Many people can agree that 2025 was a banner year for scary movies; from the subtle terror of “Presence” to the visceral horror of “Weapons” and “Bring Her Back,” to the groundbreaking showstopper “Sinners.” While it’s still early in 2026, the year isn’t showing much promise so far.
Opening, fittingly, on Friday the 13, “Undertone” (A24), the feature length debut by Ian Tuason, is an underperforming disappointment. Podcaster Evy (Nina Kiri), who, along with her co-host Justin (voiced by Adam DiMarco), produce a podcast called “The Undertone,” in which they try to uncover mysteries in sound files sent to them by their followers. Evy is the skeptic, Justin the believer.
Evy does her podcasting from the dining room table in the home of her devout Catholic mother (Michèle Duquet), who is in hospice in an upstairs bedroom. There are statuettes, icons, and crosses everywhere you look.
Evy lives with her mother temporarily as the end of her mama’s life nears. Evy maintains regular phone contact with her boyfriend. We get the sense that the relationship is on the rocks, exacerbated by the fact that Evy has discovered that she is pregnant.
For Evy, who is attempting sobriety, the podcast is a source of escape, and she has a pleasant working relationship with Justin, who is also a friend. But things take a dramatic turn when the podcasters receive 10 audio files that become increasingly bizarre with each listen. Jessa (voiced by Keana Lyn Bastidas) and Mike (voiced by Jeff Yung) are the young couple in the recordings, and they are struggling with Jessa’s recently revealed frightening behavior while she’s asleep.
In addition to loud thumping and banging in their home (which is highlighted by a special Dolby sound system in the theater), there are nursery rhymes and lullabies performed forward and backward, which incorporate hidden messages, and then the inadvertent summoning of a baby-killing demon. That theme is expanded on with the revelation of stories about contemporary women who killed their children. This is, of course, tied into Evy’s desire to terminate her pregnancy, despite her upbringing and her mother’s fanatically religious devotion.
A low-budget affair (with only two cast members appearing on screen and minimal visual effects), “Undertone” is a portrait of Evy’s descent into madness, which includes her increasingly troubling drawings that migrate from paper to the walls of the house, all driven by overwhelming guilt. Overall, “Undertone” plays like a combination of propaganda and product endorsement as if the movie were co-sponsored by the American Life League (the Catholic church’s grassroots anti-abortion organization) and Dolby.
Rating: D+
