{"id":14163,"date":"2026-03-13T22:30:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14163"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:35:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:35:58","slug":"undertone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/03\/13\/undertone\/","title":{"rendered":"Undertone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Undertone<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A24\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ian Tuason\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ian Tuason\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Shanika Lewis-Waddell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Graham Beasley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 13, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Niki Kiri, Adam DiMarco, Michele Duquet, Keana Lyn Bastidas, Jeff Yung.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0The same people who love The Blair Witch Project and Skinamarink will probably love Undertone<\/strong> as well. They can have it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You never know what you\u2019re going to get from an A24 horror film. It\u2019s either going to be something good like Heretic or Bring Her Back or some elevated nonsense like Men or Lamb. Undertone<\/strong> is definitely the latter. It\u2019s 93 minutes that amount to nothing. The guy sitting a couple of rows behind me said it best when he announced \u201cThis is some BS!\u201d as the end credits came up. I couldn\u2019t agree more. It\u2019s complete BS. And it\u2019s a bore to boot.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by relative newcomer Ian Tuason, Undertone <\/strong>is a one-woman show. It centers on Evy (Kiri, The Handmaid\u2019s Tale), the host of a podcast dealing with supernatural phenomena. She\u2019s the skeptic to friend\/co-host Justin\u2019s (Di Marco, The White Lotus) true believer. She recently moved back home to take care of her ailing mother (Duquet). She\u2019s the only other person we see in the film, but she\u2019s bedridden and catatonic the whole time. Everybody else is just a voice on the phone. Oh yeah, the movie is set entirely within the confines of Evy\u2019s childhood home.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For their latest episode, Justin received a series of ten audio recordings from a married couple experiencing strange goings-on (of the paranormal kind) in their home. They hear things they can\u2019t explain. Justin plays the recordings one by one. They start to hear it too. There\u2019s definitely something spooky going on, but what? As she listens to the recordings, Evy starts to lose it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now I\u2019m faced with an impossible choice. Do I tell you what happens next or not? On the one hand, I hate dropping spoilers. It\u2019s not fair to my readers who like to be surprised. On the other hand, I feel like I should tell you so you don\u2019t have to shell out $15 to find out. Believe me, it\u2019s not worth it. The money is better spent on an interesting horror movie like The Bride. I know, what about a compromise? That seems fair. The \u201cevents\u201d in Undertone<\/strong> have to do with a baby-killing demon called Abyzou. Notice I put the term events in quotes. There\u2019s some question as to whether anything happens at all. It could all be in Evy\u2019s mind. Okay, that\u2019s all you\u2019re getting.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Show of hands, who remembers Brotman\u2019s Law? Who can tell me what it is? Anyone, anyone? Bueller? [Insert audible sigh here] Okay, then. It states \u201cIf nothing has happened by the end of the first reel,\u00a0nothing is going to happen.\u201d That\u2019s certainly true in the case of Undertone<\/strong>. I know because I checked the time on my phone (more than once to be honest). It was an hour into the movie and still nothing of any interest had happened. It\u2019s basically Evy talking on the phone to Justin and a few others, listening to the recordings, walking around the house, tending to her mom and losing her mind. She looks freaked almost the whole time. There are also several shots of a tea kettle whistling and some talk of an unexpected pregnancy that Evy considers terminating. Something finally happens in the final shot right before the credits come up. What, I don\u2019t know for sure. By that point, I had long since mentally checked out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I will give Undertone<\/strong> credit for its clever sound design. It uses it effectively, but not enough to save the movie. Tuason relies on all the usual visual tricks to try and scare the audience like the use of negative space. He moves the camera to redirect our attention to a dark corner where something might be waiting to appear. It gets old fast. Here\u2019s the thing. It tries hard, but Undertone<\/strong> isn\u2019t scary. At best, it\u2019s slightly eerie, but that\u2019s being generous. I mostly felt bored.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kiri is okay in the lead, but her character isn\u2019t all that interesting. She\u2019s just some young woman dealing with personal and paranormal issues. She does nothing to garner sympathy or make us care about her. Sadly, hers is the only performance of note.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Undertone<\/strong> is the biggest damn put-on I\u2019ve seen since The Blair Witch Project. It\u2019s a big bunch of nothingness. It\u2019s not even worth a free pass. Like the guy said, it\u2019s some BS!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Undertone (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A24\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ian Tuason\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ian Tuason\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Shanika Lewis-Waddell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Graham Beasley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 13, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Niki Kiri, Adam DiMarco, Michele Duquet, Keana Lyn Bastidas, Jeff Yung. Rating: * \u00a0The same people who love The Blair Witch Project and Skinamarink will probably love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Undertone-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14166,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14163\/revisions\/14166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}