Undertone

Pod Fearing People

Undertone
Directed by Ian Tuason
Canada 2026
Vertigo Releasing
UK Cinema Release Print

Finally got to the cinema again (the last six months have been very hard) and about the only movie that could coax me out was one in which I knew the sound design would play a huge part. And, yeah, sound design is everything to Undertone, so I think I made the right call here.

So in terms of actual physical appearances by actors, this is a two hander, all set in one house, with lead actress Nina Kiri as supernatural phenomena debunker/podcaster Eva and Michèle Duquet as her silent, dying in bed mum. All the rest of the cast, including Adam DiMarco as her fellow podcast hoster Justin, are all voices playing out on her headphone receiver.

And, suspending disbelief about how podcasts which are being recorded for future airing can have live callers at random recording times, the film has a pretty claustrophobic atmosphere as Eva and Justin, over a space of a few recording sessions, work their way through listening to a series of ten anonymously emailed sound files concerning a young, ‘expecting’ couple during the night. Starting off with the husband recording these to initially capture his wife talking in her sleep.

That’s as far as I’ll go on the story content other than to make the comment that the initial set up obviously shares some DNA with the fantastic movie Monolith (reviewed here), which I saw play at FrightFest a couple of years ago. And, even more so in the case of Undertone, the action never once leaves the confines of Eva’s mother’s house. Eva leaves once but, yeah, the camera stays behind.

Now, I’m a sucker for these very small cast, single location pieces and, I have to say, this slow builds to being one of the most terrifying I’ve seen in recent years. Perhaps for the wrong reasons by the end of the movie but it’s all down to two things, asides from where the ideas thrown up by the recordings goes.

The first of these two is the wonderful performance by Nina Kiri. Apart from when she’s talking on her side of the podcast, it’s a solid silent performance which relies a lot on the reactive expressions Kiri brings to the table here, both to what she’s listening to but also to what’s going on in the house as she keeps an eye on her dying mother.

But the equal star of the show here is the aforementioned sound design. The films does have a deftly, light handed score on it but it’s the mix of sounds giving audio sensations of both what’s on the recordings and, again, simultaneously in the house... which makes or breaks this thing. And it’s well done here.

So well done in fact that, while I was perhaps disappointed by the obvious style of the conclusion the film has, my heart was still beating fast in my chest due to the absolute unremitting cacophony of the foley track.

So yeah, my final thoughts on Undertone is that it’s a very well performed and mostly well crafted slice of horror which, ultimately doesn’t allow for too many surprises by the end of the film but, makes up for it in sheer energy and artistic determination. Good for a scare and certainly one to partner up with the aforementioned Monolith as a nice ‘mates round for drinks’ double bill or even the third or fourth film in an all nighter (it certainly gets way too loud to sleep through).