Spiritual Elements
Evy’s mother is a devout Catholic. Almost every wall in her home features a cross or a religious painting, and by her bedside, her reading glasses sit on an open Bible. We see a picture that reads, in a nice bit of foreshadowing, “Children are a heritage from the Lord.”
Evy has a voice message from her mother in happier times—Mama imploring Evy to attend Mass with her. “I’m praying for you,” Mama says on the message, and Evy plays that particular phrase repeatedly. We learn that Mama also asked Evy to pray with her, but Evy always made excuses why she couldn’t. Too busy, she’d say, or too tired.
Perhaps if Evy would’ve taken faith more seriously, she might’ve been better prepared for Obyzouth, the apparent main antagonist in Undertone.
Evy and Justin hear the name invoked in the recordings—spoken backward by one of the files’ creators. Justin tells us that Obyzouth is an ancient demon mentioned in a host of religious documents, including in Judaism and Islam. But Justin especially calls out a “Christian” text called the Testament of Solomon, written (Justin says) in the first century A.D.
(Note: The Testament of Solomon is indeed a real thing, though the date and the religious affiliation of its authors are much debated. In it, King Solomon is given a magic ring from the Archangel Michael that gives him the power to control—or destroy—demons.)
We’re told that Obyzouth has a particular interest in mothers and babies: She torments and possesses the former while killing the latter, and most of the horrors we hear involve that most precious (and here, most perverted) of earthly relationships. She was reputed to be behind stillborn babies and miscarriages, but Undertone pushes her role into a darker space: Justin alleges that the demon at one point possessed the statue of a Catholic saint—which then quickly became the object of diabolical devotion. (The skulls of babies, inverted crosses carved into the foreheads, were supposedly presented to the statue as an offering.)
Evy, we learn, is pregnant. And her apparent desire to not be pregnant—as suggested by some destructive choices she makes after learning about the pregnancy—perhaps opens her up to the demon’s influence.
It’s hard to determine just what sort of impact Mama’s Catholicism may have on the demon: We hear someone muttering Hail Mary prayers in Mama’s room—prayers that stop when Evy flicks on the light. Could it have been Mama, near death as she is, somehow trying to protect her daughter? Or was it the demon herself saying the prayers as a form of mockery? We don’t know for sure. But in one of the recordings, a woman says that a dark, supernatural presence also said a few Hail Marys.
Undertone is saturated with other supernatural imagery and mentions, from ghostly entities to demonic faces appearing on screens to children (and adults) summoning diabolic beings via nursery rhymes played backward. Faucets turn on inexplicably. Loud bangs are heard. Lights flicker and pop. And Mama sometimes seems to move around more than she ought.