Sam Raimi’s Return To R-Rated Horror Debuts With Finest Viewers Rotten Tomatoes Rating In 39 Years

Ship Assist has despatched director Sam Raimi screaming again into the hearts of audiences in all places.

2026’s Ship Assist, which has earned Raimi his greatest Rotten Tomatoes viewers rating in 39 years, is his first unique horror film since 2012’s Drag Me to Hell and his first R-rated horror since 2000’s The Reward. The brand new film follows a company worker (Rachel McAdams) discovering herself trapped on a desert island together with her merciless new CEO (Dylan O’Brien) and turning the tables together with her survival expertise.

Rotten Tomatoes has now aggregated greater than 100 verified person critiques for Ship Assist on the film’s official theatrical opening day. Though the rating might fluctuate as extra critiques are added, on the time of writing, the film has earned a stable 89% viewers rating on the Popcornmeter.

Though this viewers rating falls barely under the film’s Licensed Contemporary 92% Tomatometer rating, which was aggregated from 125 totally different critics’ Ship Assist critiques, it marks the perfect Popcornmeter rating for any Sam Raimi film since 1987’s Evil Useless II. In actual fact, it’s tied for his greatest viewers rating ever, since Evil Useless II was beforehand on the high of the chart with an identical 89%.

Beneath, see Sam Raimi’s 5 best-performing directorial options on the Popcornmeter:

Contemplating the truth that Ship Assist is performing even higher than two of the director’s beloved Evil Useless motion pictures speaks to how effectively Raimi can join with audiences when he works throughout the realm of R-rated horror. In actual fact, many particular person customers referenced their pleasure at seeing him returning to kind.

Adam L praised the director for “doing what he does greatest” whereas Karen E known as it “a real Sam Raimi film” and Rachael M mentioned it was “pure Raimi horror” in that it was “humorous, gory, [and] completely bonkers.”

It stays to be seen if the Popcornmeter rating for Ship Assist drifts increased or decrease as its theatrical run continues. Nevertheless, if the robust response that it has provoked from audiences interprets to a stable efficiency on the field workplace (the film reportedly value $40 million, probably putting its estimated break-even level someplace round $100 million), it might encourage Raimi to proceed helming R-rated horror tasks.

Whereas Raimi has not shied away from R-rated horror as a producer (latest tasks in that realm embrace Evil Useless Rise, Crawl, Do not Breathe, and possibly the upcoming Evil Useless Burn, which has not but been rated), within the years between The Reward and Ship Assist, he has largely targeted on directing superhero and franchise movies together with the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy and Oz the Nice and Highly effective.