Set in the 1980s, “Dead Mail” (2024) is a creepy yet captivating horror-thriller that revolves around a help note that arrives at a post office. It leads a few people to investigate its origins and uncover a potential culprit and a crime. Despite limited settings and characters, the film becomes unnerving as it explores the grimmest corners of the human psyche. Joe DeBoerKyle and Kyle McConaghy have written and directed this film, which has made its rounds through many horror film festivals and has also been a part of SXSW and TIFF. It finally started streaming on Shudder in April 2025. Let’s dive into what actually happens in the film to understand the motives and fate of its characters.
Spoilers Ahead
Dead Mail (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
‘Dead Mail” on Shudder is a crime horror-thriller that mainly revolves around three characters: a dead mail investigator, a keyboard technician, and a synthesizer enthusiast who hopes to start a new business in partnership with the technician. Tomas Boykin, Sterling Macer Jr., and John Fleck play these three leads.
What happens in ‘Dead Mail’ on Shudder?
Joe DeBoerKyle and McConaghy’s film unfolds in a non-linear fashion. It initially shows the aftermath of a crime and follows up with how it happened. For the sake of convenience, let’s follow the events chronologically. Josh (Sterling Macer Jr.), a middle-aged keyboard technician, shows up at a local trade show with a synthesizer. Only a few other people are selling or interested in buying any of the products at the fair. Trent (John Fleck), one of the buyers, is impressed with what Josh has achieved with his keyboard. They share their niche knowledge in this field and bond in no time.
Trent makes a business proposition to build the keyboard in a specific way and offers the help Josh needs to do this job. During this time, they grow fond of each other. Neither of them seems to have any close friends or family. So, their friendship doesn’t feel too surprising. However, it eventually hits a rough spot when Josh finds a lucrative opportunity to grow his passion into something much bigger. He realizes that he has managed to build a keyboard with the kind of woodwind sound that was considered rare at the time.
Josh contacts the Japanese manufacturers and shares a recording detailing what he has achieved. They offer him a job opportunity. However, this would mean he must move to Japan. That doesn’t bode well with Trent, who is shocked to know that Josh is planning to leave their business venture. Until then, Josh had kept Trent in the dark. He was probably hoping to break the news later when it would be too late to cancel. However, Trent secretly learns about it and is not remotely happy. So, he takes a shocking step to ensure he gets what he wants.
Who sends the ominous blood note through the post?
Ahead of his move to Japan, Josh starts packing all his belongings into boxes and is excited about this new chapter of his life. The Japanese company provides him with instructions to pack his keyboard in a way that doesn’t damage any parts. He walks up to the room where he usually works on his keyboard, to find it gone. Instead, Trent stands there with a plateful of food. He doesn’t reveal where it is. Instead, he invites Josh to listen to his exciting counter-offer. Josh reluctantly joins Trent at his house since he sees no other way to find his missing keyboard.
While there, Trent insists Josh join him in an underground bunker. Josh blindly trusts Trent. He walks in to find almost everything he would need to work on his keyboard. However, by then, he had already signed a lease and an agreement for his job in Japan. So, he rejects Trent’s offer. Trent takes that rejection personally and locks Josh behind. Josh realizes that when it’s too late to leave. So, he remains stuck inside the bunker while Trent watches over him through his bedroom. Even if Josh screams for help, no one would be able to listen since Trent lives in an oddly isolated spot.
Unable to persuade Trent otherwise, Josh plans another way to escape. He lights up a fire in the bunker, hoping that would help him get in touch with the authorities, but that doesn’t help him either. Trent just locks him up tightly inside a bathroom and communicates through a speaker. After a while, when Trent is not home, Josh writes a help note and reaches up to the nearest post office stand to send it across. Trent returns just in time to stop Josh but to no avail. That’s how the letter reaches the post office, where a dead letter expert starts looking into its origins.
Dead Mail (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Ann (Micki Jackson) and Bess (Susan Priver) go through a pile of letters to find Josh’s blood-soaked help note, but they assume that it might be some kids pulling a prank. They hand it over to Jasper (Tomas Boykin) along with a necklace that they found in the pile. Jasper is known in their office as an expert in tracing the origins of similarly lost pieces. So, he finds the necklace owner and assures her that he will send it across. Then, he directs his attention to the help note and carries it with him to the local Belmont Hollow community that offers affordable lodging services for men.
While alone, Jasper confirms that the red spots on that note are blood and not red paint. Shortly after, he bumps into Trent and invites him to share a bunk bed. He doesn’t know that the note is sent by Trent’s victim. The next day, Jasper returns to work and tries to locate the note’s origins with his friend Renée (Nick Heyman) over a call. Moments later, Trent sneaks into Jasper’s office with a stolen key and kills him before he can locate Josh. Then, Trent also kills Jasper’s colleague, who arrives there to save Jasper. Trent erases his own trace, leading the cops to think that Jasper’s colleague led to the bloodbath.
Does Josh’s kidnapper get exposed for his crimes?
Unlike the cops, Ann doesn’t believe that Jasper was killed by their colleague. She thinks someone else was behind it but can’t find any evidence. The cops also ignore her pleas and consider them the cries of a grief-stricken woman. Unlike them, Renée confirms her suspicions. He offers her a few names to check if she finds something suspicious at their addresses. It leads Ann to Trent’s doorstep. Trent recognizes her from the post office even though she claims to be from a different organization. So, he invites her in, hoping to silence her. While he is away, Ann walks into his bedroom and notices him practicing a hammer attack.
Terrified, she walks over to the bathroom to find Josh inside. She tries to uncuff him. Trent returns and sees her struggling. However, instead of attacking them, he tells Josh, over a speaker, that their partnership is over, and flees the scene. Ann helps Josh escape with his keyboard. In the film’s final moments, Trent arrives in a dark room and plays a woodwind recording, where Josh credits Trent’s partnership for making it happen. Trent gets emotional hearing that he received an acknowledgment he always craved.
Why does Trent kidnap Josh in the first place? And why does he let Josh go?
“Dead Mail” offers a bleak look into three lonely middle-aged men who are experts in their niche. The same loneliness drives them to their niche interests and also for Trent to kidnap Josh in the first place. After the trade shop meeting, he feels that he can grow his friendship with Josh even further, but Josh’s plans to abandon it make Trent feel betrayed and abandoned. Trent claims that he experienced betrayal and abandonment when he was in college. He might have fabricated those details, but that doesn’t dissolve his misery. Overall, Trent doesn’t seem mentally sane, which leads him to think that kidnapping someone is absolutely fine.
Trent makes up his mind about their future and can’t fathom Josh’s betrayal. So, he ignores Josh’s free will and places his feelings ahead of them. He thinks that kidnapping Josh will get him what he wants, but eventually realizes that it will not convince Josh to change his mind. However, when Ann helps Josh escape, Trent doesn’t attack them or stop them. That is because he kidnapped Josh not necessarily to torture him but to persuade him to work with him. In the end, he realizes that it has reached a dead end, which makes him flee, not kill Josh or Ann, and to let them go.
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