Horror cinema has wrung immense power out of found footage or uniquely filmed movies where cameras accidentally captures something terrifying. The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Skinamarink, these are just a few motion pictures imploring audiences to look closely at the edge of any given frame. You might just see the faintest outline of something eerie lurking in the back. These titles tap into fear that nightmares are always hovering over our shoulders. Even when we’re “alone,” something unexpected is hiding in plain sight, ready to capsize our existence.

Writer/director Ian Tuason’s low budget frightfest undertone takes this starting concept and then translates it into audio. Everybody’s rocking headphones these days. Everybody listens to podcasts and is aware of audio editing equipment existing. Into this status quo marches a horror film informing viewers that demonic messages and terrifying secrets hide within WAV files.

This story centers on Evy (Nina Kiri), a woman running the film’s titular podcast with her friend Justin (Adam DiMarco). The show follows the pair investigating supposedly paranormal phenomenon. Evy plays the figure always resorting to practical explanations, while Justin believes the supernatural really do exist. Their latest episodes occur as Evy tends to her terminally sick mom in their childhood home.

Surrounded by her mom’s religious trinkets, Evy makes sure the undertone production marches on. Specifically, she’s committed to listening to all ten audio files a random person emailed to her and Justin. These tracks center on a husband recording his wife at night to prove she talks in her sleep. Eventually, they spiral into something much darker and more inexplicable. Simultaneously, Evy’s life becomes increasingly topsy-turvy. Nightmares plague her sleep while her waking hours are dedicated to obsessing with what lurking in those sounds.

Certain undertone scenes consist of extended static wide shots of Evy (in the distant background) leaning over her laptop listening to the audio files blaring on the soundtrack. Similarly, other moments involve brief black backgrounds consuming the screen while these creepy sounds unfurl. Such segments evoke Paranormal Activity and more Derek Jarman’s Blue. In both cases, these films intentionally create unnerving dissonance between very raw, emotional audio and unvarying visuals.

Blue used this juxtaposition to reflect both the globe’s apathy to AIDS killing people (everything goes about “normal” even as this disease consumes countless lives) as well as his AIDs-induced partial blindness. For undertone, this incongruity between imagery and sound suggests how headphones are an isolating tool. You could be rocking out to the coolest MF Doom song, yet everyone around you has no clue what you’re listening to you. undertone’s visual approach communicates that distance in effective ways. Remove these unnerving recordings and shots of Evy listening to material on her laptop in a dining room would look totally normal. Even in conceptually routine images, evil lurks.

Unfortunately, undertone’s intricate filmmaking doesn’t ensure that the script is as constantly thoughtful. Frustratingly, Tuason saddles Justin with guiding Evy and the viewer through various Wikipedia pages explaining the dark origins of nursery rhymes or famous demons. These ham-fisted bursts of dialogue work way too hard hand holding the viewer through what’s going on. That undermines the scares, which work best when unpredictability reigns supreme. It’s chilling to imagine what’s lurking around in the dark behind Evy. It’s less chilling to see close-up shots of the word “DANGEROUS” on a Wikipedia entry.

Compare this to The Blair Witch Project, which so masterfully wove a chaotic ambiance where it truly felt like the world was collapsing around its lead characters. David Lynch’s Lost Highway also proved so unshakably petrifying because it felt like a disorienting nightmare you couldn’t possible control. undertone, meanwhile, is more concrete about what’s happening, much to its own detriment. That and more repetitive storytelling beats (which make it unfortunately easy to tell what’ll happen next) keeps this project from really keeping you up at night.

While Nina Kiri and Michèle Duquet (the latter playing Evy’s bedridden mom) are the only on-screen characters in undertone, the real star here is the sound work. Artists like sound designer Davd Getsman, foley artist Diego Marcone, and other collaborators are delivering sublime work. Especially impressive is the way noises seems to move around auditorium equipped with surround sound. A clanking in the back left corner. A wailing baby seemingly emanating from the side of the room. Unnerving voices hidden inside nursery rhymes ping-ponging from one ear to the other.

All these traits are well realized in the hands of undertone’s sound department. This crew also excels getting the finer nuances of janky audio files just right. That particular accomplishment lends an extra level of immediacy to certain scares. However, this sound-based finesse isn’t enough to suddenly make Ian Tuason’s production immensely frightening. Unfortunately, it’s another component element servicing a story inherently lacking chills. There’s lots to admire here, including Kiri’s lead performance (she does solid work anchoring an entire movie) and the precisely realized camerawork.

That admirability extends to making a 2026 horror feature imploring people to pay attention to what’s on-screen. This is not a movie urging audiences to whip out their phones when the lights go down. It wants you to obsess over what’s skulking in the corner of every image. However, admirability or artistic proficiency doesn’t translate immediately into exquisite horror cinema. No need to track down ancient demons or listen to nursery rhymes backwards to figure out why undertone never reaches its full potential. Tuason’s rudimentary narrative impulses are the primary problem.

Too much explaining immediately kills the vibe, especially since Adam DiMarco’s delivery of such material is distractingly tin-eared. Meanwhile, Evy as a character feels too familiar no matter what dark corner of her personality undertone explores. While the script hinges scares on the chaos of what’s lurking in those audio files, its basic story adheres to the familiar. “There are things that go bump in the night,” as a wise Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm once declared. However, they aren’t enough to carry undertone through its more frustrating shortcomings.

undertone begins haunting theaters everywhere on March 13.