Editor’s Note: This review originally ran as part of our on-site coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival out in Park City, and today we’re re-publishing it with the film’s wider release. Check out our preview of the 2026 festival; revisit Vanyaland Film Editor Nick Johnston’s full coverage of Sundance reviews from this year’s festival, and check out our full archives of past editions.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A new A24 horror picture premieres at Sundance, scares the bejesus out of the assembled critics, industry people, and audience members, and then gets a full-court press from the, well, press. It’s a platform that’s launched a number of careers – Aster, Eggers, Philippou (x2), and so on – but isn’t immune to the backlash that comes when people find out that the word “scary” can have different meanings in the eyes of ticket-holding beholders.
Now, technically, Ian Tuason’s undertone isn’t a “world” premiere, as it screened at Fantasia last year, where it won the audience award, and before it was quickly snatched up and slated by A24 (NEON must be so, so pissed off about this). I also don’t think there’ll be many complaints that this movie isn’t scary, because Jesus Christ, this is one terrifying motion picture, though latecomers who watch it at home while scrolling through their TikTok feed will probably wonder what the hell all of us were thinking saying that this movie made them wish they’d brought a spare pair of pants with them to the theater. Even then, I think they’ll admire the craft – the ways that Tuason goes about ensuring that your heart rate is raised even when there’s nothing happening on screen through the framing and sound design – and its heartfelt, earnest portrayal of its protagonist’s circumstances.
Evy (Nina Kiri) is having a bad go of things. Her mother (Michele Duquet) is in the end stages of a terminal illness and, for all intents and purposes, practically brain-dead. All Evy can do is watch as she continues to deteriorate, clean up messes, try to feed her, and listen closely for the sounds of her death rattle. She’s practically alone in her childhood home, with few distractions beyond work and her loser boyfriend, who regards this terrible time as a massive inconvenience for him. She’s been sober throughout all of this, though the bottles of Irish whiskey on the cabinet shelves are growing more attractive by the day. But first, she has to figure out why she’s getting so queasy in the morning – she couldn’t be pregnant. Could she? Burdened with responsibility and guilt, she puts every moment she’s not caring for her mother into her work, staying up late until the night to chat in real time with her close friend and co-worker, Justin (Kris Holden-Reid), who now lives several time zones away in the UK. It’s clear he truly cares about her, and he’s the kind of friend that, if he knew how bad things really were, he’d fly home to help her out. But all he can do is stand by and make sure that his audio isn’t dogshit.
This is where I mention that undertone is a movie about podcasters, and I’ll give you a few moments to roll your eyes so that you can pay attention to the rest of the review. The Undertone, a weekly podcast about all things creepy, has been a labor of love for both, with Justin taking on the role of the true believer and Evy the skeptic. It’s paid off very well – they’ve got a decent following, get lots of comments when they drop a new episode, and know they’re not shouting into the void each time they hit record. They’ve also got a publicly available email address for the show, and a weird message from a listener sets this nightmare in motion. Attached to it are 10 recordings, and the pair decides to go through them one by one on the air.
At first, it seems a little creepy – they’re ostensibly about a man trying to prove to his wife that she talks in her sleep – and Evy’s convinced that it’s a ton of bullshit. But as they delve deeper into the audio, strange things start to happen to the couple. The woman speaks backwards, their house starts to shake from some supernatural presence, and other, unknown voices begin to appear on the tracks. What Evy and Justin don’t know is that, just by listening to these files, they’re inviting something into their homes, and that this entity isn’t particularly enthralled by their five-star rating on iTunes. It wants them dead.
Again, I highly, highly recommend watching this in a theater. Tuason’s sound mixers have crafted a soundscape that is worth experiencing in a premium format, and what’s important is how subtle it is – perfect for a Dolby theater, so that you don’t miss a single detail and/or get your eardrums blown out when one of the appropriately-placed jump scares comes up to test your cardiac fitness. Theaters allow for a kind of focus you just can’t get at home, through a mixture of their immersive presentation and a hefty dosage of social pressure from your fellow audience members.
Tuason’s visuals, handsomely and economically shot by Graham Beasley, are well-crafted to draw your focus to the screen with how undertone’s cinematography uses negative space – the empty backgrounds where something might be hovering behind our protagonist. He deploys these sights sparingly, leaving the audience anticipating a jump that never quite comes. When paired with the pervasive quiet, which lacks many of the non-diegetic soundtracks that cue us that we’re in safe, scare-free territory, Tuason creates an atmosphere of perpetual suspense, allowing his well-paced narrative beats to hit their marks. It earns its chaotic finale, in which the spectral piper must be paid – in blood, of course (it’s not like he takes Diners’) – and one can practically hear restraints snapping as it heads into the third act.
This story entirely rests on Kiri’s shoulders, and she carries it credibly, lending a kind of verisimilitude to the proceedings. That is to say that she does a hell of a job, and production couldn’t be easy for her, given that she’s on screen solo for 90 percent of the film, which is comprised of a lot of long, well-framed takes of her listening. Her reactions guide us through a given bit of audio, and her understated presence generates the film’s pathos – you can see how her situation is eating her alive, and it’s hard not to feel genuine empathy towards Evy as her tragedy unfolds. What’s really interesting is how Tuason brings faith into the mix – it’s not clumsily applied, but it is serious, which will throw some otherwise well-suited viewers for a loop. I anticipate there will be some articles arguing that this movie is politically reactionary, but I think those reads are uncharitable. If anything, this is a nightmare about the role-reversal that comes with caring for an elderly parent, and how that mind-fuck impacts one’s perception of parenting.
Sit through the credits – Tuason wrote a sweet dedication near the end that offers a hint as to how he sees it, and I don’t think any of this was carelessly tossed off or meant to agitate: It is too well-crafted for me to think otherwise. Well, that is, meant to agitate beyond the very visceral ways that may make each screening of undertone a nightmare for ushers to clean in between showtimes. You’ll certainly be that agitated.