{"id":369185,"date":"2026-04-08T08:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T08:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/369185\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T08:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T08:07:12","slug":"how-ian-tuasons-glitzy-new-a24-horror-elevates-the-score-to-main-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/369185\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ian Tuason\u2019s glitzy new A24 horror elevates the score to main character"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Filming a scary movie in his childhood home was unsettling enough for Ian Tuason, especially after having spent the past few years caring for his ailing parents in it. But when things began to genuinely go bump in the night, unease shifted to terror.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as the camera crew came in, the lights just started flickering,\u201d says the Filipino-Canadian director, whose debut feature Undertone hits theatres on Thursday. \u201cI was telling them that weird things had started happening as I prepared to make the movie. Eventually, they were like, \u2018Ian, I think we\u2019re starting to believe you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IanIan Tuason (left) wanted to create an all-consuming horror. What better way to do that than with sound?A24<\/p>\n

In a particularly unexplainable instance, one of the actors dreamt the exact details of one of the film\u2019s scenes … before she had read the script. \u201cIf you ask any crew member, they\u2019re going to tell you they didn\u2019t really believe in the paranormal before. Now, they do,\u201d Tuason says.<\/p>\n

When such horror takes place in your own home, it can feel impossible to escape. This is what largely drives Underscore, an A24 horror that follows podcaster Evy (Nina Kiri, The Handmaid\u2019s Tale) who, while caring for her dying mother, discovers a series of mysterious audio files that send her into a reality-bending nightmare.<\/p>\n

\"NinaNina Kiri descends into a reality-bending psychosis in Undertone, largely thanks to the terrifying sounds around her.A24<\/p>\n

Tuason was determined to convey a uniquely all-consuming fear to audiences. He knew sequences of scary shots weren\u2019t enough \u2013 he needed to envelop viewers with fear. There was only one thing that could accomplish that: sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that sound in horror movies is about 70 to 80 per cent of the fear-factor,\u201d Tuason says. \u201cSince Undertone relies heavily on sound, there\u2019s really no escape. Especially because I also use silence as a scare \u2026 You feel a lot safer if you plug your ears when watching horror, as opposed to covering your eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sound drives much of our fear response, whether we notice it or not. Consider the dread evoked when the piano motif strikes up in Halloween, or the disorienting nature of the distorted whispers<\/a> in The Shining. More often than not, you need sound to pull off a visual jump scare, be it a loud bang or scream. Sound, on the other hand, can petrify on its own.<\/p>\n

\"IanIan Tuason (right) filmed Undertone in his own childhood home. What\u2019s scarier than that?A24<\/p>\n

Sound is thus vital in any horror, but Undertone amplifies its effect by 100. Originally conceived as an immersive 250-page audio-cue script (more than double the length of a standard screenplay), the film consists of two distinct audio worlds: the podcast realm and Evy\u2019s home environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was more sound direction in my script than camera direction,\u201d Tuason says. \u201cThe recordings that Evy listens to were recorded with an iPhone \u2013 the lo-fi sound has a certain texture. I wanted the audio there to sound like found-audio, like from found-footage. Then, between her recording sessions, I went into the Dolby Atmos world where you\u2019re entering a 3D soundscape. In the end, they blend together, so you\u2019re not sure which world you\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s script tested people\u2019s patience, Tuason says. It was filled with directional audio cues, such as the exact direction he wanted the sound of a baby\u2019s cry to come from in a surround-sound environment. Though such directional audio isn\u2019t altogether new, Tuason says he applied it in a way few filmmakers have before, aided by his background in virtual reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always thinking about 360-degree soundscapes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Kate<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, this comes with certain limits. Not everyone will watch Undertone on the big screen or with surround-sound, especially as rates of smartphone and tablet viewing increase. This doesn\u2019t bother Tuason, though, who says the film was carefully tested in various environments. It\u2019s still scary to watch, though he admits that smartphone audiences won\u2019t enjoy the full, spine-tingling experience.<\/p>\n

Granted, Tuason is aware that horrors such as Underscore, which are more experimental in nature, won\u2019t satisfy everyone. Its predecessors \u2013 films such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, the reboot of which Tuason was recently tapped to helm \u2013 were incredibly polarising for their \u201cslow burn\u201d nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two types of horror films: The ones that show visual scares and the ones that imply what\u2019s happening through what you hear off-screen, word-of-mouth or the telling of ghost stories,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are those who don\u2019t find it scary because they don\u2019t see anything, and then there are those who are terrified. I\u2019ve noticed people who have a rich imagination tend to be the ones who are the most scared of Undertone. So, if you are scared, then kudos. You probably imagined some really messed up things that I could never show you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Undertone will screen in cinemas from April 9.<\/p>\n

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\"NellNell Geraets<\/a> is a Culture and Lifestyle reporter at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-369185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369185","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=369185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}