My quick rating – 4.7/10. Undertone opens with a creepy lullaby, and for a moment, I genuinely thought, okay, here we go, this might actually get under my skin. Creepy lullabies are basically horror’s version of a cheat code. Unfortunately, after that strong opening note, the film settles into a much slower rhythm that never quite builds into the nightmare I had hoped for.
The setup is solid on paper. Evy (Nina Kiri), host of an all-things-creepy podcast, moves into her dying mother’s house to become her primary caregiver. Already, that’s a loaded, emotionally rich horror premise. Add in ten mysterious audio recordings from a pregnant couple dealing with paranormal noises, and you’ve got something that should be absolutely dripping with dread. Instead, Undertone feels like it keeps circling the runway without ever landing.
The film relies quite heavily on Evy, and Nina Kiri gives it her best effort. She features in nearly every scene where something important happens, as she listens to unusual noises and unravels the mystery around her. The problem is that the script gives her a lot of moments that are unintentionally funny for the wrong reasons. There’s only so many times you can watch someone pause mid-listening session, slowly stare into the middle distance like they just heard the ghost whisper “boo,” and expect it to still register as scary. After a while, it starts feeling less like psychological horror and more like your earbuds glitching out.
The podcast framing also had me chuckling, and not always in the intended way. Hearing Evy and her unseen co-host Justin (Adam DiMarco) do the whole “blah blah, let’s get back into character” routine, only to continue sounding exactly the same, had me wondering if the real horror was the production meeting. It undercuts the immersion almost every time the film uses the audio format as a source of tension.
That said, the sound design is easily the film’s MVP. If anything in Undertone works, it’s the audio atmosphere. The persistent creaks, distant noises, and layered recordings do a lot of the work. They try desperately to scare us when not much is actually happening. The cinematography also deserves credit, making strong use of the confined setting. The house feels appropriately boxed in, and director Ian Tuason clearly understands how to use space and restraint. There’s genuine filmmaking talent here, even if the script keeps putting it in a headlock.
My biggest issue is that the film mistakes slow pacing for suspense. Half the tension-building scenes rely on the classic horror trope of someone inching toward a flickering light like they’ve never paid an electricity bill before. I’m sorry, but if a light is flickering in my house, I’m not slow-walking toward it like it’s the final boss. I’m marching straight over to jiggle the bulb and mutter about the wiring.
I really wanted to like Undertone, especially with such a clever “scariest movie ever heard” concept playing off its podcast angle. But in the end, it left me feeling more bored rather than creeped out. The actors are perfectly fine, the direction shows promise, but the story and script needed far more bite. Instead of dread, I mostly felt like I was waiting for something, ANYTHING, to finally happen.
