About the directors

Dead Mail is Missouri natives Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s second feature film together. The duo worked together on their short film Rubies (2014) and their feature-length film BAB (2020), which takes place in the 1950s. Kyle McConaghy is also a camera man. Dead Mail was part of the “Midnight Madness” programme at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Press reviews

“The visual aesthetic of Dead Mail is definitely worthy of praise. Dead Mail is set during the 80s, and looks like it was made in the decade too. There is a grainy texture to the image that immediately positions its viability of having been made forty years ago. The costume and production design also does fantastic work to replicate the bygone era. Their work is more organic than just throwing in key 80s iconography into frame. They instead focus on how ordinary people lived back then, generating more authenticity points for Dead Mail. (…) Tonally, despite the plots being wildly different, there is an air of Being John Malkovich to Dead Mail.” (Kat Hughes für TheHollywoodNews.com)

“As part of the form experimentation, Dead Mail defies easy categorization. DeBoer and McConaghy dabble in a bit of everything, from off-kilter indie drama to psychological and crime thriller with touches of dread-inducing horror. The filmmakers also know when to interject levity into its sorrowful depiction of imposter syndrome and broken loneliness. It’s a movie admirably marching to its own beat, immersing viewers in a wholly unique vision of the ‘80s Midwest. Despite the simplicity of the plot, Dead Mail becomes far more complex through its character work and experimental form. There’s a tactile, lived-in quality to this strange version of the decade and its inhabitants that makes for a fascinating watch […].” (Meagan Navarro für bloody-disgusting.com)