Don’t be afraid of the dark. Be afraid of the silence.
What would trap someone in a haunted house, beyond the a supernatural curse that traps, blocks doors, removes exits, twists hallways back upon themselves until they become loops? I don’t know if Evy’s family home in Undertone is haunted per se as much as perhaps possessed, if it is the place that is the problem or if there is a demon that has moved itself in like an infection, making use of a hallowed out space inside her mother. There aren’t many answers found here, beyond the observations that things happen without her noticing (it’s a film that rewards close attention) that make it clear that whatever is happening goes beyond the idea of a fractured mind – by insomnia, grief, guilt, stress – latching on to increasingly more complex and horrible stories and projecting them on the unbearable situation she finds herself in.
Evy is caring for her terminally ill and uncommunicative mother. The first shot of the film captures all the detritus of care work: the toilet chair, the absorbent sheets for the bed – and it sets up the context of who the person she cares for is, the open bible that is being read, the religious statues around the house, the pictures of her at her first communion. Evy’s mother is a deeply religious person, and Evy, as her sole carer, has moved back into this realm even if she herself has perhaps no other connection to that religion except what she experienced in her childhood. When her work is done, she goes downstairs to record a podcast with her friend Justin, who lives in London – forcing her to do this work in the middle of the night – where she plays the resident sceptic to his open-minded, maybe naive and trusting Mulder as they dissect stories about hauntings and ghosts. It’s an established routine at this point, and each time she puts on her headphones to talk to him, they run through the same routine of Justin, worriedly asking about her mother, always receiving the same answer that there has been no change. The first time, Evy voices her deepest and darkest thought: that she is wishing for an end, even if it means her mother’s death, because waiting for the “death rattle” (the nurse, explaining how it will end, trying to use gentle language) is unbearable. Her mother is no longer eating or drinking, and she hasn’t been communicating with her. Her boyfriend is absent in this ordeal. Justin says he understands, but to what extent he really can grasp the routines of caring for someone who will die is questionable from his far remove. His concern is genuine, but Evy is in this entirely alone, and her only connection to the outside world is through phone calls. If she does leave, the camera does not follow her – we are trapped with her in the house.
Into this backdrop, they begin a new episode about a series of ten recordings they have been sent in an email with no explanation. They cover the story of a couple, Mike and Jessa, through the process of their own deterioration. Mike has been recording Jessa during the night because she sleeptalks (for me, one of the most heartbreaking small moments of the film is Evy’s clear longing when she hears them interact for the first time, their intimacy, their closeness), but what he uncovers in these recordings goes beyond that, like their house has become haunted as well, and along with them, Justin and Evy, with their respective ideological interpretations of reality, try to interpret the mysteriously filled sinks, the noises of a baby that should not exist crying, Jessa’s increasing distress and Mike’s futile attempts to help her. The act of bearing witness without being able to affect the outcome begins affecting both Justin and Evy, especially as Evy’s own perception of reality begins breaking down. She isn’t sleeping, and the noises begin creeping in, in the way that outside noise subtly sneaks in when you’re wearing noise-cancelling headphones (she can never be sure – it’s like she is sensing it more than hearing it). In addition to the recordings, Justin becomes obsessed with the idea that every detail – nursery rhymes, names that appear, songs played backwards – have meaning beyond themselves, endless rabbit holes that lead down wikipedia pages and obscure sites and historical horrors (in a way, the film portrays how conspiracy theories can become embedded in minds that are desperate to find meaning when reality becomes inexplicable). Without an outside source of reassurance, Evy seems to become trapped in these stories as well. Her responsibility for her mother, her detachment from the outside world, her ability to sleep, the alcohol she begins drinking and the sleeping tablets she takes, begin eroding her ability to apply her scepticism to what is happening around her, and because we are trapped alongside her, and with her as she moves through the house, the audience becomes unable to escape as well. It doesn’t help that the details of what Justin uncovers in his “research” seem to map so neatly onto Evy’s anxiety (at the point of complete breakdown, she goes so far as accusing him of gaslighting her) – her pregnancy, her guilt over not praying with her mother that she thinks is connected to her catatonic state and terminal illness, the stories of women killing their children, the idea that children suffer for what adults do, all mix together in the final explosion, when the walls break down.
Tuason achieves his horrors mainly through how he films the house, determining what is visible and invisible with light and angles, his sound design. But it’s Nina Kiri’s extraordinary performance – in what is essentially a chamber play – that carries the Undertone, and makes it so great.
2025, directed by Ian Tuason, starring Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco, Michèle Duquet.
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