A24 hits big again with audio nightmare masterpiece undertone
- Carla Davis
- Mar 16
- 3 min read
As horror fans already know, undertone is one of those films that, depending on who you are talking to, is either the scariest movie in years, or a total snoozefest. What everyone seems to agree on is that it’s a unique film – one that relies heavily on sound to convey and lend atmosphere to the story.
Said story involves Evy (Nina Kiri) and, to a lesser extent, Justin (Adam DiMarco), with whom she cohosts a paranormal podcast called The Undertone. Evy is caring for her comatose dying mother in her mother’s home, and we never even see Justin, we only hear him talking to Evy by phone as they record their podcast.
For their most recent episode, Justin presents Evy with a series of ten audio files that have been sent by one of their listeners. The files were recorded by a man named Mike, who originally just wants to prove to his pregnant wife Jessa that she talks in her sleep, and that’s what the first few files prove.
We hear Jessa sing London Bridge is Falling Down, and Justin claims that when he played the song backwards, he could hear the words “Mike, kill all.” Evy doesn’t hear that, but she later does a bit of research on children’s songs, and finds that when plays Baa Baa Black Sheep backwards, she hears “Lick the blood off.”
As the movie moves along (Justin and Evy’s podcast episode is recorded over several days), Evy is becoming more and more unnerved, hearing sounds in the house, watching the lights flicker, and believing she sees her mother up and moving around. She becomes more tense with each recording session, and Justin starts getting worried about her.
No spoilers here, so I am not going to dig very deeply into the events of the film, but writer/director Ian Tuason has crafted an excellent slow burn flick that gradually inches its way under your skin. Sound is such an important part of the experience that I think watching undertone on your computer in the dark with headphones on will be equal, if not better than, watching it in a theatre with a great sound system. We don’t condone pirating films, so please wait until it’s streaming to do this.
undertone relies heavily on Nina Kiri
While DiMarco, Jeff Yung and Keana Lyn Bastidas (who voice Mike and Jessa) give good, believable voice performances, and Michele Duquet as Alma’s mother is mainly seen comatose, this film relies 99.9% on Kiri…and she 100% takes on that challenge. I was rooting for Evy throughout, even when she made a couple of dumb decisions, and even when her stubbornness took over.
That’s really no surprise, because several years ago, Kiri portrayed my favorite character on The Handmaid’s Tale. As Alma, she was the smartass with a dry sense of humor, the one who got June involved in the resistance in the first place. Alma was my girl, and I was absolutely crushed when she was shockingly hit by a train. The series was never the same for me after Alma’s untimely exit, and her small moment in the final season was everything to me.
Kiri perfectly portrays Evy’s emotions, from skepticism, to anguish, to self-doubt, to abject fear. An actor is the make or break element of a film like undertone, and she makes it, without a doubt.
There are a lot of horror movies making their debuts this month, and we still have Ready or Not 2: Here I Come and They Will Kill You coming out, but for now, undertone is my favorite new horror of the year.
Comments