'Send Help'.

20th Century Studios

The actor also mentions Ky Furneaux, the production's resident survivalist, who consulted on the movie and whom O'Brien trusted. "I was like, 'Well, I mean, yeah! If he ran it by her, great,'" he remarks.

This is how Raimi's bit played out, as told by O'Brien: "He basically was like, 'Hey, pal, I wanna talk to you about the beetles that we have today. So there's basically four different species that aren't poisonous, and they're all dead, and they've been cleaned, and they've been approved.' I was definitely surprised, but I was like, 'Oh! Okay.' In the back of my head, a little bit, I was like, 'How is this the first time I'm hearing about this?' But it seemed okay."

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Raimi reveals what O'Brien actually chewed on during filming. "The prop department had worked with some fine bakers in Phuket, Thailand," he recalls. "They made these confections with such great detail. They fashioned these wings and the antenna and the legs, and I was told it tasted something like a lemon meringue."

McAdams, who previously worked with Raimi on *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness*, went through her own gauntlet on *Send Help* — with less pranking. During the plane crash scene, she was doused with buckets of water. During a boar hunting scene, she found herself covered in fake blood and fake saliva. There was also a moment where her character vomits all over Bradley's face while dragging him from the water.

Bradley Preston (Dylan O'Brien) in 'Send Help'.

Brook Rushton/20th Century Studios

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"He volunteered to be the water thrower," McAdams says of Raimi for the plane crash scene. "And I was like, 'Wait, what?! *You're* gonna throw the water? Well, you don't have to. You could just sit behind the monitor and be the director. Why would you do that?' He was like, 'Oh no, it must be me. I'm the only one who can do it.'"

"I'm the best there is at throwing blood and vomit. The best in the business," Raimi jokes.

On a more serious note, he explains, "I've been on sets where you cue the [production assistant] and the PA's supposed to throw the blood, but then you hear, 'Oh, I'm sorry, Sam. I missed her.' Yeah, but you ruined her makeup. Let's send her back to makeup. How long is it gonna be? 10 minutes? 30 minutes? ... After a few movies [with] this, the next thing a director says is, 'Just give me the vomit cup and I will vomit upon her.' So it's not something I do happily, it's something I do out of necessity."

See everything McAdams and O'Brien survived when *Send Help* opens in theaters this Friday.

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Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Horror”