Undertone
Regissert av Ian TuasonThe host of a popular paranormal podcast is sent hidden messages within anonymous recordings, unleashing a demonic presence that is impossible to escape in this nerve-shredding nightmare that haunts long after the last echo fades.
- RGmidas-3 d.Undertone (2026): Creepy Podcasts, Questionable Medical Ethics, and the Cinematic Power of Watching Someone Slowly Lose Their Entire Grip on Reality 🎙️👶📼 There are horror movies that terrify you. There are horror movies that disturb you. And then there is Undertone, which spends 94 minutes asking: "What if trying to out-skinimirank the skinimirank was the worst decision anyone has ever made?" A24's "film" centers on Evangeline ("Evy"), a skeptical paranormal podcaster caring for her comatose mother while investigating increasingly disturbing recordings tied to a supernatural force. Unfortunately, while I admire what the film is attempting, I spent much of the runtime feeling like I was trapped inside the world's most upsetting NPR pledge drive. The Actual Scariest Part of the Movie Is the Doctor 📞😳 Forget the demon. Forget the creepy recordings. Forget the backwards nursery rhymes. The most terrifying character in the entire movie is that absolutely unhinged doctor. At one point, Evy receives a middle-of-the-night phone call informing her that she's pregnant. Excuse me? Sir. What are your office hours? What medical practice is operating under: "Good evening. It is 3:00 a.m. I have life-altering news." I spent the entire scene less concerned about supernatural forces and more concerned about this physician's complete disregard for boundaries. The demon Babazou? Scary. The possibility that my doctor thinks 3 a.m. is an acceptable time to discuss lab results? Absolutely chilling. The World's Least Subtle "Is Mom Dead?" Mystery 👵💀 Now, I understand that the film is trying to immerse us in Evy's deteriorating mental state. I appreciate unreliable narrators. I enjoy ambiguity. But there comes a point where the audience starts feeling like Charlie Brown repeatedly trying to kick the football. The movie keeps teasing us with the condition of Evy's mother, who spends most of the film in a comatose state while Evy cares for her. And maybe this is just me, but after a while I was sitting there thinking: "Guys. I don't think she's okay." The film repeatedly circles around this mystery through Evy's increasingly fractured perspective, and while that approach works initially, eventually it feels less like suspense and more like being trapped in a group project where you're the only person who finished the reading. The movie wants us to question reality. I was mostly questioning how long we were supposed to pretend something wasn't obviously wrong. Credit Where Credit Is Due: This Cinematographer Was Performing Miracles 📷👏 Let's give some flowers to cinematographer Graham Beasley. Because holy hell. The production reportedly took place largely in the director's childhood home and uses an extremely limited number of locations. This movie basically has: one house, a few rooms, some hallways, and vibes. That's it. And somehow it frequently looks fantastic. The camera movements create genuine dread. Shadows become threatening. Empty spaces become unsettling. The visual language constantly suggests something lurking just beyond the frame. It's the cinematic equivalent of making a gourmet meal using ingredients found in the back of a college student's refrigerator. Respect. Unfortunately It Gets Real Skinamarink By The End 📺🔇😭 Now we arrive at the point where the movie and I began drifting apart like two friends discovering they have radically different opinions about Drake. The first half effectively uses sound as horror. The final stretch sometimes feels like it uses the absence of things as horror. Long sequences consist primarily of: ambient noises, distant crying babies, darkness, breathing, more ambient noises, additional crying babies, and what occasionally feels like the soundtrack trying to convince you your headphones are broken. Lots of good reviews on this movie from people who are big fans of crying babies in the darkness. I, however, began experiencing a spiritual journey. Specifically the journey of wondering how much longer the movie had left. There is a very delicate line between: "The audience imagines the horror." and "The audience imagines a better movie." The final act occasionally wobbles across that line. Justin and Evy: The World's Most Extreme Podcast Dynamic 🎙️🤦 One of the more frustrating aspects of the film is the relationship between Evy and her podcast co-host Justin. The movie establishes them as a skeptic-believer pairing. Evy dismisses paranormal claims while Justin eagerly embraces them. That's a perfectly reasonable setup. The problem is that the movie treats these positions as if they are the only two settings available to humanity. Evy is skeptical to the point where the literal apocalypse could happen in her living room and she'd still be saying: "We should probably gather more data." Meanwhile Justin hears a suspicious noise and immediately reaches the conclusion: "The veil between worlds has collapsed." There is no middle ground. No ambiguity. No spectrum of belief. In this universe, either you're a hardened skeptic until your dying breath or you're Justin. A man who could discover his mashed potatoes arranged in a vaguely triangular shape and immediately declare: "This means something." The dynamic works at first because it's funny and creates tension. By the seventieth discussion about mysterious audio files, it starts feeling less like characterization and more like a podcast sponsored by confirmation bias. The Runtime Problem ⏰😵 Perhaps the greatest horror of undertone is that it contains approximately 20 minutes of story and 94 minutes of movie. The premise is ok. The atmosphere is strong. The sound design is undeniably impressive. But the film keeps returning to the same wells: listen to audio, hear creepy thing, discuss creepy thing, become more concerned, repeat. Eventually the movie begins to feel like it's haunting itself. I don't think it's a terrible film. Far from it. I simply think it would have been an outstanding 20-minute short film and a pretty good 60-minute feature. At 94 minutes, it occasionally feels like a horror movie that accidentally left itself on repeat. TLDR 🎙️👶😴 Undertone is an ambitious audio-driven horror film with excellent atmosphere, strong cinematography, and some genuinely creepy ideas. The Good ✅ Excellent sound design. Creepy atmosphere. Impressive cinematography despite limited locations. Effective use of isolation and paranoia. Nina Kiri does strong work as Evy. The Bad ❌ The doctor calling at 3 a.m. may be the most terrifying thing in the film. The skeptic-vs-believer dynamic becomes cartoonishly binary. The movie increasingly resembles Skinamarink's cousin who won't stop texting. Too much repetition. Ninety-four minutes somehow feels like several fiscal quarters. Final Verdict 🎬 Undertone is one of those movies that horror fans will passionately debate for years. Half the audience will call it a masterpiece of atmospheric dread. The other half will spend the final act staring into darkness listening to baby noises while wondering if they accidentally sat through an experimental sound installation. One group are correct. 👶📼😵💫 And somewhere out there, that doctor is still making 3 a.m. phone calls. 📞💀
- Corey Burkes14. april 2026Lord Almighty, I never thought I’d see such a slow burn horror movie. I know it is trying to do and I totally get how audio can be a sensation, but long minutes on one character just to listen to audio is not the way to go. This film starts off well and it’s great if you want something playing in the background since the audio does its job that way, but looking at this movie will make you sleepy. It’s incredibly dull. And I think the core problem is it’s trying to make a feature-length out of something that could’ve been just done well as a short and left as a short. One last thought: it’s films like this that justify my appreciation for streaming versus going to the theater. If I went to the movies and paid upwards of $50 plus including concession, I would be pissed.
- Doc Worm15. mars 2026A haunted podcast? 🙄 This story just didn’t work for me. I wasn’t satisfied with where it ended up and that wouldn’t be so frustrating if it wasn’t such a slow burn. I was bought in for the most part as Undertone effectively conveys a sense of tension while moving through its plot. From a technical aspect the movie does so much with so little. Nina Kiri has a committed performance, the lighting is solid and the sound design is PHENOMENAL. If you do watch this one make sure you are doing so in a way that you can appreciate it’s Dolby atmos mix as this aspect of the film is truly special. With all the kudos I can give Undertone it made it that much more frustrating that I couldn’t get behind the tale it was trying to tell.
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Undertone-trivia
Undertone ble utgitt 13. mars 2026.
Undertone ble regissert av Ian Tuason.
Undertone har en spilletid på 1t, 33m.
Undertone ble produsert av Dan Slater, Cody Calahan.
The host of a popular paranormal podcast is sent hidden messages within anonymous recordings, unleashing a demonic presence that is impossible to escape in this nerve-shredding nightmare that haunts long after the last echo fades.
Hovedpersonene i Undertone er Evy Babic (Nina Kiri), Justin (voice) (Adam DiMarco), Mama (Michèle Duquet).
Undertone har aldersgrensen R.
Undertone er en Horror, Thriller, Sci-Fi.
Undertone har en publikumsvurdering på 5 av 10.
Undertone hadde et budsjett på USD 500k.
Undertone har tjent USD 21,6 mill. på kino.