It’s only March, so obviously we’re not even close to hitting the spooky portion of the 2026 movie release calendar, but this week does mark the year’s first Friday the 13th. There have been quite a few horror options to hit theaters over the past few months (with some more disappointing than others), and appropriately, there will be new options this week for those who wish to celebrate the superstitious day. One of those is Undertone, and critics are sharing their thoughts on the paranormal parable.
Undertone comes to U.S. theaters thanks to A24’s distribution and boasts a super-disturbing trailer that bolted it to the top of horror movie fans’ must-watch lists. The story centers around Evy (Nina Kiri), a skeptic who hosts a paranormal podcast and receives strange audio recordings from a couple possibly experiencing a haunting. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert rates it 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling its ending “one of the most truly chill-inducing final acts in recent memory.” The critic continues:
[Director Ian Tuason] prioritizes elements such as negative space, a constrained POV, canted angles, and simply incredible sound design to lock viewers into the same nightmare as his protagonist. He doesn’t want you to watch something unfold; he wants you to feel it as sound and image reach something primally fearful. Some will argue that all of the themes of undertone don’t connect, but that’s a feature, not a bug. This is a film that doesn’t feel the need to explain itself. Nightmares rarely do.
Chris Evangelista of SlashFilm gives Undertone 8 out of 10, saying it delivers on being “actually scary,” building dread throughout its runtime so that it stays under moviegoers' skin even after the credits roll. The one drawback is that it’s not particularly original, Evangelista says, but even a story this familiar is rarely told as well. In his words:
Article continues belowUndertone is in no hurry, burning out its scary story like a candle melting away during a long, dark night. Which is why the film's bombastic finale feels slightly unnecessary. To be sure, Tuason does a magnificent job ramping up the nightmare fuel and creating a series of scenes that feel designed to give you a panic attack, but it almost feels like too much for such an otherwise subtle experience. No matter: undertone is so effectively spooky that I found my eyes nervously darting to shadows as I walked to my car after the screening.
Katie Rife of AV Club grades the upcoming horror movie a B, noting how the movie uses modern technology to channel ancient evil and explore topics including motherhood. The result is an unsettling “aural nightmare,” Rife says:
[Undertone] provides the kind of giggly, adrenaline-fueled thrills that sell movie tickets. The whispers crackle menacingly, the footsteps are loud and omnidirectional, and the demonic voices vibrate low in the mix, at just the right frequency to feel them in your core. As a theatrical experience, it’s lots of fun, making clever use of proven techniques that build tension before releasing it with exploding light bulbs and ghostly figures appearing in the corner of the frame.
Jake Coyle of the AP rates the film 2.5 stars out of 4, praising it for its “gripping and unsettling experience” when working with just one actress — an “exceptional” Nina Kiri, Coyle says — in one setting. The fact that such a threadbare movie manages to feel like too much is both an accomplishment and its biggest failure, according to the critic, who writes:
It’s these subtle qualities that make Undertone a spare but deftly dense film and Tuason a filmmaker to watch. It’s the movie’s disappointing second half, though, that breaks its quiet spell. After conjuring a tapestry of tension through narrative drips, as well as literal ones, Tuason throws in the whole kitchen sink, drowning out Undertone with a cacophony of genre cliches. Ancient Christian lore is invoked, as are children’s lullabies, and the riveting nuance of Undertone slips away in all the feedback.
Tom Jorgensen of IGN gives Undertone a “Mediocre” 5 out of 10, writing that Ian Tuason is over-reliant on played-out horror audio gags, and overall this movie sounds better in concept than it plays out on screen. Jorgensen continues:
Undertone gets off to a fine start, with an audio-focused approach that sets the stage for a psychologically and sensorily intense horror experience that never really takes off. Most of Undertone’s scares and narrative choices have been played out in other horror movies, and to much greater effect, which would’ve been more forgivable if the film had more consistently tied those movements to Evy’s struggles with the crossroads she finds herself at, leaving a pretty solid Nina Kiri stranded in what’s ultimately a moody but disjointed feature debut for Ian Tuason.
There are some complaints among critics when it comes to originality, but overall, the marks seem to be positive, as it’s accumulated a Tomatometer score of 78% on Rotten Tomatoes so far. If their assessments have convinced you to check this one out, you can head to the theaters starting Friday, March 13.
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