The first trailer for Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy‘s (BAB) chilling crime shocker Dead Mail just dropped, mere hours before the film’s highly anticipated world premiere at this year’s SXSW this Saturday 9 March.
Co-directed and co-written by DeBoer and McConaghy, the film opens on a bound man crawling to a remote mailbox, desperately sliding in a blood-stained letter before a shadowy figure closes in. This cry for help finds its way to seasoned dead letter investigator Jasper, whose job it is to investigate lost mail and return it to its sender. But when a strange man named Trent shows up, Jasper realizes he’s got himself caught up in something far more sinister.
The film stars Sterling Macer, Jr. (Where the Crawdads Sing, BAB), John Fleck (Waterworld), Susan Priver (Scalper), Micki Jackson (“Drumline: A New Beat”), Tomas Boykin (3 From Hell), and Nick Heyman (Ambush).
“We first discovered the concept of this real-life “Dead Letter” postal department a decade ago, fascinated by the backdrop of a now defunct department that used primitive technology to return undeliverable valuables to their intended recipients,” the directors explain. “As we both faced challenges in our lives, we wondered to what extremes someone would go to maintain their personal stability. One of us presented the idea of “a bound woman crawls out of a desolate house to deliver a bloody help note at the nearby street postal box”. The other replied: “I like it, but what if instead of a woman, it’s Josh Brolin”. And so, the opening scene of Dead Mail was born, minus the Brolin. Over the years, the film evolved more into a story about Trent, the deeply troubled man grasping to maintain the first human connection he’s stumbled upon in years. “If you’re lonely enough, you’ll open your mind to just about anything”, says a postal worker early in the film. As our previously mentioned synthesizer engineer, Josh, is held captive by Trent, the film digs deeper into the complex brokenness of loneliness.”
You can catch the film at this year’s SXSW at the screenings listed below, and to convince you it’s worth the trip, we’ll leave you with the trailer for a film that looks set to make quite an impression on the festival circuit and beyond this year. You can also watch our interview with the directors and cast over here.
World Premiere & Screening Times:
Violet Crown 2, Saturday, March 9 at 3:00 pm
Violet Crown 4, Saturday, March 9 at 3:30 pm
Alamo Lamar 8, Monday, March 11 at 8:45 pm
Alamo Lamar 7, Monday, March 11 at 9:15 pm
Alamo Lamar 8, Wednesday, March 13 at 2:00 pm
Alamo Lamar 7, Wednesday, March 13 at 2:30 pm
