{"id":339294,"date":"2026-03-14T17:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/339294\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T17:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:34:14","slug":"see-undertone-with-dolby-atmos-or-youll-miss-half-the-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/339294\/","title":{"rendered":"See \u2018Undertone\u2019 with Dolby Atmos, or You\u2019ll Miss Half the Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe don\u2019t look up. If you\u2019re in a Dolby Atmos<\/a> theater, there are speakers directly above you on the ceiling. But there are also speakers everywhere, and writer\/director Ian Tuason<\/a> wrote \u201cUndertone<\/a>\u201d \u2014 in a gigantic, almost 300 page word document stuffed with shot breakdowns and sound design notes \u2014 to take advantage of every single one.<\/p>\n

In a way, it had better. The film\u2019s story centers around Evy (Nina Kiri<\/a>), a young woman running a creepypasta\/horror stories appreciation podcast with her friend Justin (Adam DiMarco) while she stays in her childhood home and provides end-of-life care for her comatose mother (Mich\u00e8le Duquet).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re broken inside (i.e., have done any podcasting), you\u2019ll recognize Evy\u2019s Focusrite Scarlett and raise an eyebrow at her Pro Tools presets. But everyone else will, more likely, pay more attention to the ways that Evy armors up when she puts on her noise-cancelling headphones. But in that isolated state, she becomes vulnerable to something hidden within the audio files she and Justin are looking into for their show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI specifically wrote a scene where Nina looks up, and I got to put a bang up on the ceiling, after A24 gave us the money to use Dolby Atmos. I like how the theater rumbles in Atmos. I really wish everyone watches [the film] that way, because it\u2019s the complete experience,\u201d Tuason told IndieWire.<\/p>\n

Atmos\u2019 precise spatialization allows sound designers to place different sounds in discrete physical locations around a room, mimicking where sound would be coming from diegetically with greater fidelity than surround sound. Tuason didn\u2019t just want to use that power for realism, but for demonic evil. The sound of \u201cUndertone\u201d is a mix of unnerving precision and imperceptibility, with us knowing where sound is coming from, but not what it is, or what it means. \u201cGibberish is scarier than me telling you a scary phrase,\u201d Tuason said.<\/p>\n

\"UNDERTONE,<\/p>\n

\u2018Undertone\u2019Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Tuason uses gibberish, audio apophenia (assigning meaning to sounds that shouldn\u2019t be related), and audio played in reverse to make things sound scary without revealing a precise threat or a clear reason why they\u2019re scary. \u201cIt\u2019s an exercise for your imagination. You\u2019re the one forming this horrible implication, this horrible image, in your head. You\u2019re creating it. Not me,\u201d Tuason said.<\/p>\n

That internally created threat does get a helping hand from Tuason and his team\u2019s sound design choices, though. He uses classic techniques to exaggerate mundane sounds and let us hear Evy\u2019s downward spiral before we see it. He sneaks in some heavy metal \u201cdungeon\u201d banging to stand in for a clock ticking, in one instance, and in another, subtly confuses the sound of Evy\u2019s reality and the audio messages she\u2019s listening to.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are watching water dripping into Evy\u2019s sink, and the sound aligns with the dripping in the audio clip [she\u2019s hearing] \u2014 which shouldn\u2019t happen, because those are two separate places and times. But that was fun, to align them and kind of blur that line between Evy\u2019s world and the audio clip world,\u201d Tuason said.<\/p>\n

Sound is one of the only ways that Tuason can open up the world of \u201cUndertone,\u201d since it takes place all in one location, and often feels trapped at the kitchen table where Evy\u2019s placed her podcasting setup (at least hang a sound blanket over the liquor cabinet, Evy, I beg you). But Tuason and his team use Atmos as much to remind us of the house\u2019s limitations and how sound is coming from places it shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\"THE<\/p>\n

\u2018Undertone\u2019DUSTIN RABIN<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting the audience settled into a spot so that all sounds are now static around you \u2014 that way I can pinpoint sounds, knowing that you\u2019re familiar with the layout of the house. I can put footsteps in the direction of where [the bedroom] is, and stuff like that,\u201d Tuason said.<\/p>\n

About the only sound that Tuason doesn\u2019t play with in \u201cUndertone\u201d is the song that inspired his first ideas for the story. He was looking at creepypastas on YouTube when he found a video examining a hidden message embedded in \u201cRainbow Connection,\u201d by Kermit the Frog, if played backwards. That was scary enough, so he decided that children\u2019s lullabies would be even scarier still. \u201c I love that contrast. It worked really well in \u2018Hereditary\u2019 with \u2018Both Sides Now,\u2019\u201d Tuason said. \u201cI was going to end the movie with the original version of \u2018Rainbow Connection\u2019 in the credits.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there may yet be a chance for Tuason to throw the banjo-playing frog<\/a> and the all-powerful swine to whom he has pledged his soul, into horrifying relief. \u201c\u2018Undertone\u2019 is a trilogy. So a lot of the stories that you hear in \u2018Undertone\u2019 will be explored, and some questions will be answered in the next ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words? Stay tuned, dear listeners.<\/p>\n

\u201cUndertone\u201d is now playing in theaters.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Indiewire’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe don\u2019t look up. If you\u2019re in a Dolby Atmos theater, there are speakers directly above you on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21799,146,166281,85,46,23904,123891],"class_list":{"0":"post-339294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-dolby-atmos","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-evy","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-sound-design","14":"tag-undertone"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}