UNDERTONE (stylized as “undertone,” all lower case) is an atmospheric horror film that uses innovative sound for much of its effect. It focuses on a young woman, Evy Babic (Nina Kiri) caring alone for her dying mother (Michele Duquet) in the mother’s home, presumably the house where the young woman grew up. The mother is in the finally stages of dying, having stopped eating or drinking and appears to sleep continually. Evy’s major contact with the outside world right now is through a podcast that she and a friend, Justin (Adam DiMarco), co-host together, a podcast about the paranormal called “undertone,” in which the pair of them examine supernatural phenomenon, with him playing the role of the believer and her playing the skeptic.
For most the film, we see only Nina Kiri as Evy, and occasionally the unconcious mother. Justin contributes to the podcast remotely, as he lives in another city. Apart from a couple of brief scenes, everything takes place in the mother’s home, giving the film a claustrophic feel.
UNDERTONE (“undertone”) won the Audience Award at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival and then went on to play the 2026 Sundance Film Festival as part of the Midnight program.
Caring for her mother alone is Evy’s choice, and she gentle turns down her podcast co-host Justin’s offer to flying out to visit her, as well as his suggestion she ask for help from her brother, who in the small town were their mother lives. Evy’s mother is religious and the house is filled with crucifixes, framed religious art and little figurines, but we sense Evy is not. The daughter gently cares for her unconcious mother, checking on her, tending to her needs, talking to her in a gentle voice, and singing the nursery rhyme “Ba Ba Black Sheep” to soothe her.
Downstairs in the dining room, Evy communicates with Justin over her laptop, as she sets up to record their podcast for its weekly release. Justin thinks he has found an intriguing mystery for this podcast, a series of ten audio recordings sent to him by email, from a mysterious, unknown address, and with little explanation about them in the email. Tossing aside any fear of viruses in the the files, he clicked on the first one and listened, hearing a man talking about his wife is saying stranging things in her sleep and that he has decided to record her (with her permission) as she sleeps, to trying to understand them. What Justin hears is bizarre, including some snippets of nursery rhymes, played fast or too slow or backwards, and Evy agrees to use them for the podcast, without hearing them, so she can listen as they record the podcast. They start to listen to them in sequence, discussing each as it ends.
The film is built around what happens as they listen to those audio recordings. Eventually, they learn that they are a married couple and the woman is pregnant, which feeds into some of what heard in the later podcasts. There are tidbitst about dark, hidden stories behind innocent-seeming nursery rhymes (which is true, many do have dark stories behind them) and there something about an evil spirit menances babies.
Most of the film takes place in the house where the woman is caring for her mother, apart from a few hours when she reluctantly agrees to meet her boyfriend at a party for a few hours and when she visits a doctor. Mostly, we just see her and her mother, although there is a scene, perhaps a flashback, where a hospice nurse tells her that once her mother stopped eating, they are near the final phase, which she will recognize by a change in her breathing, but there is no way to know how long that will take.
The looming death and the uncertainty about when the end comes, the eerie recordings Evy listens to alone in a darkened room for the podcast, and references in those recordings to sinister meanings behind some nursery rhymes all combine to create a powerrful sense of unease. That feeling is boosted by the innovative use of sound in the film. Evy hears the recordings and their disturbing sounds through her headphones, but we are never sure those sounds aren’t also echoing through the dark, nearly empty house. The brilliant effect raises the hairs on the back of the neck, and is the most striking aspect of the film.
Additionally, the acting is well done, with Nina Kiri very effective in carrying most of the film alone. The half-lit photography adds well to the unsettling atmosphere and the sets are exactly as they should be for a haunting tale. It always seems to be 3 o’clock but in the darkened home, we are never sure if it is 3am or 3pm.
Everything comes together perfectly to set the stage for horror. And then writer-director Ian Tuasin does not follow through on all that promise. While all those elements are very unnerving and the film has created enormous tension, the film does not give us a full story to make use of all this great material. Things go bump in the night perfectly – but that is never tied into a narrative or an explanation. There is basically no story here beyond the set-up of a woman alone in a house with her dying mother, a woman is maybe feeling some guilt for the past, and the creepy audio recordings for the podcast. There are hints about a true story behind the mysterious recordings, and also hints that Evy may be losing touch with reality in the finally sequence, but it is all very vague and incomplete. There isn’t even enough there to make up an explanation for oneself.
Which is a shame. The film does such a good job setting up the story, setting the tone of dread and fear through it’s masterful use of sound, that the audience is primed to be terrified, But then the film just fails to give the audience any story, any plot to hang all that dread on, which is a waste and so disappointing.
UNDERTONE opens in select theaters on Friday, Mar. 13, 2026.
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
