‘undertone’ Director Looked to ‘The Exorcist’ to Traumatize Viewers [Sundance]
One of the most anticipated films releasing this year is the unnerving undertone, which follows a podcast host caring for her dying mother.
Even though the chilling horror film is heading to Sundance this weekend, it was quickly snatched up in a bidding war by A24, which will haunt theaters on March 13, 2026.
The film utilized sound to get under your skin, but it’s actually much more manipulative than that.
Writer/director Ian Tuason tells Variety that he looked to The Exorcist in order to learn how to weaponize the movie against the viewer.
“I was trying to figure out why The Exorcist scared me so much since I was a little kid,” he tells Variety ahead of the Sundance premiere. “I figured it was because it took the safest place and thing in the world and weaponized it, via a daughter at home. I was trying to figure out for the longest time, ‘How could I find something safer and then weaponize that?’ When I started taking care of my mom, she was not only my mom, but also dependent on me. I was her primary caregiver. I looked at her and imagined, ‘What if she starts talking in a different voice?’ Then I went back into that radio play, and I said, ‘OK, what is Evy doing between recording sessions?’ Then I started writing undertone.’”
DREAD attended the film’s World Premiere at last July’s Fantasia Film Festival, where Mary Beth McAndrews wrote: “Thanks to incredible sound design and a stellar lead, undertone is a deeply unsettling horror experience that treads familiar ground but still manages to surprise you.”
It has been so well-regarded that Blumhouse has tapped Tuason to direct the next Paranormal Activity and has been in discussions for several other major projects.
undertone is a gets-under-your-skin chiller that’s built heavily on sound design and delivers a few solid punches.
“I really had to make it clear in the edit how I wanted it to sound,” he adds in the Variety piece. “I said, ‘Whenever headphones go on, I want the sound sucked out and make people feel like they put on their noise-canceling headphones.’ That’s scary because now you don’t know if there’s anyone walking around behind you. Eventually, you start listening to recordings of a house, and you’re going to wonder if what you’re listening to is happening in the recordings or if it’s actually happening in the house. In the edit, we played around with splitting those two worlds.”
Here’s the trailer: it just wants to be heard.
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