Undertone

A Horror Film You Feel, Not Just Watch

At Horror.Exchange, we look for films that get under your skin, the kind you have to shake off when the credits roll. Undertone is one of those movies. I went in almost completely blind, knowing only the basic premise: a podcasting duo, one skeptic and one believer, investigate a series of mysterious audio recordings. The film follows them as they try to figure out what's real and what isn't.

What Little Story There Is

The narrative is deliberately thin, and that's the point. Two people. A podcast. A collection of recordings that don't add up. The believer-versus-skeptic dynamic gives the film its structure, but the filmmakers don't focus on resolving the central mystery or delivering a tidy plot, but rather capturing that experience. This was done so effectively I questioned whether this was based on a real podcast because they sell the format convincingly enough that the question lingers (I never sought out nor found the answer, and somehow that felt appropriate).

If you go in expecting a story with a traditional beginning, middle, and end, don't let yourself be disappointed. What Undertone is selling is something else entirely.

An Unsettling Headspace

What this movie is selling is an experience: the filmmakers don't seem to be trying to tell a story so much as put you directly inside a deeply unsettling circumstance. It's unconventional and I believe they pulled it off. When the credits rolled, I had to physically shake my head to come back to myself, a kind of exit from a trance I don't remember experiencing from a film before. It's immersive in a way that standard horror rarely achieves.

The Sound is the Monster

That immersion lives almost entirely in the sound design. Obviously I expected an audio-driven film, but this was something beyond that. It's a full-on sonic assault. And it achieves this without being cheap: no sudden piercing screams, no cheap jumps. The audio is atmospheric, deliberate, and genuinely manipulative in the best sense. Whoever handled the sound engineering on this film deserves accolades for their work, as they made sound itself feel like the enemy.

What It Actually Does to You

Here's the part that's hard to explain without sounding dramatic: after years of watching horror, it takes a lot to get a real physical reaction, but Undertone managed to do it. There were multiple moments where I felt it in my skin, a genuine, crawling, bone-deep chill that came entirely from the audio. That doesn't happen often for seasoned horror fans who reach a point where the standard toolkit stops working. The films that break through that have to earn it, and this one does it. The ending hit hard enough that I came out of the experience visibly disoriented, which is not something I can say about many films.

A Camera With a Mind of Its Own

The cinematography is just as inventive. It uses a hybrid style that feels like a found footage film (think Paranormal Activity) without actually being one. The camera pans across rooms on its own, as if it's another character in the space, showing you what the main characters miss. It's a clever way to build tension that perfectly complements the film's unconventional feel, and it keeps you unsettled without ever fully tipping into the found footage genre.

A Voice From the Uncanny Valley

With only two performers, the movie nails the feeling of listening to a podcast. For me, however, this was also one of its weakness. One of the main voices sounded distractingly artificial, almost AI-generated. Just polished enough and just unnatural enough to pull me out of the experience more than it should have. The incredible sound design helped balance it out, but the performance kept the film from feeling completely real. It's a genuine tension in an otherwise technically exceptional piece of work.

The Verdict

If you require natural-sounding dialogue and strong character and story arcs to stay engaged, this may not be the film for you, and anyone sensitive to jarring, intense audio should also probably sit this one out.

But if you appreciate experimental horror and filmmaking that takes risks, you should not miss this one. It's definitely for people who care about technical craft and want an atmospheric, sensory-driven experience rather than relying solely on a conventional plot.

Undertone is a novel approach to horror worth experiencing at least once. It's not a casual rewatch, but I'd see it again with a great sound system or headphones to get the full effect. Turn the volume up, if you think your nerves can handle the noise!