‘Dead Mail’ Review: Aesthetically Pleasing Retro-Tech Thriller

Columbo by way of the Coen Brothers, Dead Mail is a retro-tech analog thriller centered on music, mail, and murder. Set somewhere in the ambiguous 1980s American Midwest, postal office mail workers receive a bloody scrap of paper with an anonymous plea for help from an allegedly kidnapped man. Jasper, the head (and sole) member of the office’s “Dead Letter Department,” usually in charge of attempting to trace and deliver undeliverable mail, is pulled into investigating a kidnapping. From there, the film sprawls into a fascinating saga of loneliness, longing, lost youth and synthesizer engineering. 

The commitment to the 80’s aesthetic is quite admirable, especially given the relatively low-budget directors Kyle McConaghy and Joe DeBoer were working with. The sets feel incredibly lived in and dated, with the classic liminal, neutral palette of the era. The wardrobe, hair, and even the faces of the actors themselves feel right at home in that setting. The film is warm and grainy, and the investigation is entirely predicated on the usage of era-appropriate and mostly analog technology. Scanning polaroids for details, xeroxing letters to reexamine for clues, receiving faxes of suspect information stolen by an ARPANET-era hacker, not to mention the entire plot built on an obsession with synthesizer machines. This also contributes to the score, haunting and often discordant (created by the directors themselves, who also wrote the feature), reminiscent of John Carpenter’s soundtrack work, especially Halloween.

Overall, it is incredibly refreshing to see an investigation depicted through such methods. Digital technology and the age of surveillance have eviscerated the fine, elegant art of snooping around for clues. In a Q&A, the directors described the “pre-cell phone” era as a priority of theirs. Michael Mann’s Manhunter also comes to mind in that regard (as does the film’s commitment to men whose passion and expertise in their line of work lead to empty lives), which is a fitting comparison as the film’s climax feels like an homage to its successor, The Silence of the Lambs. The often frantic editing, harsh camera angles and incredible performances of anguish and anger, especially from John Fleck as Trent and Sterling Macer Jr. as Josh, add to the unnerving and at times abrasive atmosphere.

The only potential criticism that comes to mind is the time spent exploring the relationship and backstory between kidnapper Trent and victim Josh and the off-beat and strange nature of their partnership, over the investigative portions of the film. The film is less of a “whodunnit” and more of a “howcatchem”, an inverted detective story in the vein of Columbo and Poker Face. Personally, I loved this extended psychosexual detour, giving way to a greater theme of loneliness and the desperate need to connect. Jasper is a master of his craft, a legend at the post office, able to mend broken bridges of communication, to reunite sender and receiver across distances through a written game of broken telephone. But he has nothing and no one in his life outside the post office, living in a men’s hostel in his middle age after an ambiguous failure in his life. Actor Tomas Boykin drew on his own experience as a skiptracer, tracking down elusive and missing people between acting gigs, describing it as a “solitary quest” full of loneliness. Trent, in turn, describes his life of repression as living in an oil barrel, peering out at the world and desperately wanting to be seen, and sees a like-minded figure in his eventual captive, Josh, who is desperate to make waves with his synthesizers, having reached a later stage of life. The odd nature of their jobs and the overall bizarre web they weave together is masked and made up for the genuine and earnest depiction of their lives.

When I caught this film at TIFF 2024, I fell in love with it, and feared that it would fly under the radar and thus fail to obtain a distributor. I was pleased to hear it had gotten one earlier this year, with Shudder. It’s right at home in that catalogue, next to the 70s-style Late Night with the Devil. Still, not many seem to have seen it. I implore you to check it out. Do you like the strange worlds and thrillers of the Coen Brothers? Stephen King? Lynch? Hitchcock? Give this one a shot.

Dead Mail stars Tomas Boykin, Sterling Macer Jr., John Fleck, Micki Jackson, Susan Priver, and more. The film is available on Shudder.

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