If you were intrigued by the mind trip of random doors leading to a liminal space, along with your subconscious in Backrooms, you might be inclined to tune in to Undertone, another entry of A24 Films that equally demands your attention.
This time around, folk horror blends with supernatural creepiness as a pair of podcasters explore a series of strange audio recordings that somehow drag them, kicking and screaming, into the darkness, where a lurking demonic entity awaits…
Meet Evy (portrayed by Nina Kiri), a millennial who remotely hosts a horror podcast with her close friend, Justin (Adam DiMarco). Their program, The Undertone, explores all things creepy as Evy — a non-practicing Catholic skeptic — and Justin — the true believer — debate mysterious events and paranormal hoaxes they have encountered online.
Somehow, a series of 10 audio recordings vaguely finds its way to these young Mulder and Scully clones, who feel compelled to explore. These involve a young couple (Jessa and Mike) who have been experiencing nightmares, speaking in tongues while sleeping and nursery rhymes, of all things. But this is no children’s story.
As Evy and Justin examine the true-life horrors of English nursery rhymes, Jessa and Mike’s backstory blends into Undertone‘s ongoing narrative. All roads lead to Abyzou, a mythical European female demon which is blamed for miscarriages, stillborns and the many deaths of infants. Have our paranormal investigators basically used a new-technology medium as a Ouija board of sorts, bringing forth their doom?
“She waits in the tenth file… at the witching hour.”
The film’s primary protagonist, Evy, is caught in a tough situation. Lots of things are heavily weighing on her mind as she nurses her non-speaking mother alone in her family home. She’s not sleeping well and hearing weird sounds. The slow burn depicting her everyday isolation may be driving her back to drinking, but she might not be losing her mind. Is something actually playing games with her? Nina Kiri is incredibly believable in this role.
I can relate to hearing strange sounds while living (mostly) alone in a big, old house. It’s not very difficult to write off these experiences, but you also shouldn’t simply deny the possibility of something else entirely until it’s too late…
Undertone complicates a simple story, one which only involves two on-screen actors (the others appear via voice overs) and one location. Reportedly, the film’s production budget was only $500,000 and its box office topped $21 million, which tonally reminds me of the ground-breaking original Paranormal Activity entries.
These types of micro-budgeted horror films which strongly rely on low, eerie music, flickering lights and jump scares to build a psychological terror that you hear but not see was greatly appreciated by this viewer. In fact, most of the film’s tension comes from off the screen.
Initially, I was worried that Undertone‘s 23 producers would weaken its storyline, but I was pleasantly surprised that generalization was disproven. Envy can be a powerful emotion, one which injects most of the horrors of this film. And coming from a historical evil with roots in the real world, it greatly held my attention throughout its taut 94-minute runtime.
Multi-hyphenate filmmaker Ian Tuason (the indie movie’s writer, director and producer) excels with combining foreboding, uneasy music with hidden messages in children’s songs and the threat of an ancient evil. What Jordan Peele did to creepify “I Got 5 On It,”Undertone does to innocent nursery rhymes, which I’ll never be able to hear again without remembering this film.
The supernatural jump scares don’t feel forced and while the subject matter deals with some unsettling stuff combined with possible demonic possession, its open-ended conclusion is somewhat disappointing, but this could all be a warning to audiences of all ages!
“Don’t be afraid of the dark… be afraid of the silence.”
Ash and Matt
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