The Undertone

Every now and again, as technology advances and offers improved options in sound and vision, horror benefits from going back to the basics. The Undertone, which screened as part of Fantasia 2025, is a simple story with a single location and a small cast, but it’s satisfying to watch because the team behind it really understand their craft. Furthermore, if you’re somebody who enjoys the lingering thrill of struggling to get to sleep after a scary movie, nothing really beats watching one set in a domestic space.

The house in question – actually director Ian Tuason’s own, but much transformed – is home to Evangeline, known as Evy (played by The Handmaid’s Tale star Nina Kiri) and her mother (Michèle Duquet). The latter is bedbound and seems to be permanently sunk into a light coma. Evy takes good care of her, but as time goes on, it’s difficult to tell how much this stems from love and how much is a response to guilt. The various pieces of Catholic imagery scattered around the house establish that guilt will inevitably be a part of Evy’s psyche. Together with assorted knick-knacks are well-tended pieces of wooden furniture, modest but handsome, they also tell us something about the mother, giving her a chance to assert her personality in the absence of a voice.

Evy copes with the solitude, and perhaps generates some income, by co-hosting a podcast called The Undertone with her friend Justin (Kris Holden-Ried). There they discuss assorted paranormal issues; we scarcely need to be told that it’s her role to be the sceptic as she does this in low lighting, sitting with her back to an open door beyond which is a dark, empty hall. The shape of the house is such that Tuason’s camera can take in all of this and the staircase, at the top of which is the mother’s room. Lingering shots from this position add a good deal to the feeling of creepiness, of something being not quite right, as Evy works.

The central plot revolves around a series of audio recordings mysteriously sent to Justin from an anonymous source. These concern a pregnant woman saying strange things in her sleep. Evy has just found out that she’s pregnant herself, and hasn’t decided what she wants to do about it, but takes this in her stride. The two podcasters rattle on in the usual sort of way, reinforcing popular myths about nursery rhymes and chasing side characters off down metaphorical rabbit holes. With backwards singing and writing about as cryptic as things get, it’s not a major intellectual challenge. Then Justin starts hearing things on the audio recordings that Evy – and the audience – can’t; and when the name of a demon comes into it, all bets are off.

Structurally, the narrative owes a lot to Greek tragedy. It’s not particularly complex but it does have layers to it, and viewers will find themselves questioning whether there is supernatural element or we’re just watching Evy come apart under pressure which she’s quietly endured for too long. Like many avowed sceptics, she has a slight sense of intellectual superiority which could make her vulnerable; she doesn’t seem to grasp that at base she’s as suggestible as anybody else.

With the camera on her almost continually, Kiri is under considerable pressure, but her performance is top notch. Meanwhile, Tuason’s use of tried and tested directorial techniques, with great timing, helps this small film to punch considerably above its weight.

Reviewed on: 30 Jul 2025