Podcast horror undertone channels ancient evil through modern tech

Around the turn of the millennium, once it became clear that the internet was not the fad that detractors assumed it to be, a handful of horror directors started engaging with the peculiar terrors of online life. undertone is part of this lineage, in the sense that it takes a form of entertainment that’s become popular in the YouTube era—watching people talk into microphones—and translates it into a digestible narrative format. Beyond that, however, it’s really nothing new. 

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Juiced up with a new Dolby Atmos sound mix, this Canadian indie—acquired by A24 after its premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival last summer—provides the kind of giggly, adrenaline-fueled thrills that sell movie tickets. The whispers crackle menacingly, the footsteps are loud and omnidirectional, and the demonic voices vibrate low in the mix, at just the right frequency to feel them in your core. As a theatrical experience, it’s lots of fun, making clever use of proven techniques that build tension before releasing it with exploding light bulbs and ghostly figures appearing in the corner of the frame. 

All of this happens around Evy (Nina Kiry), co-host of the popular paranormal podcast that gives the movie its name. Evy’s role is as the “resident skeptic,” while her co-host Justin (Adam DiMarco) is ready to believe in any phenomenon that gets ratings. The film is built around an episode investigating a series of ten iPhone voice notes anonymously emailed to the podcast, in which a woman becomes possessed by a malevolent force as she sleeps. An eerie talking doll is involved, as are hidden messages embedded into popular children’s songs. All of this will come together as the cursed recordings escalate in intensity, driving Edy—who, by the way, is caring for her dying mother at her home while all this is happening—into a terrified frenzy. 

The film’s considerable fright factor comes mostly from its sound mix, which director Ian Tuason enhances by pairing scary noises with mundane visuals made unsettling by the enveloping darkness. Much of undertone takes place at 3 a.m., for reasons that only get the most cursory of explanations; that’s not enough to ruin the experience, however, particularly when Tuason slowly zooms in on the dark, empty space over Evy’s shoulder. It’s much creepier to listen to backwards nursery rhymes on your headphones while diving into an internet rabbit hole late at night than it would be doing the same thing in the daytime, and that’s the experience Tuason is trying to replicate here.