A Package Marked "Return To Sender"
is a short horror story from r/nosleep on Reddit, written by Manen Lyset. A short film adaptation is viewable on Vimeo.
CAUTION! Unmarked spoilers ahead.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion:
- The protagonist gets further characterization in the short film (he practices the guitar and has a date over while Tom is away).
- In the short film, the protagonist and Tom are roommates, which further justifies why he would be so annoyed at his roommate’s antics.
- Adapted Out: In the original story, the neighbor has a friend who helps him with several of his stunts, including sending him in a box. This character is absent in the short film.
- Chekhov's Gun: The squeaky garage door. When the protagonist hears it in the video his neighbor was filming from inside the box, he deduces he was the one who made the topple that ended his neighbor’s life.
- Deconstruction: This story shows just how dangerous sending a person in the mail really is. Shame it’s such a common stunt with YouTube channels.
- Designated Villain: In-Universe in the short film. During one of Tom’s videos when his roommate enters the room and asks him to keep the noise down, meme faces are edited over his face and the words, “blah blah blah” are pasted on the screen.Tom: And now you see what I’m dealing with on a daily basis. Shit’s so annoying, man.
- Foregone Conclusion: The video on the neighbor’s vlogging camera (iPad in the short film). We already know he isn’t going to make the trip, but he doesn’t know that.
- Foreshadowing: The protagonist says, "I was always afraid his stunts would wind up bleeding into my life." We don’t find out what he means by that until he opens the box to find his neighbor’s corpse.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The protagonist has this upon realizing he accidentally killed his neighbor by allowing the box to fall over.
- Named by the Adaptation: Neither the protagonist nor his neighbor are named in the original story, but the neighbor is called Tom in the short film...
which happens to be the first name of the actor credited. - Obligatory Swearing: Tom does this a lot in the short film:Tom: I can barely hear any motherfucker.
- Take That!: The way Tom’s video is edited in the start of the short film exemplifies many common things in similar channels in real life, such as brightly-colored text pasted over the screen that repeats dialogue in the video, and voice effects.
- Title Drop: The box that arrives is labeled, "Return To Sender".
- Too Dumb to Live: The neighbor mails himself in a box for his latest YouTube stunt. This results in his neck breaking when the box topples over. In the short film, he even acknowledges how dumb this idea was in the box.
