I truly do not remember the last time I was this scared in a theater. I was so scared during this movie that I walked out of there sore as hell from tensing up so badly. A quick look at social media confirms I'm not alone. It's safe to say, Undertone joins the ranks of the scariest movie theater experiences you'll ever have. Pro tip: Undertone is a found audio horror, and the better the sound system, the more immersive the experience. The sound is really designed for a Dolby setup for the most disturbing effect. If you have access to a Dolby screening, do it.
Writer/director Ian Tuason masterfully plays in the void to build suspense and agonizingly painful tension. He taunts with silence, darkness, and shadows to keep the audience in a heightened state of alert and anxiety, scanning every corner of the frame (and the soundscape) for anything out of place. The result is an incredibly crafted full-body horror experience.
Undertone centers on Nina Kiri’s character Evy, who is taking care of her dying mother. What you may not be aware of is that writer/director Ian wrote this film in his childhood home while caring for his parents. He also shot the film in that childhood home, and while the film obviously deals with heightened horror elements, there are many aspects at its core that rang true for the filmmaker.
Tuason describes the whole process as therapeutic in that sense. “It was very therapeutic, making this movie. Writing it was therapeutic. It was almost like talking to a therapist, which was my laptop. On set, especially with Nina, when she’s getting to know Evy, it's almost like getting to know me. To see Nina deliver a performance like that, I could feel that she felt what I felt. That's just instant empathy right there,” he shared.
While the process of creating the movie itself was therapeutic, Tuason is now essentially inviting audiences into his home. Yes, it’s a heightened fictional horror movie, but the story was born from a very personal experience of acting as a caregiver to his parents, and filmed where it all happened.
Tuason lost both his parents within a couple of years of each other, but releasing the film into the world is something he describes as the opposite of the isolating experience of making it. “I think releasing it to the world and inviting people into my home is the exact opposite of what I felt when I was writing it, which was closed off to the world. There was a reversal there that was a catharsis. Just the entire experience was one long, slow burn catharsis.”
While Undertone star Nina Kiri does not share that same lived experience as Tuason, she very much understood what that might be like. “I could feel that. When you said it was helpful for you to release that in some way, I just felt like I was sucking it in almost in a way where I was like, ‘I know how scary this… I don't know what it was like, but I can imagine how scary this would be.’” Kiri shared.
Tuason’s vulnerability allowed Kiri to really step into Evy’s shoes as she got to know and learn the character. “I felt like I was in a state of mind myself where I could take that and try and figure out ‘What does this really feel like? And what would it really require of someone to be in this situation? Why would they end up doing the things that they're doing?’ So that was really helpful. Ian is so vulnerable in saying ‘This is a very dark period in my life that I'm giving you,’ and to just even get to experience that or have someone be so open about that, it makes you want to do a better job. So I felt like I understood Evy a lot more because we were able to talk in that way.”
Undertone plays out as a chamber piece, with Nina Kiri’s Evy alone on screen for the bulk of the movie. But that doesn’t mean she’s entirely alone with her mother in the house. While he may not be physically present, Evy’s podcast co-host, voiced by Adam DiMarco is quite literally her lifeline to the outside world. While DiMarco never appears on screen, he was on set for a couple of days to do scenes live with Kiri. But for the audience, DiMarco faced the challenge of bringing a full fledged character to life using only his voice.
“My approach was, in a short amount of time, just trying to bring as much of myself to this role and the dynamics that I have on the phone when I'm calling my friends,” DiMarco explained. “I'm a big phone call, FaceTime person. I don't love texting, but I love a call. Just doing as much of it as we could for real, which was super helpful.”
As I mentioned above, Undertone scared me in a way that will go down as one of my most horrifying theatrical experiences. Mileage may vary as fear and “scary” are very personal. But when I tell you this one really did it for me, know that I will be chasing the high of Undertone and likely not fulfill it for another few years. In the spirit of having the absolute hell scared out of me in a movie theater, I was curious about the Undertone gang’s most horrifying movie-going experiences. It’s an easy answer for Kiri.
“I watched Possession alone in a movie theater and it was basically empty, the day after the reshoots… the night of the reshoots,” Kiri shared. “I don't know if it was the most scared, but I kept looking over my shoulder, and it's an old theater, too. So, that was scary.”
Tuason cites a classic, which was also a foundational inspiration for Undertone. “The Blair Witch Project for me. I saw that in theaters, and it was my foray into found footage. I remember coming out of that theater and driving home, and then seeing these trees and then thinking ‘Hey, is that a person standing?’ My mind was playing tricks on me, and it was a direct result of that movie because that movie doesn't show anything. You don't see anything in that movie.”
Tuason’s description of why The Blair Witch Project was so effective for him is something he draws on largely (and successfully) for his feature directorial debut. Tuason has been tapped to do an upcoming untitled Paranormal Activity project, and I’m looking forward to seeing what painfully suspenseful horror he has in store for us.
And as for DiMarco’s scariest movie-going experience… It’s not technically a horror film (well, I guess that depends on who you ask). Our dear Scott Wampler would have appreciated the hell out of this answer, I can tell you that much.
“Mine would probably be the movie, Cats. Have you guys seen Cats?” DiMarco asked, before attempting to describe it for the unfamiliar. “A live-action… well, kind of animated, but it was so uncanny valley. I actually did leave the theater, but yeah, not due to being scared. It was too freaky and kind of bad.”
There you have it, now that you know what scares the Undertone gang, allow them to scare the hell out of you when Undertone hits theaters March 13.
For more, check out our full list of new horror movies coming your way.
