Undertone Proves Just How Important This 1 Film Trick Is To Effective Horror

Undertone is an effective low-key horror movie that uses one specific filmmaking trick for the best scares of the film. Undertone is a creepy tune at the theater, with a grounded sense of worldbuilding that makes the frightening beats all the more effective because they feel painfully realistic.

The movie does this through a more grounded approach to filming, with a single setting, limited characters, and a deliberate lack of overtly supernatural elements. The best use of horror technique in the movie can be found in the way the filmmakers embrace sound design, a central aspect of the narrative, and an effective tool by the creatives.

What Makes Undertone So Scary Is The Sound Design

Undertone is a well-constructed horror movie that puts audio above all else, underscoring just how important strong sound design can be in elevating the experience. Undertone is a quietly haunting film that focuses on Evy, who runs a successful podcast with her best friend Justin, where they debate paranormal occurrences.

The film is entirely within the home of Evy’s mother, whom Evy is taking care of in her final weeks of life. It’s a tightly constructed film, with a focus on clever and subtle scares that happen just out of the corner of the eye or slightly off-screen. The way it does this best is through the impeccable sound design.

The effectiveness of sounds as a means of scaring audiences is the key tool of the filmmakers behind Undertone, especially writer/director Ian Tuason. The movie frames many of its scares around the absorbing effect of sound and music, with dialogue and underlying music hiding plenty of creepy reveals.

As Evy and Justin check out a series of supposedly corrupted and potentially cursed audio files, the pair find themselves increasingly drawn into the story of a married couple experiencing a paranormal occurrence that increasingly becomes twisted. In these calls, hidden messages and reversed songs are used to great creepy effect.

There’s a lot to be said for how effective those sorts of scares can be, especially as they draw the audience further into the setting. It’s a focus on sound as a means of scaring the audience that the film shares with other bigger movies like The Shining or A Quiet Place, where noise can be horrifying.

The Scariest Parts Of Undertone Are The Most Ambiguous And Realistic

Nina Kiri as Evy in A24's Undertone — Nina Kiri as Evy in A24’s Undertone

What makes Undertone‘s sound design especially effective as an underlying, frightening way that the natural elements of the sound design blend together with the surreal. Especially as the calls go on and Evy begins to experience some strange occurrences around herself, the sound design balances the real world with something more horrific.

The ticking of a clock, the creak of a stair, and the hollow noise of a quiet house can all be terrifying if deployed properly. Undertone understands that idea more than almost any other recent horror film. There’s an uneasy sense of dread throughout the film’s run-time, bolstered by that sound design.

It can be hard to tell as a viewer whether a noise in the other room was actually something lurking just out of sight or just a bit of ambient background noise. It lends Undertone a genuine sense of unease that few other horror movies can so easily and so naturally match. It delivers on a creepy premise with panache.

Undertone isn’t the first horror movie to mine the sound of silence for effective terror. It’s a great way to ratchet up the tension, either giving way to a sudden screech or a haunting noise. Undertone plays with the concept wonderfully, though, laying the sense of dread on thick with a consistently creepy undercurrent of terror.