I’ve been into horror movies for a long time and A24’s Undertone genuinely got under my skin. It follows Evy, a paranormal podcast host who’s already stuck at home caring for her comatose mom, and then starts receiving these mysterious audio recordings sent anonymously to her co-host. Simple setup but the execution really gets you.
The cinematography is so cool to look at from a gear perspective. DP Graham Beasley shot the whole thing on an ARRI Alexa Mini LF, using a custom 2.12:1 aspect ratio called BeezVision, which is wider than your typical frame but somehow feels way more claustrophobic. He mostly holds an over the shoulder fixed position during the audio clip scenes and then slowly pans away from Evy into the dark corners of the house, which keeps you constantly on edge waiting for something to appear. The whole color palette is greys and navy blues and it makes every room feel genuinely wrong.
The audio is honestly what makes this movie. There’s this whole soundscape of garbled nursery songs, random knocks, and voices that are clearly not okay, and I watched it at home with surround sound on and it completely freaked me out. I was not prepared for how much that added to it. I don’t scare easily but this one actually had me considering if I should turn it off or not.
The whole thing was made for $500k in a single location, which makes it even more impressive. If you’re into horror movies, I highly recommend watching this one.