Undertone: An Immersive Audio Horror Experience (review)
In this paranormal variation of thrillers like Secret Conversation or Kimi, the anxiety comes through sound. A little tortuous but effective
A horror film where fear comes first and foremost through sound? It is on this promise that the interesting Undertone, directed by Ian Tuason, is sold, and which can be seen as a horrific variation on thrillers like The Secret Conversation, by Coppola, and Kimi, by Soderbergh, where the protagonists solved mysteries by opening their ears wide. Here, the investigator, Evy, is the host of a podcast specializing in the paranormal. When she’s not recording one of her shows in the dining room of her childhood home, she’s tending to her dying mother, bedridden upstairs. Mysterious audio files that she broadcasts in her podcast will soon interfere in her daily life, and impact her ruminations on motherhood, faith and guilt…
If Undertone’s sound design is, as promised, particularly elaborate, the jitters here come mainly from the anxiety-inducing framing imagined by Ian Tuason, which manages to give the impression that evil forces are stirring in every corner of the house. The atmosphere is therefore ideally gloomy, and allows us to excuse the somewhat too tortuous way in which the suspense is carried out. Everything is convincing enough for Jason Blum to entrust Tuason with the keys to the next Paranormal Activity.
By Ian Tucson. With Nina Kiri, Michelle Duquet, Keana Lyn Bastidas… Duration: 1h34 Released August 12, 2026.
