A24 knew exactly what they were doing when they marketed undertone. Although it may not end up being the scariest movie you’ll see this year, it’s certainly in the running for the scariest you’ll hear. The trailers leaned heavily into the film’s unsettling sound design, and for good reason. That’s the entire hook. A pretty simple premise executed with confidence has become A24‘s bread and butter over the last decade, and while undertone won’t be joining the studio’s horror hall of fame anytime soon, it’s another reminder that modest ambitions carried out well can still make for an effective night at the movies.
It’s also a pretty impressive calling card for first-time feature director Ian Tuason. The film has already landed him the directing gig for the tentatively planned eighth Paranormal Activity installment, and after watching undertone, it’s easy to see why. Tuason has a real knack for squeezing every ounce of tension out of long, uninterrupted shots and otherwise quiet moments. His filmmaking style feels tailor-made for that franchise, where the most terrifying thing in the room is often whatever may or may not be lurking in the background.
undertone follows Evy (Nina Kiri), the cohost of a popular horror podcast who returns home to care for her terminally ill mother while continuing to record episodes with her cohost. Their latest topic centers around a series of mysterious audio recordings that begin arriving anonymously, each one becoming increasingly disturbing as they attempt to piece together where they came from and what they actually mean.
The truth is, the recordings themselves matter a whole lot less than the scares they produce. Tuason rarely builds tension through narrative revelations. Instead, he relies on immaculate sound design and patient camerawork. Slowly pushing into claustrophobic close-ups while distorted voices creep through the speakers isn’t exactly reinventing horror, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t effective. Apparently all it takes to make me uncomfortable is a slow zoom into a dark hallway while someone whispers something unintelligible in crystal-clear surround sound.
The scares work because Tuason has immense restraint. He knows when to hold a shot just a few seconds longer than feels comfortable, and he rarely rushes to deliver a payoff. Even when you know something is probably coming, there’s an uneasiness to the way he stages scenes that had me constantly scanning the edges of the frame looking for movement.
Unfortunately, the screenplay isn’t nearly as accomplished. The podcast itself sounds like a pretty awful listen. Much of it amounts to the hosts yelling “what the hell was that?” after every recording, which gets repetitive rather quickly and doesn’t make for particularly compelling conversations. More importantly, the emotional throughline involving Evy’s dying mother never develops into much beyond another familiar A24 meditation on grief. At this point, the studio has revisited these themes so frequently that undertone struggles to find a fresh angle on them.
Leading actress Nina Kiri also isn’t given much to do beyond reacting to these increasingly creepy noises. She does solid work with what’s on the page, but the character rarely evolves beyond serving as the audience surrogate while the film moves from one unsettling recording to the next.
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Still, I think the movie largely succeeds as a test case for Tuason’s directorial talents. The story never builds toward the payoff I was hoping for, but undertone was never really about its mythology in the first place. It’s a showcase for whether Ian Tuason can manufacture scares out of seemingly thin air, and on that front, I’d argue he passes. This is far from the most formulaic or tedious horror movie you’ll see this year, and I walked away with more than a few goosebumps despite its narrative shortcomings.
That’s enough to make me cautiously optimistic about what Tuason can bring to Paranormal Activity. If nothing else, he’s already proven he knows how to make audiences terrified of staring into empty rooms while listening very, very closely.
Score: 6/10
undertone (2026)
- Cast: Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco
- Director: Ian Tuason
- Genre: Horror, Mystery
- Runtime: 94 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: March 13, 2026
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