Film Review: Undertone

Undertone
Directors: Ian Tuason
Black Fawn Films, Kino, Slaterverse Pictures
In Theaters: 03.13.2026

A24 — you know her and you love her. Has she ever steered you wrong (try hard not to think about Spring Breakers or Materialists)? Well after two separate viewings of the company’s latest release, I am once again proven wrong. What’s scarier than two millennials with a podcast? The answer: nothing. Yet after seeing two cuts of the same film I can tell you this much: the Undertone you’re seeing in theaters is not the same film that traumatized me at Sundance earlier this year. 

Undertone follows Evy (Nina Kiri, The Handmaid’s Tale, Out Standing), a young woman who’s moved back home to take care of her elderly, dying mother (Michèle Duquet). Young Evy hosts a podcast with her longtime best friend Justin (Adam DiMarco, Overcompensating, The White Lotus). While Evy is the loud and proud skeptic of the two, things start to take a turn when Mr.Believer (Justin) suggests that they listen to a series of haunting voice recordings sent to him in a mysteriously cryptic email. Oh I almost forgot to mention, Justin lives in the U.K. for some reason, which leads to the episode being recorded at Evy’s during the witching hour. I know, I know, spoooooooky.   

Now when I first saw Undertone, it was at Sundance’s Midnight program at the tiny but mighty Broadway Centre Cinemas. My sister and I were the last two patrons to get in before the showing was at capacity. Now I mean this when I say it, I have not been that scared at a late-night screening since Hereditary came out (basically eight years ago now) and induced an actual panic attack that left me curled in a ball, sobbing on the floor. My resting heart rate is normally at 69 (nice) BPM, but during my first viewing of Undertone, it got all the way up to 111. I held my breath until the credits rolled and squashed myself into a ball on Broadway’s tiny blue chairs. Though after walking out of the opening day screening last week, I couldn’t believe that a few small edits would change the film’s overall scare factor so completely.

One of the film’s biggest marketing gimmicks is how much of an auditory experience it is during the feature’s 93-minute runtime. I can’t go into too much detail as I don’t want to risk spoiling anything for you, dear readers. Though during the film’s climax and falling action that violently smash cuts to its resolution, there are small cuts here and there that tonally shift the ending, ruining the preciously crafted build-up that first-time director Ian Tuason so lovingly and masterfully builds. There’s also new footage that is intercut at the end that feels completely unnecessary because the film does what it’s been marketing so heavily; we don’t need to see the horrific violence when hearing it had been enough in the first place. It also just adds fuel to the fire that some theaters (not Broadway, of course) don’t care or pay their employees enough for them to make sure your sound is actually being distributed as it should. 

That being said, maybe it’s not fair to put all the blame on A24. It could be a myriad of other people making decisions and pulling strings on a project that didn’t need the assist in the first place. I just strongly do not feel in my heart that the creative genius that Ian Tuason displayed during my initial viewing of Undertone would allow changes that so heavily inhibit the story he was trying to tell — more specifically his story of post-partum depression and generational trauma mothers often pass down to their daughters unknowingly, which oftentimes leads to a never-ending cycle throughout the entirety of a single family tree. Though that won’t stop me from having a problem with a movie that was so deliciously arthouse being dumbed down to ensure it received the commercial success they needed to secure a profit. We could also talk about how this doesn’t help in the dumbing down of our already “media illiterate” society, but that’s a think-piece for another day.

I want to make sure to get one more thing across before this review ends: you should still definitely see Undertone for the impressive technical feat that it is. Was I somewhat clowning on the incessant marketing about the sound earlier? Well, yes! Jokes aside, if you go, see this flick in a theater that cares (one more time for people in the back, BROADWAY CENTRE CINEMAS) about how the audio is supposed to be fed to you. You will surely not regret it, though you might regret the sense of dread and unease it fills your cranium with. Trust me, even if you despise podcasts, it’ll make an audiophile out of you. 

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, it’s incredibly hard to make a bad movie! Undertone was definitely not a terrible movie my second time around. Though as they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”! Just because I had my issues doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy and appreciate it for what it still is, despite some changes here and there. Do yourself a favor and at least catch it in theaters so you don’t miss out on what is sure to be one of the most talked-about movie-watching experiences of the year! —Yonni Uribe

Read more film reviews from Yonni Uribe:
Film Review: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
The Sundance Midnight Short Film Program Brings Humor to Horror