UNDERTONE:
AN AUDITORY DESCENT INTO MADNESS!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: *** out of 4
A24
It Wants to Be Heard in Undertone
“The Most Terrifying Film You’ll Ever Hear” is unleashed upon the world in Undertone, the new horror movie from A24 and director Ian Tuason in his directorial debut. The film looked interesting from the trailer, a podcaster gets a bunch of mysterious audio recordings of a couple’s paranormal experiences that draw her into fear and paranoia…in true A24 fashion, a complete mindfuck it seemed.
Yeah, that’s basically what Undertone is, though I wouldn’t call it one of A24’s best or even among the best in the psychological horror genre. It’s a solid film with very effective camera work, subtle scares, and incredible sound design to make for a truly creepy theater experience.
The film follows Evy (Nina Kiri-The Handmaid’s Tale, Easy Land, Fingernails), a woman who hosts the paranormal investigation podcast, The Undertone Podcast, with her friend, Justin (Adam DiMarco-The Magicians, The Order, The White Lotus; who is unseen throughout the film) moving back home to be a caregiver for her dying mother. But when she and Justin receive a mysterious email containing ten audio files of a married couple experiencing paranormal noises in their home, Evy begins to question her own sanity, and the more she listens, the more frightening things get.
Overall, Undertone is a neat take on paranormal terror with the clever use of its sound design to convey most of the film’s horror. The movie itself is a pretty standard haunted house-style ghost movie, but the sound is what makes it come to life, with very unsettling sounds blasting through the theater speakers.
It really is one of those horror movies where it’s scary because of what you don’t see, kind of like Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project to some extent. The sound design is the true star of the film and is best experienced in the theater, the sounds range from audio recordings of the married couple experiencing paranormal activities, reverse versions of children’s nursery rhymes (Ba-Ba Black Sheep for example) containing subliminal messages, demonic voices talking to the characters, and the sounds of horrific things happening that you can’t see, it really adds a sense of dread and tension to the film.
The movie is definitely a slow burn, and it was never a bore; my eyes were glued to the screen the entire time. I was engaged throughout, invested in the main character, and wondering where everything was going.
Nina Kiri’s Evy isn’t a super complex character or anything; she’s just a podcaster who’s a skeptic and doesn’t believe in the paranormal activities on her show, so when creepy things do start happening, and she gets terrified, you feel it. I can’t say I’m familiar with Kiri’s other work outside of Handmaid’s Tale, but I thought she did great here.
The camera work is also stellar, where you have scenes of Evy on her computer, but she’s off to the side with a dark space behind her, and the camera slowly zooms in not on Evy, but the dark room, thus making you think something will pop up. Of course, you also have slow panning shots that lead into other rooms and perspective shots of someone (or something) running up or down the staircase and into a hallway that are all very effective and add to the film’s suspense.
One of my favorite recurring scares in the film is one involving the lamp in Evy’s comatose mother’s bedroom that keeps turning on and off. Every time that happens, you’re sitting there waiting for something to jump out at you. The movie also does a lot of classic haunted house-style scares with lights flickering and things shaking around the main character while creepy voices and sounds are heard, it’s nothing new and we’ve seen that several times before in other movies, but to Undertone’s credit, it’s executed well and all of it is done inexpensively (Only a $500,000 budget which is amazing).
While I can’t say Undertone is a great film throughout (The ending in particular was somewhat unfulfilling), it’s a damn impressive first movie for Ian Tuason, and I hope this will lead to an exciting and prominent future for him as a filmmaker. It’s a slow burn, tension-focused horror movie that doesn’t waste its time and delivers some very effective scares. Go see it in theaters if you can, for the best experience, you won’t regret it.
