undertone - Movie Review

The Movie: undertone

The Director: Ian Tuason

The Cast: Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco, Michèle Duquet

The Story: The host of a popular paranormal podcast becomes haunted by terrifying recordings mysteriously sent her way.

The Rating: 5 / 10

The Review:

The title of "scariest movie" gets thrown around pretty easily these days. Every year, there's more thna a few studios that use the phrase in their marketing for whatever horror movie they are promoting although it rarely turns out to be the case. Either way, I figured why not give the movie a chance, especially since A24 is usually on point with the movies they decide to distribute so chances were good this would be a fun ride.

Nope.

Director Ian Tuason's first feature length film starts off slow with lots of time spent getting to know the characters and diving deep into what felt like would end up being a deep well of tension and scares. From there, I kept waiting for something scary to happen. I kept waiting and waiting and then, after a thankfully short hour and a half run time, the credits began to roll and I was still left wondering when the scary stuff was going to happen.

Those of you who watch The Handmaid's Tale will most likely recognize Nina Kiri from her role as Alma. I don't kno anything about her work on that show bvut I can say that she does a great job in this movie as Evy, a podcast host who goes down a very dark path. This is far from a scream queen performance and it's clear that Kiri is very adept at matching the subtlies and nuances of the eerie vibes that the movie calls for, I just wish there had been more of a ocnsistent payoff than the bit we get at the end.

Word out there is that Tuason's next project is the 8th installment of the Paranormal Activity franchise which is one of my favorite horror film series so, even with the results here, I'll still look forward to seeing what he can do with that property. In the meantime, check out undertone (the lower case title is intentional stylization) if you really want to but I find it a hard one to recommend.