Title – Undertone (2025)

Director – Ian Tuason (feature debut)

Cast – Nina Kiri, Michèle Duquet, (voice of) Adam DiMarco

Plot – Sceptical co-host of a popular paranormal podcast Evy (Kiri) discovers that a series of mysterious and unnerving recordings sent into her show may be home to a deeper darkness that threatens her own peace of mind.

“Don’t be afraid of the dark. Be afraid of the silence”

Review by Eddie on 03/08/2026

Garnering some significant word of mouth hype after showings at the likes of the Sundance Film Festival and after getting picked up for distribution by horror kingpins A24, Canadian low-budget horror Undertone, the debut feature film of Ian Tuason, has arrived in the marketplace with more attention than one would usually expect for a film budgeted around the $500,000 mark.

Proclaimed by some as “the scariest film you’ll ever hear”, Undertone takes a unique approach to otherwise stereotypical genre tropes by keeping most of its scares and world centred around what you’ll hear more than what you’ll see, as Tuason follows the increasingly unhinged experiences of Nina Kiri’s podcaster Evy who begins to find her life turned upside down by mysterious recordings she is listening to while caring for her sickly mother.

It’s a simplistic set-up, no doubt by necessity as Tuason looked to develop his concept on the smell of an oily rag and full credit to the debut director who has managed to do a lot with very little, especially in his films stunning sound design production-scape and can thank A24 for viral marketing that has allowed Undertone to score over $20 million at box-office booths around the globe so far but you can’t help but escape the feeling Undertone is all bark no bite as you sit back and wade through the finished product.

Weighed up as a whole, there’s a lot left to be desired by Undertone with its weak script, poor character development and a whole lot of filler on its way to a chaotic but not overly satisfying finale all working against the film that in many instances becomes rather boring and dull as we join Evy and her podcast co-host (voice of Adam DiMarco) on a journey listening to 10 audio recordings they have been mysteriously sent that delve into an increasingly nefarious nature as they go on.

Early on there’s some entertainment value presented to us by this concept, wondering where we are heading? Who are we listening to? And what’s going to leap out from the laptop into real life? But for the most part Tuason teases us without ever gifting us much in the way of tangible and memorable answers/outcomes, making Undertone feel more like the barebones of a potentially ripe idea rather than a fleshed out matured one.

Getting full props for creating nervous energy and an air of dread, while also making us think twice about our favourite nursery rhymes but when a film spends a large portion of its time having its characters google answers to most questions and frame up dark and empty space that amounts to not a whole lot of paranormal activity, the scariest thing about this buzzy indie horror is how it managed to dupe so many into thinking it would be more than it in fact is.

Final Say –

There’re the embers of a great idea in Undertone, a film that starts off with a lot of promise and intrigue but gives way to repetitiveness and half-baked ideas, making Ian Tuason’s debut feature a rather disappointing one despite a few neat tricks and design choices.

2 reversed songs out of 5