Hey friends! Barbarella here to say that my expectations are high going into the “scariest film you’ll ever hear,” Undertone, in theaters March 13. It promises a chilling experience driven by sound but doesn’t quite live up to that promise.
The film follows the story of a skeptical cohost on a paranormal podcast who finds her world upended after she encounters a series of audio recordings that prove fairly creepy. Adding to the creepiness factor, she lives alone in a big house with an incapacitated mother who is on death’s doorstep.
Nina Kiri proves fantastic in the lead role, carrying the film with a measured and authentic performance. Since she’s on screen the majority of the time, the filmmakers rely on her, and she proves to be the best element of Undertone. Her portrayal brings depth and credibility while some of the filming decisions detract from that.
I love a good slow pan when something creepy could be lurking around the corner, but when the pan ends up back where it started without actually panning 360 degrees, it distracts. Sure, done once, that might have been an effective way to get viewers to feel slightly off-balance, but it’s done frequently throughout the film, which then turns it into more of an annoyance.
Undertone struggles with an overreliance on familiar horror mechanisms. While some of these techniques are effective at eliciting scares, I find myself laughing instead of being scared at times because they are so easily expected. That said, the film does have legitimate scary moments in it, and the creepiness hovers frequently. However, some of the creepiest scenes don't really make sense within the context of the story. Still, they prove impactful enough from a purely horror perspective.
I would have preferred they leaned more heavily into the unique auditory possibilities of the story. However, the filmmakers rely far more on traditional scare tactics. Conceptually, the film practically begs for a more innovative approach, one in which they could have taken the opportunity to use inherently frightening sounds—like the ominous buzz of bees—layered into the soundscape, but they didn’t.
While I do enjoy some of the elements, particularly the more original ones, I just feel like it misses the mark somewhat. Its potential to redefine audio-based horror feels underexplored, especially given that the sound is supposed to be the star of the film.
In the end, Undertone has all the right ingredients: a compelling lead, a strong premise, some genuinely creepy scenes, and an intriguing idea around sound. But, by failing to find the right balance between innovation and tradition, it misses the chance to become the genre-defining experience it promises to be. Undertone will be in theaters March 13.
