Writer-director Ian Tuason’s feature debut, the sonic-driven horror “Undertone,” has, at least at the outset, an appealingly stripped-down quality.
The 30-something Evy Babic (Nina Kiri) lives with her dying, comatose mother (Michèle Duquet). The movie never leaves their small, two-story home. Upstairs, Evy’s mother lies wordlessly in a bed. Downstairs, Evy, at 3 a.m. puts on headphones, sits in front of a microphone and calls up her paranormal podcast co-host Justin (Adam DiMarco’s voice) to talk “all things creepy.”
It’s a testament to Tuason’s evident filmmaking talent that, with these bare bones, “Undertone” swells into a gripping and unsettling experience. This is a movie that summons many of its scares with a sudden boost in audio levels, the thunderous tick of a clock or the scream of … a tea kettle. It’s even rated “R” not for bloodcurdling violence or satanic ghouls but, simply, “language.”
It’s these subtle qualities that make “Undertone” a spare but deftly dense film and Tuason a filmmaker to watch. It’s the movie’s disappointing second half, though, that breaks its quiet spell. After conjuring a tapestry of tension through narrative drips, as well as literal ones, Tuason throws in the whole kitchen sink, drowning out “Undertone” with a cacophony of genre cliches. Ancient Christian lore is invoked, as are children’s lullabies, and the riveting nuance of “Undertone” slips away in all the feedback.
“I want it to be over,” Evy tells Justin. “Is that a bad thing to say?”
Evy’s mother hasn’t eaten in two days, and her emotional exhaustion is clear when she first connects with her London-based co-host. You might here be wondering if the movie digs into this guilt, but “Undertone” is better at leaving carefully placed clues than following through on them.
For the episode they begin taping, Justin tells Evy that an anonymous e-mailer has sent a mysterious message with 10 audio files. They begin listening to them one by one, while recording. In them, a married and pregnant couple, Jessa and Mike, are trying an experiment. Mike, who’s doing the recording, says that Jessa talks in her sleep. In fact, it turns out she sings (“London Bridge Is Falling Down”), and it doesn’t get better from there.
Our experience of this, and the eerie subsequent recordings, is entirely aural. While “Undertone” is far from the first horror film to grasp the power of sound design, it’s cunning in its deployment of a found-footage tale that unspools through the ears.
This has to do with the recordings, themselves, but it’s also due to the vulnerable place they put Evy. Some of the best moments in Tauson’s film play on our anxiety for her, as she listens in the darkened night. As the unfolding story grows closer to her, we feel like someone, at any moment, is going to emerge from a shadow while Evy, unaware sits isolated by headphones. Call it noise-canceling horror.
One idea that “Undertone” plays is something Justin mentions: audio pareidolia, the term for when the brain imposes words or patterns out of random, disorganized sounds. As they investigate the recordings, Evy and Justin are often playing them backward. Their interpretations become ours. The movie, itself, is a jumble of auditory clues that may or may mean something.
I’d rather “Undertone” stayed on this track, but, as if fretful of being too minimalistic, Tauson piles on more layers. Evy finds out she’s pregnant and isn’t sure she wants to keep it. We can tell from all the Catholic accouterment around the house, Evy’s mother, if conscious, might have a strong opinion on this choice. The dark origins of the children’s songs, too, relate to mothers and children.
But for a highly contemporary movie centered around podcasting, “Undertone” morphs into a quite old-fashioned thrill ride, full of Catholic idols and creaky doors and light bulbs that go in and out. Kiri is exceptional in carrying a film in which she’s the only talking, present actor. But that a movie so threadbare manages to feel like too much is both the film’s accomplishment and its failure.
“Undertone,” an A24 release, opens in theaters Thursday. It’s rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language. Running time: 94 minutes. Two and half stars out of four.
