We need to have a conversation about elevated horror and what that term even means anymore. Especially now, at a point where horror isn’t just getting critical acclaim, it’s actually becoming part of the Academy Awards conversation. Last year alone we saw horror films earning major nominations, Amy Madigan winning an Oscar for a horror performance, Jacob Elordi landing a nomination for playing Frankenstein’s monster, and even Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, an unapologetically grotesque body horror film, breaking through for Best Picture. This year, there’s already a serious conversation around Obsession and Backrooms, with Obsession looking like a legitimate Best Picture contender and Anya Navaretti expected to compete in either Best Actress or Supporting Actress depending on where the campaign lands.

The point is that horror itself has become elevated because great filmmakers and great actors have embraced it. You can trace that conversation back to Jordan Peele’s Get Out if you want a modern starting point, but Ari Aster’s Hereditary, Jordan Peele’s Us, and John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place all flirted with Oscar attention as well. They may not have broken through in every category, but they proved horror could be every bit as artistically ambitious as any prestige drama. Which brings me to Undertone, the new film from writer and director Ian Tuason. I don’t think this is elevated horror at all. I think it’s simply a very small independent horror film that mistakes restraint for depth.

I didn’t dislike it because I couldn’t understand it. I disliked it because I understood exactly what it was trying to do, and I found it incredibly limiting, even within the rules it establishes for itself. The film stars Nina Kiri as Evy, a woman who has moved home to care for her bedridden, nearly catatonic mother, played by Michèle Duquet. Evy’s entire existence revolves around caring for her mother and recording a paranormal podcast with her co-host Justin, voiced by Adam DiMarco. Their latest investigation revolves around a series of recordings that supposedly contain hidden messages tied to demonic possession, and as Evy listens to each tape, reality begins slipping further out of focus.

Or at least that’s the intention. The movie confines itself almost entirely to one house, with only Evy and her mother ever appearing on screen. Everyone else exists through phone calls, internet conversations, or the recordings themselves. That’s a fascinating creative limitation on paper, but in execution it becomes exhausting. Evy has almost no one to challenge her thinking or bounce ideas off of, so scene after scene becomes her listening to audio, reacting to audio, and then listening to more audio. The scares rely almost entirely on silence. The movie understands that modern audiences have been conditioned to expect a jump scare every time the soundtrack goes quiet, so it weaponizes that expectation. There are one or two effective moments, but Undertone is not a jump scare movie. It’s a slow burn that spends most of its runtime asking you to sit in stillness until the final ten minutes finally decide to pay something off.

More than anything, it reminded me of watching The Blair Witch Project for the first time. Not because the stories are similar, but because so much of the experience feels like waiting. Blair Witch eventually finds a memorable climax after spending most of its runtime wandering through the woods. Undertone follows a similar rhythm, except instead of wandering around a forest, we’re wandering around the same house, waiting for something substantial to happen. I’m sure there are people who will find the real horror here in isolation, loneliness, or the crushing responsibility of being the sole caregiver for a dying parent. Those are genuine fears, and Undertone occasionally brushes up against them in interesting ways. The supernatural elements surrounding Evy’s mother create moments of unease, but they never evolve into anything particularly memorable.

The biggest problem is that the movie doesn’t even follow its own logic. Evy keeps returning to these recordings with Justin as increasingly disturbing things begin happening to her. Yet every time they reconnect, Justin sounds perfectly normal, refreshed, and completely unaffected. They’re listening to the exact same recordings. If the tapes themselves are haunted or inherently evil, then shouldn’t everyone who hears them be experiencing the same thing? That’s the entire premise the movie wants us to buy. If that’s the undertone here, why is Evy the only one unraveling while Justin seems to be living his life like nothing has changed?

I actually think I would have appreciated the movie more if Justin had grown increasingly hesitant to keep listening. We never really see him or his daily life, so I don’t know what’s happening on his end. But I wanted to hear something. A pause. A little fear in his voice. Some indication that these recordings were affecting him too. Every conversation between them suggests they’re sharing the same experience, except they’re clearly not. She’s deteriorating while he’s carrying on like it’s another Tuesday.

Then the ending betrays everything the movie has spent ninety minutes setting up. Suddenly Justin is experiencing something horrific too, but there’s no buildup whatsoever. We’ve spent the entire film watching Evy hear strange noises, notice shadows, question what she’s sees, and slowly lose her grip on reality. The audience has been conditioned to expect all of those little moments because the movie is so deliberately paced. If there’s no payoff after all that waiting, what was the point? Instead, Justin goes from seemingly unaffected to complete panic almost instantly. I don’t buy it. Either the recordings affect both of them from the beginning or they only affect Evy. It can’t be one for ninety percent of the movie and then suddenly become the other because the screenplay needs a final scare.

So no, this isn’t a recommendation from me. I’m not telling anyone they should watch it because it’s elevated horror or because it’s an A24 release. Honestly, it doesn’t even have what people think of as A24 vibes. This feels like a movie that could have skipped the A24 pickup entirely, landed on Shudder or even Tubi, and nobody would have questioned it. There’s nothing especially creative or inventive here. I don’t really understand why A24 wanted this one, and I especially don’t understand the praise when we’ve already had genuinely impressive horror films this year like 28 Years Later, The Bone Temple, Obsession, Backrooms, and Hokum. That’s just the first half of the year.

The audio description also feels like a missed opportunity. I understand the challenge because Undertone relies so heavily on silence. The whole point is to make you sit there expecting something terrible to happen. But audio description exists because we need visual context. If there are shadows moving in the background or subtle visual cues that something is wrong, those details have to be described somewhere, and unfortunately that means talking through the very silence the film depends on. It’s a difficult balancing act, but that’s the reality of accessible filmmaking. I wasn’t especially impressed with the track, but I also wasn’t especially impressed with the movie, so the two wound up feeling strangely matched.

I don’t think the performances are bad. I wouldn’t go that far. I just don’t think the film gives any of these actors enough to work with. As for Ian Tuason, I’m not particularly excited to see what he does next because I found this approach too dependent on an ending that ultimately undermines the story it spent the entire runtime building. Undertone is underwhelming. There’s your pull quote. Short, simple, and completely accurate.

Is it the worst movie I’ve seen this year? Absolutely not. It’s not even the worst horror film I’ve seen this year, especially considering we had to sit through the conclusion of The Strangers trilogy. But Undertone isn’t a movie I’d recommend or spend much time championing either. Had A24 not picked it up, I honestly think it would have come and gone without much notice. Instead, the A24 faithful will inevitably debate its artistic merit because of the logo in front of it. I don’t think there’s much artistic merit to debate. I think this is a film that got lucky with its distributor because there’s really nothing to see here. Or I guess, in this case, hear.

Rotten: 5.4/10