A24 podcast-turned-haunted house flick Undertone delivers devils and decibels
Courtesy of A24
If a podcaster screams, but their cohost wasn’t around to react, do they make a noise?
Undertone is a by-the-books horror that is saved by its central gimmick’s execution. The tagline for writer/director Ian Tuason’s movie speaks for itself: “It wants to be heard.”
The film centers around Evy (Nina Kiri), the skeptical host of the popular horror podcast Undertone. Evy has returned to her childhood home to care for her dying mother. Despite the stress of hospice care and an unexpected pregnancy, she continues waking up at 3:00 am to record her podcast virtually with her co-host Justin (voiced by Adam DiMarco). When 10 mysterious audio files appear in their inbox, the recordings prompt Evy to uncover hidden messages with parallels to her own life.
The concept of a paranormal podcaster haunted by the subjects they exploit seems like a slam dunk. Instead, the movie throws nursery rhyme conspiracy theories at the audience. Every children’s song has hidden messages about the exploitation and torture of youth? Sure. Does playing Baa, Baa, Black Sheep backwards reveal your demonic sleeper agent activation phrase? Is Baby Shark a dark, gritty tale about Freudian murder through generations?
While the movie doesn’t get that QAnon on us, it feels out of place against the deeply personal trauma Evy is going through. Tuason wrote the script while caring for his parents in their final years, and the film incorporates the unsettling details of the hospice caregiving experience. The sounds of Evy’s mom’s labored breaths are amplified, a little too real, creating an unsettling bass line of death for the soundtrack of horror.
From that grounded emotional tension, Tuason cranks the sound up the dial for some ambient scares. Drips of water, the buzz of lights, and clock ticks scatter haphazardly through the auditory landscape. At any moment, you expect a piercing jump scare via the ears. However, the bulk of the horror resides in the cursed audio files.
Undertone captures that paranoid feeling that something is happening beyond the confines of your noise-canceling headphones. Every soft whisper (or popular kids’ song) in the audio files can hook your audience so you can make that sweet podcast money. In that vein, Tuason’s movie also achieves what many white female true-crime podcasters—like Evy—do: take others’ ideas. While it isn’t bad for a modern horror movie to offer an earful of homages, but Undertone stays entirely on the greatest hits tracks: trauma horror, demon conspiracy, and cursed items.
There’s a thin thematic thread woven throughout about the cycle of maternity, but Undertone ultimately fails to hit on an effective final message. Kiri’s performance manages to carry the vibe of an unwilling, skeptical descent into madness, but it’s hampered by a script full of cringy podcast banter and overly dismissive character decisions.
Overall, considering the single setting, two-actor cast, and teensy $25 million budget, Tuason takes a worthwhile swing with Undertone, even if its plot points are uninspired. With a clear goal in mind (listen to all ten audio files), his direction of long static shots, slowly unraveling in convention as we descend into audio hell, manages to build effective tension. All the pieces culminate in a uniquely disturbing sonic climax. Make sure to hug your podcasters tight.
Undertone is out in theaters now.
