Undertone review: A frustratingly under-cooked and underwhelming horror film

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A star rating of 2 out of 5.

Movies like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield proved that “found footage” horror could be successful, but a similar style using only found audio is harder to get popular, especially because most audiences expect to see scary things.

With so many podcasts available now, it might seem like a good idea to make one more, but a filmmaker needs a compelling subject. In that sense, ‘Undertone‘ faces a real challenge, as it starts with the simple image of someone sitting at a desk wearing headphones.

Nina Kiri plays Evy, who co-hosts a show about paranormal investigations. She acts as the skeptic, challenging the theories presented by her colleague Justin (played by Adam DiMarco), who appears remotely and is more open to believing in the supernatural.

Justin shared a strange email he received, which included a series of random letters and ten audio recordings. These recordings seem to hint that something is wrong in the lives of a couple who record themselves while sleeping. When Justin played the recordings backwards to Evy, he claimed the sleepy nursery rhymes revealed hidden, threatening messages, leaving her confused and unimpressed.

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Justin claims someone told Mike to “kill all,” which led Evy to investigate. She discovered that when played backward, her childhood rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep” sounds like it’s telling people to “lick the blood off.”

Throughout the film, writer and director Ian Tuason gradually reveals details about Evy’s life: she’s taking care of her seriously ill mother at home, battling an alcohol problem, and just found out she’s pregnant.

Honestly, the characters don’t really grow or change much throughout the film. So, the story relies heavily on these creepy audio recordings that slowly hint at something terrifying happening in the distance. But here’s what I couldn’t wrap my head around: our main characters, Evy and Justin, decide to only listen to one new recording each night. It felt completely unnecessary and actually slowed things down, hindering the overall tension and impact of the story. It just didn’t make sense!

Movies have often used sound recordings as key plot devices – examples like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out come to mind. However, this film focuses almost entirely on a single character for most of its duration, and that narrow focus makes it difficult to keep the audience engaged.

To keep the character interesting, the actor needs to be able to show a lot of emotion. Unfortunately, Kiri’s face tends to be very still and expressionless – it reminds you of someone tired and bored, like a call centre worker or someone posing for a stiff passport photo.

Sometimes, she briefly shows a touch of sadness when talking about how the documents connect to her own life. However, memories of her childhood – like London Bridge and simple playground games – don’t reveal anything significant and actually highlight how predictable the story is. The script really needs more unexpected turns.

To be fair, the movie gets genuinely spooky towards the end, after a slow and unremarkable build-up. However, it takes so long for the story to pick up that viewers might lose interest before it finally gets good.

Similar to The Blair Witch Project, this movie was made with a very limited budget – around $500,000 – and quickly became profitable, earning $20 million in North American theaters since its release in early March.

While the project performed well financially, it didn’t quite live up to its creative potential, ultimately feeling unfinished and disappointing.

Authors

Terry Staunton

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2026-04-08 14:41