User reviews

I enjoyed this movie despite the absurdity of the plot. Some people have complained about the acting but I saw nothing wrong with it. The actors playing Trent and Jasper were especially strong. This is one of those plots where seemingly insignificant details come together at the climax, and no loose ends were left dangling. The cinematography and look of the film fit the vibe perfectly, giving it a retro 80's feel. I understand that a lot of people will find this movie slow and boring, but I was interested throughout. Give it a shot, you'll know in the first 20 minutes if you want to consider watching or not.

Slow-burn thriller. It reminds me a little bit of the movie Misery. Minus the Misery's whit and lively dialogue. It's just dark and gritty. I liked it.

It has a dark, gritty film like look, uses synth sounds to create a creepy atmosphere...I'm sure I'm not artsy enough to get all the nuances in a casual watch but all of it together kept me watching.

The cast is small, sparse dialogue but that's part of its charm. It was fun to see them show their work a little with how they obtained info. Whereas today we have hackers and the internet to get us what we need.

The villain is an odd duck and I can't quite figure out his why but this movie has a beginning, a middle, a complete and satisfying end.

Don't know what it is with some of these reviews they could'nt have been watching the same movie .This movie was alright i thought definetly an indie movie and i actually thought that this was an 80's movie because they seemed pretty accurate with the 80's synths and the general look of the film etc. I thought it was quite original .Took me a while to grasp the concept because the movie is told in flash back i thought that it was clever how the whole movie comes together. The acting was'nt that groundbreaking except for maybe the actor who played the kidnapper he was pretty good . Overall i thought the movie was pretty good definetly worth a look.

I recently watched Dead Mail (2024) on Shudder. The story centers on a mysterious piece of mail with no address that arrives at a small-town post office for investigation. A strange man soon shows up, determined to retrieve the letter-by any means necessary. The plot then rewinds, tracing the origins of the message and revealing why it's so important to him.

Co-written and co-directed by Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy-who previously collaborated on Bab-the film stars Sterling Macer Jr. (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story), John Fleck (Waterworld), Micki Jackson (Drumline: A New Beat), and Tomas Boykin (The Munsters).

I really enjoyed watching this concept unfold. The premise felt fresh, and the cinematography had a gritty, grindhouse quality at times. The acting was excellent, with strong and authentic performances throughout. The villain is particularly well-crafted-menacing and manipulative in just the right ways. The violence is sharp, sudden, and suits the characters' motivations. In some ways, it reminded me of The Gift.

Overall, Dead Mail is a solid addition to the horror genre, with enough originality to keep you engaged. I'd rate it a 6.5-7/10 and recommend checking it out at least once.

"Dead Mail" was actually a better film than I'd expected, and for that it gets points. It starts off with a very interesting scene of a bloody, chained man crawling to a mailbox to toss in a blood stained scrap of paper, and then stopped and pulled back into a house by a panicked kidnapper. It then switches to the post office, where a man named Jasper is a miracle worker when it comes to locating the people for whom dead mail was intended to go. Jasper-in spite of living in a halfway house-seems to have a Russian agent contact who he gets information from as well as other people who are capable of bringing up detailed facts and figures. I used to work for a company where my job was to try and locate lost equipment we'd rented out and it was fun and interesting, but I wish I'd had Jasper's contact list.

So at this point I'm assuming the movie is going to be about Jasper finding the man at the beginning before he gets killed. Instead, it switches to the story of how the man was kidnapped and why and the continuation of that story without Jasper. That's where I became much less interested. I liked Jasper and I wanted to know his story, not the kidnapped guy's story.

That disappointment notwithstanding, it still was a reasonably interesting film, with decent cinematography and performances. But the kidnapper's weirdness was only good enough for numerous "WTF??" moments, and I really didn't feel much for the victim. The only one I was emotionally attached to was-you guesses it-Jasper, and he had a very short story arc. And the ending was rather unfulfilling, and didn't clarify what happened to the postal worker who went to the house and got caught. Ultimately it was an okay film that had promise, but took a wrong turn.

This 2024 Shudder original called Dead Mail, with a rather interesting-looking poster and a decently intriguing plot synopsis on IMDb, was shot in slightly faded color with grainy visuals, really giving it those 80s retro vibes. Sadly, that's about the only thing this movie does to make itself entertaining or stand out from most other releases nowadays. It's a style choice that can work and mostly does in this film but the narrative needs to be more than a rather dull kidnapping story like the one we get here.

We follow different characters after an ominous help note finds its way into a post office. The movie presents various perspectives; from the victim, the abuser, and other side characters while also incorporating a few time jumps, which are easy enough to follow. And even though the story has some interesting elements and brings a bit of uniqueness to the table, it's overall really dull. It reminded me a bit of 2021's Censor, which had similar problems in my opinion, though it featured stronger pacing and a more engaging narrative.

In this film, I kept finding myself bored and unable to immerse myself in the story or connect with the character arcs. The acting from the main cast is pretty solid, and there's definitely talent involved both in front of and behind the camera. The movie features several scenes that feel unnecessarily drawn out, seemingly only to show off some aesthetically pleasing visuals. That being said, this is definitely a slow burn, and people who don't enjoy that kind of horror should stay away from this one.

If you're a fan of slow-burn horror, this might be worth a watch. However, I personally didn't find anything particularly compelling here and will probably forget about this movie soon. [4.9/10]

Dead Mail (2024): Another Neo-Noir thriller which trespasses on horror territory. Shot in grainy slightly faded colour it gives us the feel of it's 1980's setting. Though the actors play their roles straight, a Coenesque line of humour runs through the film, just about strong enough to leaven the dark horror and violence which also permeates Dead Mail. Jasper (Tomas Boykin) is a dead mail agent, he can track down correct addresses from arcane pieces of information, checking with the weather bureau or if all else fails an overseas hacker friend. Coming across a blood stained scrap of paper supposedly from a kidnapped man Jasper gets cracking. We already know from the opening scene that the "letter" is genuine. The kidnapper breaks into the post office and attacks Jasper. We then flashback to how the kidnapper met up with his victim. A tale of compering synthesizer designers. Unrequited love and a touch of Killing for Company as the kidnapper does have a Dennis Nilsen vibe about him. The dark comedy of the film is what sets it apart from more mundane thrillers along with taut direction and a clever script which makes all the twists and turns make sense. You'll gasp, laugh and maybe cry but I reckon in the end you'll agree that this is a good Noir/Psychological Horror movie. Directed and Written by Kyle McConaghy and Joe DeBoer. 8/10.

Pretty standard indie fare. Acting, cinematography, and dialogue all are hit-and-miss, hitting more than missing. There are some plot holes, but nothing that really degrades the movie. I have no idea why the type of epoxy would affect sound quality. Even from a heat dissipation aspect, there wouldn't be such a thing as "good epoxy", since modeling epoxy would be different from electronics epoxy. Normally only nerds like me would think about this, except that they bring it up like 10 times for whatever reason.

Around half the movie is spent on the actual kidnapping. While the kidnapping part IS actually creative, it's not creative in an interesting way. There's a few points where it seems the movie is going to pull a Saw, but then it just ends the scene. The rest of the movie is the post office stuff, which once again is creative but not all that interesting.

It's FAR from the worst indie movie I've seen, but it lacks the creativity and execution of say, a Benson & Moorhead movie. Overall it just feels like a good idea that suffers from inexperienced writers. DeBoer and McConaghy are probably worth keeping an eye on, but Dead Mail is something you'll watch mildly entertained, and forget the following day.

What a pleasant surprise ! A movie that isn't dumbed down with moronic situations, comic book characters or 20something know-it-alls!

We instead get an interesting, compelling and suspenseful movie that really felt like something from the 70s or 80s. A movie featuring adults! Very cool!

The characters were well drawn and acted and the direction and photography are beyond reproach. Unlike many movies that are set in decades past, this mostly felt like it was from the early 80s. Late 70s if truth be told.

I love the synthesizer storyline. The synth patches they were working on were great and sounded fantastic! The woodwind was gorgeous and all the music on the soundtrack was just perfect.

Al told this was an absorbing little thriller that I quite enjoyed.

This movie starts off great. It has this retro/vintage/nostalgic grain to it that instantly sucked me in. Then right after that, the movie sets the hook very effectively so you're immediately engaged. We're introduced to some characters and context, so far, so good. Shortly after, our assumed protagonist is introduced to the real conflict and it's right here, where I think the movie is really gonna pick up, that the movie comes to a dead stop. After this moment, we get a long flashback that shows the moments leading up the initial kidnapping and it is so...so...so boring. The other negative review here isn't well-written but it is accurate. These events are very slow and very uninteresting to the point where I just couldn't get through them. My interest in the rest of the movie completely disappeared and I turned it off. If you can sit through it, congratulations I guess, but all I got out of it was a blown opportunity. Two stars for the visual style.

I was somewhat hyped for this one as it was advertised to have the same producer as Late Night With The Devil which was excellent. Unfortunately, I have to say that as a lover of both Analog Horror and synthesizers, Dead Mail just didn't hit for me.

On the plus side, the atmosphere is very well done. I really enjoyed the slightly surrealist throw-back vibe and aesthetically they did a great job. It's not too too far off from other similar modern artsy, claustrophobic horror films, but no complaints from me here.

The movie starts off quite well and I found the Jasper character/story to be engaging and I was really curious to see where it led.

Unfortunately, we don't get all that much of it before it cuts to a prolonged flashback of how the kidnapping occurs. I enjoyed the Josh character and watching him carrying out the vision of his dream synth. Unfortunately though, at this point the movie completely flatlines. It becomes increasingly grating, slow, and tedious. Whatever story was being developed is lost as the film becomes entirely style over substance. The actors and the look/feel of the film are fine, but the whole thing just crawls at a glacial pace without providing anything particularly engaging to latch onto. I quickly lost interest in the characters and the (lack of) story and turned it off. I certainly don't care enough to go back and finish it.

Lots of potential for sure, but nothing to keep the viewer hooked outside of aesthetic.

No pun intended - we start off with quite the powerful scene ... we get to see someone who is able to "mail" something ... but without a stamp and any real address ... which is the starting off point to get into what happens with mail that has .... well issues and couldn't be delivered.

We get to see the day to day live and routine of someone who does the job ... and does it well. But he is just one player ... because we also get to see the person who did the "mailing" ... before he had the issues that made him .... well that got him trapped (not really through his own fault).

What is kind of funny, the movie does suggest towards the end, that we saw something that actually happened ... showing what happened to the "real" people of the movie or how they got into the situation they got in ... but at the very end of the credits it does tell us that it is a work of fiction ... but well done and had me for a minute.

Really well acted and really interesting structure ... it was missing something ... a last piece to kick this over the top for me, but it still is amazing to say the least ... if you are into weird movies.

Weird, is the word that would sum up 'Dead Mail' for me. I lost count of the amount of times I said to myself how weird it was. Whether it was just trying so hard to feel like it was set in the 80s, or whether it was intentionally going for a very odd vibe in order to put audiences out of their comfort zone, I don't know. But either way, it did not work for me at all.

And weird doesn't have to be a death sentence if there's interesting stuff going on. But weird and boring is a viscous combination.

The story structure was also bizarre to me. It starts near the end with a few scenes and then goes right back to the start to explain how it all came to be that way. But there was no intrigue created. There was no mystery or questions we had that needed to be answered.

This was a dusty viewing experience. 3/10.

I get that people want to give this flick medium ratings because it is very much a niche indie film that isn't for everyone. But I think objectively as a horror fan Dead Mail deserves props for various elements, ranging from the grainy realistic 1980s atmosphere (and weirdly accurate details like those big buckets of cheap Neapolitan ice cream) to the truly original plot points about sound engineering in the late 20th century and nerdy info on how cool and sleuthlike dead mail was prior to the world wide web.

I also think that the writers/director did their research on serial killers such as Richard Ramirez frequenting a low-income shelter for men during his murder spree, and Jeff Dahmer with his predilection for victimizing poor black males that he justified with his disturbed inability to form healthy gay relationships.

Dead Mail tries hard to be mysterious, surreal, and emotionally gripping-but ends up as a confusing, over-directed mess. While the acting is passable (and occasionally quite strong), it's ultimately wasted on a story that's so convoluted, it borders on nonsensical.

The plot meanders without purpose, stacking cryptic moments that never pay off and characters that seem to exist solely to deliver cryptic dialogue. Rather than building intrigue, the film feels like it's constantly trying to convince you it's smarter than it is. The result is frustrating, not fascinating.

The direction doesn't help. It feels self-indulgent and unsure of itself-flipping between visual styles and tones with no clear vision. Scenes drag on or cut abruptly, leaving emotional beats either overwrought or unfinished. The musical score is particularly baffling: a jarring mix of ambient noise and overdramatic cues that often clash with the scene's tone rather than support it.

Ultimately, Dead Mail wants desperately to be a David Lynch film-but without Lynch's control, vision, or talent. Instead, it comes off as a poor imitation of surrealism, mistaking confusion for complexity and aesthetic for substance.

If you're looking for a film with real depth or meaning behind the weirdness, you won't find it here. Dead Mail is a stylish but empty envelope.

Unsure how this got any good reviews.

Fantastic atmosphere, dripping with a growing sense of dread and a score that gets under your skin. The camera work is a thing of beauty and absolutely adds to the sense of forboding. The actors are good and can't be reeally be criticised for their work.

Despite all this I just didn't like it. The story, while good and original, was told in such a way that, for me, seemed to destroy any kind of suspense. I felt the duration at 1 hour 46 minutes was too long, the conclusion was a little rushed and the ending left me feeling particularly unsatisfied.

Would I reccomend this to a friend? No, unless he was extremley bored and in the mood for an arty, atmospheric but generally unsatisfying movie.

I Saw dead mail today and I can't stop myself from writing a quick review as I thoroughly enjoyed the film .The film is a slow burn thriller which takes time to build up but once you start getting into it ,it is tense till the end credit of the film .All the actors who have performed in the film were outstanding especially trent and josh ,rest of the cast does a great job too.background score is very good and the direction is top notch,it looks like 80 s film .The set design or be it the real location deserves a big applause .overall I enjoyed the film,the only negative I felt was the way the film ended ,I thought could have been better nevertheless dead mail is a great watch if you like slow burn thrillers,don't miss it.

What happened Shudder??? You were on a roll lately with movies like Oddity and Arcadian and a few others. But now it's like you can't make a decent movie to save your life. The past few have been really really bad.

This movie is very dull and boring. The story is all over the place. The acting is all over the place. I did like the 80s vibe to it but that's about where the likes end. It truly is a mess of a movie that AMC never should've picked up.

My advice is don't waste your time and rewatch oddity or another good horror movie instead of this.

I hope you start making better movies AMC or I will be canceling my service.

2/10.

Anything above 4 stars is obviously strictly coming from people involved with the making of the film. It's okay because they've conveyed the creeps well but mostly because of the film it was shot in. I'm kind of confused as to what exactly is going on as I'm sitting through the beginning of the movie. Then I started to fall asleep and fought through it. Finally sat up and was able to continue watching. Finished the movie and still I have no clue as to the how and why. Anyway, altogether they get a 4 stars for aesthetics and making the movie appear as though it was shot in the olden days. They even paid attention to detail with no slip ups that u could recognize. I'll probably give it a second watch to try and see if it grows on me.

I can't believe this is a 2024 movie I felt like I was watching a movie from 1960s it is SLOW...UNINTERESTING...OUT OF DATE...PREDICTABLE...WORST HOUR AN A HALF WASTED OF MY LIFE...and I believe I am being gracious with this review..would have been better if I would have turned it off 5 minutes into watching it. This review does not contain spoilers, it's just a DULL AND SLOW MONOLOGUE, LIKE A BAD BOOK YOU PUT DOWN AFTER READING THE BEGINNING.dont waste your time find another movie, don't waste your time, find another movie, don't waste your time find another movie, if you watch this junk then your just wasting your time and should find another movie.

WOW! This is one of the very few films where they've made the right use of synth music. With use of colour where it looks grainy and slightly faded the makers did a wonderful job to make it feel like we're watching an authentic 80's film. And adding to that, the camerawork is so amazing, it feels so raw and beautiful.

Though the pace is a bit slow it gets compensated with the non linear storytelling and that suspense element of how things turn out in the end. But what stands out the most for me is that synth music, as an ardent fan of it, I loved how the score plays into the story itself. They've made perfect use of it whenever they've tried to show that something eerie is going to happen.

The story is interesting and captivating, especially the character Jasper where it has got some essence of a Sherlock. And there's actually a scope for either a prequel or a sequel and I'd definitely be interested in seeing those if they ever make one. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie so much and I'd definitely recommend you to watch this especially if you are a big fan of Synth music! Do not miss this one!

Unless you are passionate about making keyboards sound like pipe organs I don't see how you could enjoy this. That is literally the main theme of the movie. I don't want to spoil anything but there is little to spoil. No surprises, twists or turns here. Just talking about keyboards and comparing their sound to the real thing. One guys passion is just WAY over the top.

I made it through the entire thing because of the high scores- they didn't appear fake but I don't know anyone who I would recommend this movie too.

Very hard pass

Unless you are passionate about making keyboards sound like pipe organs I don't see how you could enjoy this. That is literally the main theme of the movie. I don't want to spoil anything but there is little to spoil. No surprises, twists or turns here. Just talking about keyboards and comparing their sound to the real thing. One guys passion is just WAY over the top.

I made it through the entire thing because of the high scores- they didn't appear fake but I don't know anyone who I would recommend this movie too.

Very hard pass.