Horror • 14A • 94 Minutes • 2025
There’s this feeling that’s sometimes hard to express. It’s the feeling you get when you’re up past midnight, and now surfing the web, only to fall down some dark rabbit-hole, and you become overwrought with anxiety and paranoia. Ian Tuason’s Undertone speaks to that very feeling and expands on the rabbit-hole era of podcasts and internet lore.
While caring for her unconscious mother (Michèle Duquet), Evy (Nina Kiri) also hosts a popular paranormal podcast with her friend Justin (Adam DiMarco). Together, they explore the paranormal side of the internet in their podcast. When they are sent creepy and mysterious audio files to review on their podcast, strange occurrences begin to happen around them.
For a film mainly sold on the idea of an auditory horror film, Undertone is also a tightly directed debut film from writer/director Ian Tuason. A director’s job is to direct their actors; we know this. But what is sometimes thrown by the wayside is the direction of the audience. When setting up a shot that half features a dark hallway and Evy podcasting on the dining room table, your eyes are going to drift. What are we supposed to be looking at? Evy, or is there something lurking in the shadows down the hallway? It’s a trick that Tuason utilizes several times, each ramping up the paranoia in each scene. The camera acts as a ghost itself, stalking Evy and lingering on inanimate objects that mirror what the characters are hearing in the audio tapes. If we hear someone run up the stairs, the camera locks on Evy’s stairs; it’s a clever way to make the house feel haunted and that the ghosts in the machine are stuck in the house with us.
A lot of this credit needs to be shared with the cinematographer Graham Beasley, whose static camera does a lot with a little. He captures Tuason’s childhood home and production designer, Mercedes Coyle’s work with dated wallpaper and shag carpet design that makes the house feel stuck in the 1980s and cements it in the modern world through technology. The faux natural light streaming in through the sheers and practical lighting, set up sparingly throughout the house help construct a chilling atmosphere. Even during daylight hours, scenes are still covered in shadows and buried in secrets.
While I believe that a film’s priority should be focused on every aspect of the filmmaking process, some of the dialogue and performance by Kiri, while not poor, doesn’t contribute much to the overarching atmospheric tone. If the script allowed for more than a shocked glance or a paranoid stare, Undertone could have risen above the ranks and elevated this film to a whole other level. Yet, much of this may be forgiven due to the sound department’s incredible contribution to the film, where much of that prioritization had gone. It is a film about podcasting after all. What separates Undertone from many of its contemporaries is the work of sound designer David Gertsman, with additional help from Steph Copeland. Together, the soundscapes, audio tapes, and the time-tested classic trope of children chanting and creepy nursery rhymes are still no less effective at filling your living room up with some of the most haunting sounds you’ll get from a film. Having watched Undertone with surround sound, the chilling whispers and creaking doors felt like I was in the room with Evy, experiencing every horror she hears.
With so much work put into the art of the scare, it’s unfortunate that this film was released in the middle of March when a much more deserving spot would be a late October release. While true crime and paranormal podcasts fill up your podcast feed during the Halloween month, it would have been nice to see Undertone capture the same spirit on the big screen.
Where to Watch
Undertone was rented on AppleTV.
Also worth checking: CBC Gem (often carries Canadian titles not listed elsewhere).
about the author
Merrick Gajdics is founder, publisher and editor of The Canadian Film Reviewer.