Review: Undertone

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

When I was younger, I was obsessed with the phenomenon of “backmasking.” I have many fond memories of huddling over my desk until three o’clock in the morning, illuminated only by the glow of my computer monitor, listening intently to reversed audio recordings. Being a skeptic, of course, I never truly believed that the purported “hidden messages” contained therein were authentic. Nevertheless, I marveled at the human brain’s capacity to attribute “significance” and “meaning” to random noise, plucking intelligible patterns from incomprehensible nonsense. The experience of subconsciously convincing yourself that you’ve heard a phantom voice is fascinating—not to mention a bit unnerving.

Needless to say, Undertone absolutely appealed to my tastes. The premise is elegant in its simplicity: a young woman sits alone in the dark, perusing allegedly “cursed” digital sound files; as the shadows grow deeper and the familiar hallways of her childhood home become increasingly claustrophobic, our heroine gradually realizes that her curiosity has unleashed a malevolent supernatural entity. Director Ian Tauson milks this minimalistic plot for every drop of suspense it’s worth; his cinematography conveys a palpably sinister atmosphere, utilizing empty space and reflective surfaces to great effect. When the film really hits its stride, its style and tone are reminiscent Skinamarink and Antrum—and coming from me, that’s high praise indeed.

Unfortunately, the movie’s bloated, fragmented structure is often detrimental to its pace. The conflict revolves around the production of a podcast, which has delicious narrative potential… but the protagonist takes frequent breaks, stretching the action across several days instead of a comparatively lean and economical few hours, thus killing any semblance of momentum or urgency. Honestly, this formal inefficiency is probably a symptom of the fundamental mismatch between medium and material; cinema is, after all, inherently visual—perhaps an audio drama akin to Orson Welles' infamous War of the Worlds radio program would have provided a more thematically appropriate framework, considering the subject matter.

This minor blemish notwithstanding, Undertone is a triumph of what the kids call “memetic horror,” brilliantly employing the most terrifying weapon in a storyteller’s arsenal: the viewer’s own imagination.