Vague Visages’ Undertone review contains minor spoilers. Ian Tuason’s 2025 movie features Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco and Michèle Duquet. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Sound design is paramount in horror. Without it, things that go bump in the night simply won’t. Creative sound design can make a great movie truly legendary. Consider Blair Witch (2016), whose unique and expertly constructed soundscapes took it from a throwaway requel to a nightmare-inducing must-watch. Undertone, the feature debut from Canadian writer-director Ian Tuason, is being marketed as “the scariest movie you’ll ever hear,” which is a gamble considering genre cinema is built on terrifying imagery. Although that pull-quote might put off snooty hardcore fans, it genuinely might be true.

Undertone’s action is confined to a single location — the dated childhood home in which Evy (Nina Kiri, phenomenal) watches her elderly mother (Michèle Duquet as Mama) slowly fade away in real time. While trying to keep the dying woman alive, the protagonist records a creepypasta-themed podcast with Justin (Adam DiMarco), who lives across the pond in London. Because of the time difference, the duo typically records at 3 a.m. aka “the witching hour.” Given their subject matter, it’s unsurprising that Justin, whom Evy snarks is a “Santa Claus believer,” frequently gets creeped out. His co-host, a proud skeptic, is much harder to shake.

Undertone Review: Related — Review: Corin Hardy’s ‘Whistle’

That all changes when Justin receives a mysterious email containing 10 audio clips of an expectant young couple going through some kind of demonic possession. Evy instantly dismisses it as a hoax, even as spooky things also start happening to her. But, as they listen to each one, it gradually becomes impossible to deny that something very strange is going on. Fortunately, the experience of listening to these 10 little snippets of a life being shared by two people who, like Justin, never appear onscreen, isn’t a slog. Demonic possession is a total cliché at this point, but Tuason puts a nasty twist on it by focusing on a particularly horrible ghoul who targets pregnant people and new mothers, with the intention of killing them and their babies (trigger warning for any parents planning to watch).

Undertone Review: Related — Review: The Adams Family’s ‘Mother of Flies’

As a result, Undertone never feels hokey or derivative. By focusing almost entirely on Evy, Tuason takes a massive risk. Indeed, for most of the movie, she’s the only character onscreen, with Mama, as she’s billed, unresponsive upstairs in bed. The first-time filmmaker consistently draws eyes to the dark, empty spaces behind Evy — particularly an empty doorway that feels like it’s encroaching upon her — as she records with Justin, the camera creeping around corners or simply hanging around back there, as though somebody is always watching. And yet, nothing happens when one expects it to, which only adds to the unnerving atmosphere and increasingly excruciating tension. Shots are frequently tilted at bizarre angles, which adds to the impression that everything is slightly off kilter.

Undertone Review: Related — Review: Alice Maio Mackay’s ‘The Serpent’s Skin’

Likewise, Graham Beasley’s evocative cinematography utilizes a moody color palette comprised predominantly of greys and navy blues. Evy leaves the house just once, and the camera doesn’t go with her, so it’s hard to identify the season, but Undertone certainly feels like a wintry film. It helps that Mama’s house isn’t the most welcoming environment, as religious iconography fills every available spot, including a cross hanging on the dying character’s bedroom door and a variety of different statues that loom ominously behind the podcaster as she records. Evy repeatedly listens to an old voicemail from her mother, in which Mama intones “I’m praying for you.” At first, it seems like a sweet sentiment, but as the story progresses, the idea curdles into something closer to a threat.

Undertone Review: Related — Review: Zach Cregger’s ‘Weapons’

Tuason infuses Undertone with Catholic guilt, right down to a bottle of Irish whiskey that Evy — a possible alcoholic — pulls out of a liquor cabinet in a moment of desperation. The filmmaker’s suffocating feature debut adeptly tackles thorny themes of postpartum depression and guilt, and all while stoking a constricting feeling of loneliness for the protagonist. The atmosphere starts off chilly, and by Undertone’s closing moments, it’s downright ice-cold. The movie cleverly emulates the effect of wearing noise-cancelling headphones each time Evy puts hers on, which forces the audience to focus solely on what she hears. The soundscapes are truly exceptional: layered, considered and beautifully composed to capture every little crackle and hum, while repetitive recordings — seemingly full of hidden meanings — similarly encourage viewers to pay closer attention, which makes Undertone’s darkest moments hit even harder.

Undertone Review: Related — Review: Drew Hancock’s ‘Companion’

Undertone is a slow burn, and there will be those who complain that nothing happens, but the scares are interlaced throughout the narrative, increasing in frequency and intensity as it goes on. Unlike Skinamarink (2022), which has little to offer hardcore horror fans, Tuason’s movie builds the tension deliberately, with an acute attention to detail that pays off the closer one looks and listens. The resonant sound design echoes Kiri’s skilled performance in the lead role, as she acts predominantly by herself, often wordlessly communicating Evy’s disbelief, fear and confusion as the character grapples with her horrifying predicament alongside handling her mother’s rapidly deteriorating condition (and a surprise pregnancy to boot). Tuason keeps the camera tight on her face, emphasizing the presumed safety of Evy’s headphones as she disappears into the world of the titular podcast, which usually gives the struggling young woman a break from her normal life.

Undertone Review: Related — Review: Pascal Plante’s ‘Red Rooms’

The great tragedy of Undertone is that poor Evy unwittingly invites something even worse into her mother’s home, which already feels haunted thanks to the almost-dead woman upstairs, as well as the wealth of troubled childhood memories seeping out of its walls. There’s a wonderful piquancy to the movie — Tuason takes his time ratcheting up the tension, but Undertone doesn’t let up once it gets going. Moments of respite are few and far between, with Evy’s growing isolation becoming increasingly obvious to the audience, if not to her. It’s tough to capture the idea of feeling unsafe in your own home, but Undertone manages to achieve this without any obvious jump scares or visual shocks. It’s all about sound, including during the movie’s stomach-churning final moments, which play out against a black screen, further solidifying the power of sound.

Undertone Review: Related — Review: Kurtis David Harder’s ‘Influencers’

Podcasters typically don’t fare well in horror movies, with the most infamous example being those hideous Brits in Halloween (2018) who get exactly what they deserve. However, Evy is an empathetic yet flawed character — kind of a mess doing her best. It’s notable that being a skeptic doesn’t necessarily protect her from evil forces, but Tuason also doesn’t punish his protagonist for refusing to believe. Instead, he leaves it up to the audience to decide whether Evy, and to a lesser extent Justin, is being targeted or just unlucky. Tuason’s feature directorial debut proves once and for all that less really is more when it comes to crafting scares that resonate far beyond the frame (listening to a podcast immediately after a watch is a disconcerting experience). Undertone is inspired, unnerving and truly a future classic.

Undertone released digitally on April 14, 2026.

Joey Keogh (@JoeyLDG) is a writer from Dublin, Ireland with an unhealthy appetite for horror movies and Judge Judy. In stark contrast with every other Irish person ever, she’s straight edge. Hello to Jason Isaacs. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

Undertone Review: Related — Why Criticism: Dismantling the Boys’ Club in Horror

Related

Ye, the controversial rapper formerly known as Kanye West, faces more legal backlash amid his latest efforts to mount a comeback.

The Grammy-winning “Bully” and “All of the Lights” musician, 48, has been accused of battery and intentional inflection of distress in a lawsuit submitted Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. An alleged altercation in April 2024 involving Ye and a man — identified in court documents as John Doe — is at the core of the complaint. The civil suit, reviewed by The Times, accuses Ye of punching Doe in the face and repeatedly punching him while he was unconscious, leading Doe to suffer “serious” physical injuries, incur medical expenses and experience a blow to his professional reputation.

Doe seeks a jury trial and is suing for an unspecified amount in damages including loss of earnings.

A representative for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The complaint resurfaces allegations that Ye punched a man in the late evening of April 16, 2024, in West Hollywood. At the time, TMZ reported the “Vultures” musician got physical after the unnamed man allegedly grabbed his wife, Bianca Censori, at Chateau Marmont. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that officers had responded to the 8200 block of Sunset Boulevard at around 12:30 a.m. for a “battery investigation” but did not confirm the suspect’s identity. A representative for Ye at the time denied the rapper was a suspect in the battery case and claimed in an email that “police aren’t even investigating.”

The complaint describes the unidentified plaintiff as someone whose business relies on “personal reputation, professional relationships, and public perceptions.” Ye’s accuser is also willing to disclose his identity, the filing said, under “an appropriate protective order,” though numerous outlets reported on the victim’s suspected identity around the original incident two years ago.

According to the suit, the altercation began when Ye approached the plaintiff’s table and punched him in the face, knocking the accuser “to the ground where he hit his head and lost consciousness.” Ye allegedly proceeded to “repeatedly” punch the man as he lay on the ground, the complaint says. The plaintiff said he did nothing to provoke the rapper’s “cowardly” attack, adding that the musician “acted with malice and oppression.”

The lawsuit alleges Ye fled the scene to the protection of his security detail, leaving his accuser injured on the floor. After the incident, Ye also allegedly “falsely” accused the plaintiff of inappropriate behavior toward a woman in his party. Ye then allegedly “embellished” his claims against the plaintiff during his appearance on a “widely viewed” podcast, though the lawsuit does not explicitly name the program.

“These false statements were republished and circulated widely across social media platforms,” the lawsuit says, “exposing Plaintiff to public scorn, suspicion, and ridicule.”

In a footnote, the plaintiff clarified that his brother was also present at the time of the incident and that neither of them engaged in inappropriate conduct toward the unidentified woman. The lawsuit also mentioned the existence of video from the scene of the alleged attack.

The lawsuit said the plaintiff has suffered “severe emotional distress, including anxiety, humiliation, loss of standing in his community and harm to his professional relationships” as a result of his squabble with Ye.

The latest allegations against Ye come less than two weeks after he delivered his first full live performance in Los Angeles since 2021 at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium on April 3. Notably, Ye fell out of public favor in recent years for a number antisemitic controversies including threatening violence to Jewish people on social media and selling T-shirts emblazoned with swastikas. He issued an apology for the scandals in January, taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal that attributed his behavior to his bipolar disorder.

Wasteman, 2025.

Directed by Cal McMau.
Starring David Jonsson, Tom Blyth, Alex Hassell, Neil Linpow, Paul Hilton, Corin Silva, Layton Blake, Jack Barker, Fred Muthui, Lunga Skosana, Robert Rhodes, Keaton Ancona-Francis, and Cole Martin.

SYNOPSIS:

Follows parolee Taylor whose fresh start hopes are jeopardized by cellmate Dee’s arrival. As Dee takes Taylor under his wing, a vicious attack tests their bond, forcing Taylor to choose between protecting Dee and his own parole chances.

Backing up its intentions and messaging with real spliced-in cell phone footage of rowdy, uncontrollable prison behavior in an understaffed British penitentiary, director Cal McMau’s narrative debut feature Wasteman (from a screenplay by Eoin Doran and Hunter Andrews) is often purposely, effectively disorienting. That’s not merely limited to be incorporated leaked footage (this is a prison that, in some respects, is more of a recreational facility than one for rehabilitation, since the guards are in such low quantity, all while the incarcerated are rather easily smuggling drugs through drone technology while typically unbothered in their jail cells playing video games in between hard partying or fighting one another), but the brutality as well, with claustrophobic, tilted camera angles and a shakiness that lends a visceral grime to that physicality.

The exception to this disorder seems to be rising star David Jonsson’s Taylor, still using drugs but also consistently avoiding any such drama. He is quiet and timid to the point where he not only comes across empathetic, but one wonders how he became locked up alongside an otherwise degenerate bunch. It turns out that due to a new law going into effect, some prisoners will be released on good behavior, which, in Taylor’s case, means that he is far from a problem here despite abusing drugs. Nevertheless, he is nervously excited about the possibility of reconnecting with his teenage son, even if a phone call with his separated ex-partner makes it clear that she is firmly against such a reunion.

There also wouldn’t be a film here without a wrench being thrown into that impending release back into society, which is where the introduction of new cellmate Dee (a manipulative and psychotic Tom Blyth) enters as an inmate more concerned with taking over the in-house drug dealing hierarchy rather than fronting anything remotely close to good behavior. By extension, this jeopardizes Taylor’s chances of being released. That’s also not to say Dee doesn’t have his friendly moments, such as letting Taylor use his phone to reconnect with his son on social media.

Where Wasteman makes up for in familiar plotting is its sense of authenticity, which comes through not only in the previously mentioned cuts to rowdy cell phone footage but also in the decision to work with a charity and round out the rest of the ensemble with formerly incarcerated individuals who are now reformed. One gets a full sense of the microcosmic incarceration society, the pecking order, and just how low on the rung Taylor is, since he isn’t like most of the others. There is also a full-blown riot at one point that parallels and mirrors the clips of authentic footage. It’s scripted, somehow almost feeling as dangerous.

When Wasteman inevitably comes down to a bond tested between Taylor and Dee, that too is less about thrills and more to do with capturing rawness; part of a brawl here contains one character vomiting on another, driving home just how dirty, literally and figuratively, the film gets in its unflinching depictions of life on the inside for this particular penitentiary. It’s fiction with a dash of documentary, each with bracing importance. It’s enough to ensure the film doesn’t go to waste for its minor shortcomings.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist