Joe DeBoer Archives - Sean Kelly On Movies

A kidnapped man desperately drops a note requesting help into a mailbox in Dead Mail. Josh (Sterling Macer Jr.), a kidnapped synthesizer engineer, crawls his way out of the house he is chained to and drops a call for help into the mailbox before his kidnapper and former business partner Trent (John Fleck) returns home. The note ends up on the desk of Jasper (Tomas Boykin), the dead mail investigator at the local post office. At the urging of his co-workers Ann (Micki Jackson) and Bess (Susan Priver), Jasper begins to investigate the source of the note with the help of his Scandinavian hacker contact Renée (Nick Heyman). Dead Mail Synopsis Dead Mail is a kidnapping thriller written and directed by Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy. In the film's set-up, a bloodstained note ends up on the investigation desk of Dead Mail Investigator Jasper. Initially believing the note to be a sick joke, Jasper eventually decides to look into the source of the note. The plot of the film soon rewinds to tell the story of a man named Trent, who partners up with synthesizer engineer Josh, as the two begin developing a prototype. However, Trent soon becomes spiteful of what he perceives to be a betrayal by Josh. My Thoughts on Dead Mail With a retro 1970s aesthetic and an synthesizer-heavy score, Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy channel the films of Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, Flux Gourmet) with their kidnapping thriller Dead Mail. Similar to Strickland's In Fabric, Dead Mail switch perspectives between different protagonists, beginning with the investigator Jasper, rewinding to tell the backstory of Trent and Josh, and finally focusing on Jasper's co-workers Ann and Bess. Of the ensemble cast of Dead Mail, it is John Fleck as Trent, who leaves the most lasting impression, as a character who is equal parts sad and pathetic and sinister. Altogether, Dead Mail is a solid, yet quite low-key, kidnapping thriller.

Dead Mail – TIFF 2024