When discussing acclaimed new releases, people often like to say that it’s necessary to watch them on the biggest screen you can find. In the case of writer/director Ian Tuason’s new horror film undertone, that advice needs to be slightly tweaked: it’s necessary to watch it with the best speaker system you can find. Released by A24, the scale of the story in the movie is small (in fact, the whole thing takes place within a two-floor house), but it is an auditory nightmare that makes stunning use of delicate sound design and manipulates perception via apophenia. Because of this, I personally think that the work demands a theatrical experience – but I was fascinated to recently hear a counterpoint from star Nina Kiri.
I spoke with Kiri, Ian Tuason and co-star Adam DiMarco earlier this month during the virtual press day for the new horror film – as captured in the video at the top of this article – and our conversation concluded with discussion of the best way to experience the film. I argued in favor of the big dark room and rows of speakers, but she considered the power of a different option. She explained,
I was thinking about how being alone with technology – like [Ian Tuason] talking about those internet deep dives that you were going on that scared you. That's you alone in your house on the internet; there is something fundamentally… that's where that idea started. I think someone's experience will be different if they're watching it by themselves alone, hopefully with headphones. But it's creepy in a different way.
In undertone (which has critics raving), Nina Kiri plays Evy, a young woman who remotely co-hosts a podcast about mysterious audio files with her friend Justin (Adam DiMarco) while staying in her childhood home where her mother (Michèle Duquet) is slowly dying from a terminal illness. It’s an eerie premise by itself, but what adds extra layers to it is the fact that Tuason wrote the script while he himself was living in his childhood home and caring for his sick parents… and that same house was used by the production. As noted by Kiri, the movie came out of him doing deep dives on the internet into some very creepy phenomena.
All that in mind, I can certainly see the actress’ point from an immersion perspective. The movie was written while the writer/director was solitary in a quiet home, and the main character goes through the story while solitary in a quiet home… so perhaps there is something to the audience also experiencing it solitary in a quiet home as well.
But while that may eventually be seen as the optimal way for people to see undertone, for now, I have to argue that a big dark room and big rows of speakers are a must while they’re available for the experience, and Adam DiMarco and Ian Tuason argued for that as well following up Kiri’s comments:
- Adam DiMarco: I'm excited personally to see it with like the Dolby Atmos sound,
- Ian Tuason: Dolby Atmos, yeah, you can really get the specific direction and so many different channels.
- Adam DiMarco: Yeah, I'm, I'm like a bit of an audiophile as well, so I'm excited for the high quality, you know, the sub-bass and the channels. I'm actually not an audiophile, like, I don't even know how to describe it. [laughs] I think watching this in a dark cinema also. When we saw it at Sundance, the audience reaction was really fun to experience as well. Yeah. I think it's, people were talking like, you know, speaking out loud.
Nina Kiri recalled that as well, going as far as to imitate a violent gasp she remembered hearing – so she certainly isn’t putting down the theatrical experience at all.
undertone premiered last summer at the Fantasia International Film Festival before acclaimed screenings at Sundance back in January, and it is now playing in theaters everywhere around the country.
