UNDERTONE
(director/writer: Ian Tuason; cinematographer: Graham Beasely; editor: Sonny Atkins; music: Shanika Louis-Waddell; cast: Nina Kiri (Evy Babic), Adam DiMarco (Justin-voice), Michèle Duquet (Mama), Keana Lyn Bastidas (Jessa-voice), Jeff Yung (Mike-voice), Ryan Turner (Darren-voice); Runtime: 85; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Dan Slater, Cody Calahan; A24; 2025-Canada)
“A creepy story that gets under your skin.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A low-budget haunting horror film by the Canadian first-timer Ian Tuason that has some sophisticated scares and a creepy story that gets under your skin. It’s a derivative film that cribs freely from films such as Session 9, Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Hereditary and The Exorcist.
The 30-something Evy (Nina Kiri) is unhappy that she might be pregnant from a boyfriend she considers to be a jerk, and leaves him to go back to her childhood home in Toronto (Tuason’s actual house in the suburbs of Toronto). She becomes the caretaker for her incapacitated dying religious mom (Michèle Duquet), who doesn’t leave her upstairs bedroom and has stopped eating.
Evy and her friend Justin (Adam DiMarco) co-host a podcast at 3a.m., in which he calls in from London (and is never seen onscreen), as she does the podcast out of her downstairs dining room.
The podcast is called The Undertone and its subject-matter is the paranormal, with the lapsed Catholic Evy the skeptic and Justin the believer.
Someone anonymous sends Justin a diabolical email of 10 audio files whose recordings show the married couple Mike and Jessa (voiced by Jeff Yung and Keana Lyn Bastidas) are fearful about finding paranormal activity in their home. Each file escalates into something more menacing, as the alarmed Evy thinks that this sinister presence has somehow entered her home in the form of strange noises.
The captivating performance by Nina Kiri carries the film, while cinematographer Graham Beasely gives it a claustrophobic horror film look.
The atmospheric film’s tagline is “Don’t be afraid of the dark. Be afraid of the silence.”
It played at the Sundance Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 3/23/2026 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com