The Scare Salon

I regret that I’ve gotten pretty behind in catching all the new and hyped horror films that have been coming out in 2026, but I’m slowly trying to make up for lost time. In that line, a friend had recommended the movie Undertone to me back when it was still in theaters in March, and even though I really wanted to see it, I just never got around to it; the movie theater is a pretty long drive for me, and it’s also kinda expensive these days, unfortunately. Happily, though, the film recently began streaming on HBO Max, so I turned all the lights out in my already dark office, gathered some snacks, and, mindful that the film relies quite a bit on its sound design, turned the volume way up so I wouldn’t miss any of the creepy shit.

Undertone is the directorial debut of Canadian filmmaker Ian Tuason, and he got the initial idea for it in 2020 when he was caring for his parents, who both had cancer. The film was originally written as a radio play, a fact that will be quite evident as you watch it, and it was shot entirely in the house where the director grew up. It received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences, and was very financially successful for A24, making over twenty million dollars on a half-million-dollar budget. Can I just say that I’m ecstatic with how indie horror has been killing it at the box office this year? It really makes my little black heart burst with joy to see it.

While Undertone is definitely more on the minimal, slow-burn end of the spectrum and features some common horror tropes that some viewers found unoriginal, I actually thought the film was fantastic: laden with dread and eerily effective with a very simple premise, few special effects or jump scares, and a story that takes place all in one location with essentially one significant character. Making a movie this unsettling out of so little is quite a feat, and one that more experienced directors have struggled to pull off.

In the story, we’re following a young woman named Evy Babic (Nina Kiri), who has been staying in her childhood home and caring for her comatose and dying mother (Michèle Duquet). These two are the only characters we ever see, and Mama never speaks or opens her eyes; she just lays in bed. The rest of the characters are only heard as voices.

Evy is the cohost of a podcast called, you guessed it, Undertone, which focuses on spooky topics, particularly paranormal stuff. Evy is the skeptic, while second host Justin (Adam DiMarco) is the believer. Evy has an ersatz recording studio set up on the dining room table, and she and Justin communicate and record the podcast through her laptop, usually at two or three in the morning (it’s stated that Justin is in a different time zone, but I don’t think it’s ever specified where Evy or Justin are exactly). It’s also hinted that Evy is a recovering alcoholic, that she had a somewhat fractious relationship with her devout Catholic mother, and that she’s been suffering from insomnia. Additionally, there’s the barest whiff that she might be thinking of breaking up with her boyfriend, though we never see him; we only hear him once on a phone call.

For the latest podcast episode, Justin tells Evy that he’s received a weird email from an anonymous account. There are ten audio files attached, but he hasn’t listened to them yet because he wanted to play them on the show so they could both hear them at once and get their genuine first reactions. Evy is game, though she already thinks the whole thing sounds like a hoax.

So they start recording the episode, and Justin plays the first file. It turns out that the two voices on the audio belong to a couple named Mike and Jessa (Jeff Yung and Keana Lyn Bastidas, respectively). Mike says that Jessa has started talking in her sleep, but Jessa doesn’t believe him, so he’s decided to start recording them while they’re sleeping to prove it to her. The whole thing starts out as very cute and lighthearted, and we hear the couple joking around as they get ready for bed.

Justin skips ahead to the spot on the audio file where he sees a blip of sound, and it turns out that Jessa is singing “London Bridge” in her sleep. Creepy, sure, but not all that alarming. However, Justin also insists he can hear something else in the singing, something that sounds faintly like a voice saying, “Mike, kill all.” Evy scoffs at this, claiming she doesn’t hear anything unusual. I love the way the movie plays with audience perception here; though I’m not certain, it seems as though there isn’t anything strange about the audio the first time it’s played, but after Justin comments on it and plays it back, we the viewers think we can hear something odd too. It was either slowly added into the audio mix, or we’re succumbing to suggestion. Pretty clever.

As time goes on and more audio files get played, it becomes clear that something very sinister was going on over at Mike and Jessa’s place when these recordings were made, something that involved eerie nursery rhymes with reverse messages, a possible pregnancy, and perhaps a demonic force of some kind. Skeptical Evy finds herself going down some terrifying rabbit holes while she researches the audio, and starts to experience what seems to be increasing paranormal phenomena in her mother’s house, including sink taps coming on by themselves, things moving around on their own when she isn’t looking, and vague apparitions and voices. She starts getting to a point where she isn’t sure whether what she’s seeing and hearing is real, or just a product of stress, sleep deprivation, and suggestion from the amplifying horror of the mysterious audio files.

While the reveal of what’s going on with the files isn’t the most unique idea in the world, it’s utilized here very successfully, in my opinion; I’ve always been wigged out by weird audio, and most of Undertone‘s method of attack hinges on disquieting soundscapes, backward masking, and disturbing voices. Don’t get me wrong, there are some chilling visuals too, particularly ones where you just briefly see something (or someone) in the background or reflected in a mirror without much emphasis placed on it (similar to what was done in Hereditary or The Haunting of Hill House), but the audio is what really shines here and made this such a satisfyingly ominous experience.

While I wouldn’t recommend the movie to someone who was more into gore, jump scares, or big set pieces, I definitely think people who enjoy listening to spooky podcasts and are more into subtle, low-key horrors should love it, as it really captures the claustrophobic feeling of hearing things you shouldn’t through your noise-canceling headphones in the dead of night in an empty house.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.