Zero body-count horror film. Zero. Implied deaths? One. Reported deaths? A handful. Actual body count? Zero. Scariest villain? A comatose 60 (?) 70 (?) year-old woman. Mom is in a 98% coma. And that’s who we are scared of. I think.
Look here, I know horror is all about atmosphere, and Undertone really, really tried. I mean, I’m sure this film might scare a podcaster or two, but COME ON. Zero body count and you want to call this the “scariest film of all time?” It wasn’t even the scariest film I saw this week. Let me backtrack.
Undertone asks a great deal of actress Nina Kiri, a person I assume will never appear on this blog again outside this review. Evy (Kiri) is a podcaster. She seems to be anywhere between 18 and 45. The movie implies she’s a young adult, but -honestly- it’s hard to say, especially with a mother who looks seventy. Nina and her mother (Michèle Duquet) are the only actors who appear in the film and “Mama” doesn’t talk, which makes their conversations very one-sided. Mama seems to be at death’s door. Evy and Mama live alone in a two-story suburban house. Evy takes care of Mama while the end approaches. Mama mostly sleeps, but shows very little going on upstairs, sleep or awake. She has to be force fed at this point in her life, and doesn’t consume much anyway.
At 3 a.m. on select morning, Evy tapes a podcast. I didn’t quite catch the name of it, but my notes say, “All Things Creepy.” OK, so creepy 3 a.m. podcast hosted by Evy and her ineffectual friend, Justin. Justin is a tool and thus presents Evy with the film’s sole bit of entertainment. It’s an email with ten (10) audio files. It will take the entire film to get through all ten, even though no individual file seems to be longer than thirty seconds. Yeah, they totally milk this thing. The audio files describe a couple about to be parents which leads to Satanic messaging in nursery rhymes. Did you know that if you play “Baa Baa Black Sheep” backwards, you hear, “Paul is dead?”
One hour in I didn’t think this film was any scarier than it was when it started … but I could see that Undertone had gone out of its way to make Mama a monster. Gotta
say, making a monster of a dying woman in a coma is a … unique choice. I suppose when someone is in a coma and you keep showing them in a coma and then you play some scary music and you see them passed out on the floor, maybe that’s scary? I’m not sure. The “horror” we are supposed to note is that the weird stuff on the podcast is starting to parallel to Evy in her personal reality. Ok, fine, there’s some decent writing; now show me something genuinely scary. Grandma face down on the floor isn’t doing it for me.
Undertone was clearly trying to be another Paranormal Activity, i.e. a low-budget horror that lets your imagination do the work instead of actually showing you something scary. I get that such can be an effective tool. Once upon a time, The Blair Witch Project scared the bejeesus out of me. This film, however? Undertone is a student film. Writer/director Ian Tuason is going to get a bigger budget for his next film, and I would bet big that a larger budget, ironically, won’t do him any favors. The problem here is I just wasn’t moved by your low-budget direction. I doubt seriously that money will solve that problem … but maybe it will allow you to add a second cast member.
There once was a podcaster named Evy
Just a few days away from bereave-y
Mama is at death’s door
While her audience wants more
From some mysticism you would not believe-y
Rated R, 94 Minutes
Director: Ian Tuason
Writer: Ian Tuason
Genre: High quality student film
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Classmates of Ian Tuason
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Horror with a zero body count. Terrific.”
