Undertone (2026)

There are things about Undertone that impressed me but in the end I found it rather unsatisfying. On the one hand the director does a really good job of utilizing space and lighting to create a real sense of unease and discomfort, almost a claustrophobia. But on the other, his underlying themes are so muddled, and the plot is just incoherent enough to take the power of out the story. I'm usually all in for ambiguity, especially in horror, but there is a line where it no longer becomes scary when it isn't suggesting that anything is even happening. 

The gimmick here is clever. We are watching a podcaster record her show and she is listening to audio clips sent to her. Her co-host is recording in another location so we only get his voice as well. The idea is that all we get is the sounds and being denied the visible aspects of the story makes it more disquieting and unsettling. And it does, for the beginning. But the film sort of gives up on this part way through and falls into horror movie cliches such as creepy childish drawings and power surges (maybe?) that make the lights flicker. Instead of sticking to the idea that the visual world is normal but the what we are hearing is off, the film loses some of its power. 

But I might have been able to roll with this if the film had built a cohesive sense of story and or dread. But the film isn't clear on what its story is about. By the end there is just chaotic sounds that aren't connected enough to truly instil any real fear. There are a lot of cliches (childhood songs, backwards music, speaking in tongues, screams/jump-scares) but nothing that suggests what the threat is. 

I also found its meta-narrative sort of questionable. The main character discovers she is pregnant and at one point makes an appointment for a "clinic" and the recordings and other information presented seems to suggest there is a horror that is making mothers kill their babies. What is the film saying?

But the worst sin was that it just wasn't scary in the end. It was a muddle that started out strong but didn't stick any sort of landing. 

Undertone

Starring: Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco

Writer/Director: Ian Tuason