Watching the movie, it didn\u2019t take long for me to feel a sense of unease creeping under me, as the initial conceit of a podcaster listening to creepy recordings morphs into something else entirely. What it is, I will not reveal in this review. This is the type of film that needs to be seen without knowing a single thing about it (other than the genre). Don\u2019t even watch a trailer. Let it surprise you as it surprised (and, yes, scared) me. I haven\u2019t been scared in front of something, on the big screen, in at least a decade. And by scared, I define it as being so frightened by what\u2019s on screen that I can\u2019t sleep at night, go to bed with the blinds unshuttered, or, worst-case scenario, leave the lights on in my room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To me, the mark of a horror masterwork lies in this specific definition of what \u201cbeing scared\u201d means. If the movie accomplishes that, I can\u2019t give it more than my commendations, though undertone can\u2019t be recommended to anyone who gets easily scared during horror movies, even at the slightest jumpscare. The best part about it is that Tuason never accomplishes this with visual excess, extreme violence, or an overabundance of \u201cgotcha!\u201d moments. There are the odd jumpscare or two, but the bulk of undertone\u2019s scares comes from its intricate sound design.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Never have I heard (in Dolby Atmos, mind you) such a well-defined, meticulous soundscape in a contemporary horror film. Right from its opening scene, it immediately envelops the audience inside a precise aural environment and creates diegetic parameters to let us comprehend what\u2019s most important to listen to: the labored breaths of Evy\u2019s mother (Mich\u00e8le Duquet), the transition from the echoes of their home to the noise-cancelling quietude of high-end headphones, and the clicks and cracks of a corrupted sound file, which could contain hidden messages that are extracted and scrupulously investigated through the prism of an Audacity-like software.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t a stone unturned in the creation of its atmospheric sounds, which become the beating heart and soul of undertone, as hosts Evy (Nina Kiri) and Justin (Adam DiMarco) listen to recordings that were sent by anonymous tips for their podcast, which focuses on whether the materials they have confirm a paranormal occurrence or not. Evy is the resident skeptic, while Justin is the \u201cSanta Claus believer.\u201d The two argue about the recordings\u2019 validity until they dig deeper and find something they shouldn\u2019t have. <\/p>\n
If I\u2019m being vague, it\u2019s purposeful. The story\u2019s mystery unravels slowly, but the payoff will shake you to your core. How the film flips religious imagery (and, in many cases, children\u2019s songs) to its head feels genuinely daring for a genre picture to tackle and excavate through the lens of \u201cparanormal-obsessed\u201d podcast hosts. Tuason actively has something to say about the nature of such a project, unlike Stuckmann\u2019s Shelby Oaks<\/a>, which stopped dead in its tracks right after its faux-documentary cold open.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019d love to get in detail and discuss this, but, again, saying too much would ruin the pleasures of discovering what lies beneath the recordings. And if you think undertone is a pure exercise in auditory horror, think again. Tuason\u2019s staging is just as effective, with economical blocking and movement choices that know exactly how to elevate the production\u2019s relatively small budget (of $500.000) into sophisticated filmmaking. As Evy delves deeper into the significance of each recording, strange occurrences begin to occur in her home. The use of second screens, mirrors, and crucifixes becomes integral to how cinematographer Graham Beasley\u2019s camera moves, and how editor Sonny Atkins will stitch a sequence that intercuts between a character looking at a screen and the images they are attempting to draw meaning from.<\/p>\n Most of it is left open to interpretation, but it won\u2019t be long before you become entranced by the film\u2019s hypnotic power and could very much develop a panic attack as the sounds become more pronounced (read: demonic) and Evy begins to question what is real and a fabric of her imagination. The final scene \u2013 a masterpiece in its own right \u2013 made me yell in the cinema. This has never happened in any horror movie, in a moviegoing venue, or at home. Utilizing personal experience to describe a movie can sometimes hamper the review. However, by keeping the details vague, I need to convey that I was feeling extremely unwell and distressed in front of a movie that begins disquietingly and culminates in a succession of images (and sounds) so unnerving they are bound to leave an imprint on your memory.\u00a0<\/p>\n undertone is truly one of the best contemporary horror movies I\u2019ve ever seen. No amount of Fantasia hyperbole can truly sell how special and once-in-a-generation a movie like this is. And Nina Kiri<\/a>, who has been acting for a considerable amount of time, most notably in Hulu\u2019s The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, gives a total breakout performance in the film world as Evy, one that will set a promising career up for a (very) long time. Tuason already has another project in the works, the eighth film in a longstanding franchise that has undergone many reinventions (most of them forgettable, save for the Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman entries), but what he\u2019s accomplished with undertone is more important.\u00a0<\/p>\n If Canadian genre cinema has experienced a worrisome absence in the country for many years after it failed to replicate the success of Hollywood productions in the 1980s and 1990s, it has more than bounced back in the hands of innovators like R.T. Thorne (40 Acres<\/a>), Matt Johnson (Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie<\/a>), and Ian Tuason. undertone serves as a reminder that Canadian artists can \u2013 and should \u2013 formally (and aurally) experiment if they want their cinema to survive and, most importantly, thrive. It will yield jaw-dropping results for the audience, but, most importantly, success for our industry, and beyond\u2026<\/p>\n undertone (2026): Movie Plot & Recap<\/p>\n Synopsis:<\/p>\n Paranormal podcast hosts Evy and Justin begin to experience strange supernatural occurrences after listening to a series of recordings from an anonymous tip.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pros:<\/p>\n A mastery of aural design: most of the scares come from the tension that builds through the sounds the protagonists listen to and investigate.\u00a0<\/p>\n Economical blocking and movement choices heighten Evy\u2019s dread and amplify the off-screen terror in unexpected ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n The soundscape becomes the story, as director Ian Tuason creates diegetic parameters to help audiences understand what\u2019s real, otherworldly, or perhaps a fabric of the characters\u2019 hyperactive imagination.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina Kiri delivers a towering breakout performance as Evy, one that will set her for greatness for decades to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cons:<\/p>\n If you are easily scared, do not see this movie!<\/p>\n undertone will be released in US theatres on March 13, 2026 and in UK & Irish cinemas on April 10, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Tuason reinvigorates interest in Canadian genre cinema with the unsettling aural nightmares of undertone, and cements himself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-323259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Nina](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/undertone-2.webp.webp\"\/)
Nina Kiri in undertone (A24)<\/p>\n