Okay, so you’ve watched horror movies – now what about hearing them?
That’s the premise of Undertone, the debut feature from writer-diretor Ian Tuason, which has been earning a whole heap of buzz since it entered A24’s release schedule. The movie follows Evy (Nina Kiri) as she cares for her mother in the final days of her life, and works on a new episode of her paranormal podcast – only to find that the series’ usual debunking has taken a turn for the serious as she and her fellow host work their way through a mysterious series of audio recordings that seem to depict a couple’s descent into demonic possession.
If I was feeling ungenerous, it would be easy to write this movie off as yet another abstract A24 clone that leans heavily on the tropes of the demonic horror genre rather than striking out into fresh storytelling territory – there’s plenty here that could have been lifted straight from a Conjuring flick, from the drawings arranged to create an image of the main antagonist to the children’s nursery rhymes to the messages hidden backwards in text and audio recordings. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing; there’s a reason these tropes are as much of a mainstay as they are, and Tuason’s indulgence in the standards leave him room to play around with the execution to pretty effective ends. Undertone has been much-touted as an audio horror, a movie that uses sound design as the primary delivery system of its scares, and honestly, I think it pulls it off . While deadwax is still the gold standard of this little subgenre for me, Undertone makes great use of suggestion and imagination, sprinkling in a grotesque audio track that builds over the course of the third act to this stomach-churning climax that leaves you with a distinct sense of discomfort.
Beyond just the sound design, though, Undertone is a movie about isolation – Evy is completely alone throughout the movie aside from her mother, nobody else appearing on-screen but the two of them, limited to her role as a carer to her mother in her final days. We don’t venture outside of the house, even when Evy does, her only meaningful interaction with the outside world the voice of her fellow podcast host on the other end of the line. It’s a big ask for Nina Kiri to essentially shoulder the entire movie herself, but one that she rises to with ease in an excellent performance that captures the isolating experience of caring for a loved one suffering from a serious illness.
Where Undertone left me pretty cold, though, was in its handling of reproductive horror. It’s the central throughline of this piece, with the demonic presence that haunts the movie one who causes miscarriages, stillbirths, and child murder at the hands of afflicted mothers; with the framing device of the podcast and Evy’s role as the sceptic questioning every apparently-supernatural event, I would have really liked to see Tuason delve into what kind of purpose these so-called demons perform in the real world, how they’re used to explain everything from miscarriage to post-partum psychosis in historical folklore. He also frames Evy’s choice to get an abortion as one that comes after her invocation of this baby-killing demon, and I’m not sure if it was intended as a statement about his views on abortion as something demonic or influenced by evil, but it’s hard not to read it that way – with reproductive healthcare coming under attack in so many parts of the world, specificity in intention is important when it comes to telling stories about abortion, and I don’t think this is a particularly good example of one.
Undertone is an interesting if flawed debut, one that makes great use of the audio horror gimmick at its heart and leaves plenty of room for Kiri to shine even if it – with a planned trilogy on the way, I’m interested to see how Tuason elevates and expands upon this premise or if it’s going to prove itself a one-and-done kind of movie. I’d love to hear your opinion on this movie, and if you’re interested in seeing the upcoming series based around this film – let me know in the comments below!
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By Louise MacGregor
(header image via Hollywood Reporter)
No But Listen 