Release Date: March 13, 2026 (U.S. theatrical)
Runtime: 94 minutes (≈ 1 hr 33 min)
Rated: R – language, intense, primarily auditory, horror elements, disturbing imagery, and psychological terror
Production Companies: Black Fawn Films, Slaterverse Pictures, Spooky Pictures, DimensionGate, KINO Studios, Feel Everything
Producers: Dan Slater & Cody Calahan
Cinematography: Graham Beasley
Editing: Sonny Atkins
Music/Composer: Shanika Lewis-Waddell
undertone (2026)
Director & Writer: Ian Tuason
Cast: Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco, Michèle Duquet, Keana Lyn Bastidas, Jeff Yung, Sarah Beaudin, Brian Quintero
Podcasts are one of the most utilized and widely consumed forms of media today, ranging from cooking and self-help to stories about the paranormal and hauntings. As a fellow horror aficionado, I can personally attest to falling down those particular rabbit holes — paranormal deep dives and true crime included. Ian Tuason makes his feature debut with such a common and culturally relevant storytelling device, cleverly using his title undertone to set the paranoia and unease that will drive this narrative — at the expense of your sanity.
Nina Kiri stars as Evy, a young woman caring for her mother, who is in an unstable, near-death condition. While navigating that weight and urgency, Evy is also co-hosting a podcast called “The Undertone” with her friend Justin (Adam DiMarco), which explores the paranormal and supernatural.
From the opening frame, the film establishes its tone with Evy singing “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” to her mother in a home filled with religious symbolism and iconography. It’s a children’s nursery rhyme — innocent on its surface — but Tuason cleverly juxtaposes it against those same religious artifacts bathed in dim, oppressive lighting, alongside the sight of her mother in a vegetative state. It’s a quietly disturbing image that signals exactly what kind of film you’re in for.
Tuason has spoken openly about drawing from his personal experience of caring for his own parents in their final years, and that emotional truth seeps through the film gradually — slowly building toward a direct and deeply revealing confession. The religious imagery woven throughout only deepens the nuance of Evy’s relationship with her upbringing and her complicated bond with her mother.
As the film cuts between Evy’s maintenance of her mother, her grip on her sanity, and her deep dive into spooky folklore — all stemming from an email Justin receives containing ten mysterious audio files — we descend into paranoia right alongside her. Tuason’s best instincts here are in how he strategically unravels the story of those audio files, parceling out information just slowly enough to keep both the audience and the couple at the center of the recordings, Jessa (Keana Lyn Bastidas) and Mike (Jeff Yung), perpetually on edge.
He also makes sharp use of the negative space surrounding Evy and the home she currently occupies while caring for her mother. Because this is Tuason’s own childhood home, there is an authenticity to the placement, blocking, and camera work that feels naturally haunting — suffocating at times. Cinematographer Graham Beasley frequently positions Evy at the edge of the frame, centering the camera instead on dark hallways and half-seen stairwells, encouraging your eyes to wander into the dark and “see” things that may or may not be there. The collaboration between the physical space and the film’s auditory storytelling comes together in something that can only be described as hauntingly beautiful.
Evy prides herself on being a skeptic — practically obligated to dig for rational explanations for whatever she and Justin explore on their show. Justin, by contrast, is a true believer through and through, and the dynamic between the two creates a constant, low-grade tension that complements the paranoia building around Evy’s circumstances. Their back-and-forth becomes its own kind of horror engine, feeding her descent as the audio files refuse to let her logic win.
You are alongside Evy for the entirety of the film, and Kiri rises to the challenge — expressing concealed guilt at precisely the moments it hits hardest, while contrasting that with a palpable longing for the relationship she wishes she could have offered her mother when she was still fully present and aware.
There is, of course, more at play beneath the surface. Complementing the paranoia, the negative space, the eeriness of late-night podcast rabbit holes, and the religious undertones is a thorough examination of guilt and the looming question of motherhood. Evy’s relationship with her mother is revisited repeatedly — through voicemails, photographs, and quiet moments at her bedside. Her mother is the only other physical presence we see on screen, and even in her non-responsive state, her influence on Evy’s life is unmistakable, whether for better or worse. But as we peel back the darker corners of Evy’s interior world, we also begin to understand her complicated feelings toward the prospect of becoming a mother herself.
Undertone doesn’t spell everything out — nor should it. The film trusts its audience to read between the lines, to lean into the dark corners of the frame, to catch the details buried in voice memos and lightly touched-on mythology. Evy is the only expressive presence we get on screen, and because of that, every shift in her body language carries weight. Kiri understands this assignment completely.
Composer Shanika Lewis-Waddell’s score functions less as a traditional soundtrack and more as a series of tones, pulses, and ambient sounds that blur the line between music and sound design — which is fitting, given how central the auditory experience is to the film’s entire DNA. When Evy puts on her noise-canceling headphones, everything goes quiet, and you feel that silence in your chest.
It is quite apparent that Tuason pulled from the lingering, panning camera influence of the Paranormal Activity franchise — which makes it all the more fitting that he’s been tapped to direct the next entry in that series. This film feels like his audition tape and his thesis statement all at once. He has already set undertone up for a trilogy, and if this debut is any indication, that expanded universe is worth watching closely.
Ultimately, undertone is a deeply personal and impressively controlled debut. Tuason weaponizes sound, space, and silence in equal measure, using them to build a story that is as much about grief and guilt as it is about demons and dread. It isn’t a perfect film — some viewers will find the pacing a slow burn that demands patience — but those who surrender to it will find a horror film that lingers long after the credits roll. Not just because of what it shows you, but because of what it doesn’t.