20 Recent Movie Villains Who Were Instantly Iconic
8. Linda Liddle - Send Help
Sam Raimi's Send Help is a glorious sick puppy of a movie that simply wouldn't work without the towering central performance from Rachel McAdams as underappreciated corporate strategist Linda Liddle.
While the marketing largely suggested that Linda was an outright hero who faces off against her a**hole boss Bradley (Dylan O'Brien) when the pair are stranded on an island following a plane crash, things aren't quite so simple.
Linda is a more nuanced - and yes, twisted - character than one might expect.
Far from a mere mousy office worker, Linda is an obsessive survivalist who decides not to summon help when given the opportunity, given that the flipped dynamic of the island allows her a level of agency she simply doesn't have in her regular life.
This lurches from deranged to downright psychotic when she murders Bradley's fiancee Zuri (Edyll Ismail) and a boat captain once they arrive on the island to rescue them.
After this, Linda kills Bradley and then uses the whole ordeal to reinvent herself as a self-help celebrity.
One might at first be tempted to say "Good for her," but by the time she's murdered three people in her pursuit of a better life, it's a little tougher to be on Team Linda.
What an entertaining character, though, and so brilliantly performed by Rachel McAdams, who in a just world would be courting early Oscar buzz right now.