- Director: Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy
- Writer: Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy
- Stars: Sterling Macer Jr., John Fleck, Tomas Boykin, Micki Jackson, Susan Priver, Nick Heyman
REVIEW
A bound and bloodied man crawls toward a mailbox, with a bloodied note to post, as he gets closer a man appears behind him dragging him back. That’s the cold open for Dead Mail, that showed at The Overlook Film Festival. An 80’s aesthetic thriller that at first glance seems to be a relatively straight-lined story that could have aped many true crime stories. However, in the hands of the writer/directors Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy it turns into something that is hard to define, an undercurrent of dread that runs beneath the film that plays like an off-kilter drama that frames obsession as a bed fellow of loneliness and then turns up the weirdness.
When the letter finds its way to the dead letter office, local dead letter investigator Jasper (Boykin) goes about finding out just where this letter could be from and if it’s a hoax or real. Jasper has a friend that has access to a lot of government information (Heyman), and Jasper soon gets very close to the truth. The film then changes the narrative to the two men that were seen in the cold open and we get a brief history of how these two found themselves in this situation, Trent (Fleck) and Josh (Macer, Jr). Trent is a lonely and slightly strange man who has interest in synthesizers and music and at a tradeshow he meets Josh, a keyboard technician who has a prototype of a synthesizer patch that produces an organ tone that no other company has. Trent wants to finance Josh’s project. Unfortunately, Josh is naive, and Trent is obsessive…
Fleck and Macer Jr are phenomenal, Fleck really getting into his character, someone that could probably be described as one step removed from Mark Duplass’ character in Creep, Fleck is so understated, it’s perfect. Macer Jr, is excellent as well, creating a character that wouldn’t be out of place if Dead Mail was a quirky comedy but in this context, it really gives the audience a lamb-to-the-slaughter vibe. When Macer Jr. and Fleck are on screen together, they have great chemistry. Heyman gets to have a bit of fun with his character Renee, Jasper’s information guy, who wouldn’t be out of place in a spy thriller. Heyman gets to deliver his lines as fragments of speech. Becoming the link in the film between what we the audience know and what the characters know whilst Jackson and Priver round out the main players in the film. These two have such a natural way about them, that despite them not having a large part to play, they both become another vital piece of the film.
DeBoer and McConaghy give their banal setting the noir treatment, and it creates tension. A dead letter office, a lonely guy with a love of music and a keyboard technician – with all due respect, these are three things that don’t really inspire the feeling of danger and intrigue, but DeBoer and McConaghy manage to bring all these pieces together to create something that defies and then exceeds expectations.
You might be thinking ‘ugh another retro 80s film’ but this isn’t the usual bombastic 80s neon aesthetic but a muted, drab, small town style. The design choices give this film a melancholy feel whilst the music and sounds that permeate the film throughout with blips and long monotonous notes that sometimes stop dead further enhances the feeling of isolation and loneliness felt by almost all the characters in the film.
Dead Mail succeeds on all fronts. An unpredictable low-fi thriller, a rumination on what being lonely and isolated means to different people, whilst still manging to slowly and methodically crank up the tension and dread to deliver a fantastic noir-horror film that should see DeBoer and McConaghy become very sought after. Write down Dead Mail on your list of must-see films.
Dead Mail played at The Overlook Flm Festival.
Ryan Morrissey-Smith
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