Dead Mail
It is the place where letters and parcels considered undeliverable eventually make their way, the dead letter office of the United States Postal Service, Bess Greer and Ann Lankford the team who handle the “simple” queries of partial or obviously incorrect addresses for Peoria County while in the backroom sits Jasper Lawrence, regarded by his colleagues as a genius for his ability to track down the sender or intended recipient of dead mail.
Initially dismissed as a joke in bad taste, Jasper is determined to solve the riddle of a torn scrap of card with bloody marks on it found in a mail collection box, the words “HELP ME KIDNAPPED” alongside a rough description of a house and the general location scrawled upon it, using the expertise of former Norwegian intelligence agent Renée Øgaard to assist, Jasper the telephone to his friend when he is interrupted and murdered.
A slow-burning thriller written and directed by Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy, Dead Mail is set in the back rooms of the post office where quiet people go about their work diligently, with little reward or recognition, the death of Jasper (Tomas Boykin) and his supervisor regarded by the police as a murder/suicide, though no motive can be determined, Bess and Ann (Susan Priver and Micki Jaskson) suspecting there is more to it.
A chance call from Renée (Nick Heyman) confirming their instinct, they must piece together the scant clues to determine what the audience have known from the opening scene, that a strange loner, Trent Whittington (Carnivàle’s John Fleck), is indeed holding a man captive, Joshua Ivey (Sterling Macer, Jr), a musician and engineer with whom he is obsessed, his friendship solicitous to the point of suffocating even before he snapped and chained him up.
The investigation more interesting than the deluded ranting of the kidnapper, often over a speaker system and barely intelligible, that dominates the second act, an extended period of degradation and humiliation of the hostage during which the film stalls, Dead Mail a well-acted and original idea which fails to apply diligence in plotting with the electronic soundtrack which recalls the work of Wendy Carlos and Gil Mellé only partially compensating.
Joshua’s initial escape attempt thwarted at the gates, a telephone call would have been a more certain and immediate way to summon help than by mail, and even if the note was not pursued the authorities it would have been notified because of the content, particularly with a murder the day after a customer was pointedly asking about the operation of the dead letter office, Dead Mail already as frustrating as a delayed delivery even before the lacklustre conclusion.
Dead Mail will be available on Shudder from Friday 18th April
