Studio: Shudder
Director: Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy
Writer: Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy
Producer: Brett Arndt, Zachary Weil
Stars: Sterling Macer Jr., John Fleck, Susan Priver, Micki Jackson, Nick Heyman, Tomas Boykin
Review Score:
Summary:
A kidnapped man mails a plea for help that draws postal workers into an unexpected investigation into his disappearance.
Review:
After its pre-title stinger, in which a man in chains crawls to a postbox to mail a bloodied plea for help before his kidnapper recaptures him, “Dead Mail” shows us exactly what happens to that unaddressed message once it lands at the local post office. The note’s next stop is the desk of mail sorters Bess and Ann, who turn it over to Jasper, the resident dead letter investigator whose quiet cleverness, keep-to-himself demeanor, and penchant for making models brings to mind Lester Freeman of “The Wire.” Jasper photocopies the message, presses the resulting piece of paper into a three-hole punch, and sets the original to the side.
Jasper doesn’t have time to deal with the captive man’s predicament yet. First, he has to resolve the matter of a necklace that lost its label. Jasper begins by reading the attached letter for clues about the jewelry’s point of origin. Now armed with a couple of clues, Jasper opens an atlas to narrow down possible locations, then calls the National Weather Service to get precipitation records that might match the rainstorm mentioned in the letter.
He's got a good lead to go on, but Jasper still needs an assist from Renee, a confidential contact who uses his computer prowess to research various records upon request, never mind that his methods aren’t exactly legal. Jasper has to call Renee twice, because the first time, Renee is too busy trading subtitled insults in another language with an angry man in his foreign eyeglasses store. Jasper eventually gets the information he’s looking for, allowing him to tag the item and phone its owner with the welcome news that their heirloom isn’t lost after all.
It's easy to picture an impatient person growing frustrated with “Dead Mail’s” unhurried pacing, though they’d be missing the point of what the movie deliberately does by creeping forward casually like this. Particularly in indie filmmaking, where tunnel vision narratives are commonplace, worldbuilding is a lost art. But “Dead Mail” directors Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy aren’t afraid to slow down for scenery. Impulsive eyes might mistake the story as going nowhere, yet what’s really happening is DeBoer and McConaghy are allowing their characters to exist beyond the boundaries of the fiction. Showing how Jasper does his job, even on a matter unrelated to the main mystery, makes the movie’s world feel like a real place where people have more to do than merely push a plot forward.
Jasper’s involvement with the message concludes about 20 minutes into the movie. At this point, “Dead Mail” backtracks on its nonlinear timeline to tell the tale of how Trent, a seemingly indistinct middle-aged man, came to kidnap Josh, an audio engineer with whom Trent made an arrangement to develop a synthesizer capable of emulating woodwind instruments. As the first act did by extensively detailing the dead letter process, “Dead Mail” delivers more information about manufacturing musical keyboards than is necessary for the story, except it is necessary for illustrating how a specific, shared interest connects these two men together while providing shape to their behavior patterns.
From here, “Dead Mail” transitions from a procedural into a psychological study of an obsessive personality whose unrequited desires and personal insecurities drag him into a spiraling situation that gets out of hand in a hurry. We’ve seen iterations of this identity in plenty of other thrillers before. Yet in addition to its atypical structure and grounded atmosphere, what makes “Dead Mail’s” take on familiar material feel fresh is a unique troupe of actors.
Led by the core trio of John Fleck as Trent, Sterling Macer Jr. as Josh, and Tomas Boykin as Jasper, none of these cast members are household names with recognizable faces. They are, however, professional performers, not the greenhorn nobodies usually populating grassroots features. Their mix of experienced acting abilities and ordinary appearances assures that they read like everyday human beings, not stars pretending to be fictional figures or first-timers spitting out stilted dialogue. Every supporting actor, from the post office’s maintenance men to the two mail-sorting women, capably contributes to this air of authenticity, making it seem like the audience dropped into an ordinary community during an extraordinary moment and is voyeuristically viewing an average day morph into a murderous nightmare.
“Dead Mail” shows what indie filmmaking is supposed to look like when it’s done with passion as well as precision. The 1980s setting is sold by artificial film grain that doesn’t go hard on trying to emulate grindhouse grittiness. The throwback score doesn’t smash you on the nose with retro tones like contemporary synth soundtracks often do. Every element is individually balanced, then carefully collected to create an engrossing yarn that develops at its own speed, on its own terms, to deliver a reality-rooted creeper that’s fascinating even when it detours into details that are never as inconsequential as they might initially appear.
Review Score: 70
“Dead Mail” shows what indie filmmaking is supposed to look like when it’s done with passion as well as precision.