Undertone (2026) Review: Hearing is Believing!

March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 Stephanie Young 0 Comments Adam DiMarco, English Movies, Hollywood, Hollywood Movie Reviews, Hollywood Movies, Ian Tuason, Michèle Duquet, Nina Kiri, Undertone

Behind every film director lies a vision and passion for what can be created behind a camera for audiences to enjoy and appreciate. Cinema, often seen as moving images developing and creating a story is why it has become one of the most popular visual mediums of art. Looking back on our favorite movies, oftentimes scenes and characters materialize in our heads that last in our memories.

However, what creates a deep sense of feeling that often goes unnoticed is how film also utilizes sound design, music, and foley sounds to amplify its visual creations. Especially in the horror genre, scary images and monsters unnerve us. Undertone, directed by Ian Tuason, challenges the notion that seeing is believing when instead hearing can be just as real. Told primarily through auditory clips and podcast documentation, Undertone is a highly effective horror that seeps into our brains through sound and screams.

Evy (Nina Kiri) and Justin (Adam Dimarco) host The Undertone, a paranormal podcast with a balance of skepticism and belief between its two hosts, Evy leaning more into realism rather than spirituality. When Justin receives a strange and anonymous email from a listener that holds ten audio clips mapping out its own paranormal story, Justin and Evy can’t hide their curiosity. As they begin to play the clips, Evy’s paranoia that something more sinister may be at play begins to blend into her real life, with possible disastrous consequences.

Undertone’s sound design can not be understated as the most vital part of its storytelling. On only a $500,000 budget, the film and their twelve sound department artists, from mixers to foley editors, have made something that sounds like a studio level production.

Where the industry has moved into filmmaking with its preferred viewing method at the forefront of production (such as Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Avatar and Superman being made for IMAX screens) Undertone has become one of the first horror films to be released in Dolby Atmos specifically to highlight the creative choices behind its story and construction. The film’s power lies in dialogue and sound seeping under the audience’s skin and penetrating the amygdala in our brains linked with fear.

Undertone is a contained story with limited characters on screen while creating an entire world within its podcast medium. By the end, it is reminiscent of a Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark tale where it feels bare-boned in some aspects, giving its audience just enough information to keep going while coloring in its story just enough to unnerve. Its story on the surface would be perfect for a campfire but where Undertone’s effectiveness pays off is in the details and effectiveness of its audio team.

Thematically, the movie doesn’t cross into unknown territory as it deals with the anxiety and weight of impending motherhood but it understands how to touch on this subject in a fresh way through its production and crew.

There is a thought-provoking balance of a mother’s fear as it relates to sound regarding their child. The early screams and cries that make up motherhood in the beginning stages as well as the haunting-ness of silence, not knowing where your child may be, what they are doing, and if they are okay are ideas that further the film’s stylistic choices.

Undertone knows that sound or lack thereof can become a mother’s worst nightmare. This is why it becomes its own character in the film that causes Evy and Justin to rethink what paranormal hauntings can be. There is also a deeper theme of religion presented in the film. Evy’s sick mother is very religious, the set design containing crosses, religious paintings, and figurines everywhere near Evy’s workspace.

Images of Mary are present throughout in ways that signify emotions of distress and anxiety versus the peaceful figure we are often painted of Jesus’s mother. By doing this, the film is able to capture its own feelings on motherhood and use that to display motherhood from the beginning of time to modern society. Undertone is frightening in itself but the work that was put together by such a small crew and team is more proof that horror is a medium for the creative above all.

‘Undertone (2026)’ Rating – 4/5

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Stephanie Young

Senior Associate Writer at Just for Movie Freaks

Stephanie is a huge film fanatic, a librarian, and a baker! And when she isn't busy doing these activities, she is running around with her Australian Cattle Dog!

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