‘Undertone’ Director Ian Tuason Always Knew His Micro-Budget Horror Movie Would Sell to A24

A24’s “Undertone” is upon us.

The feature debut from writer/director Ian Tuason concerns a young podcaster named Evie (Nina Kiri) who has a supernatural-themed podcast called “The Undertone.” She’s hosting new episodes while also tending to her dying mother. When the show is sent some mysterious audio files, her care for her mother takes on a horrific supernatural dimension as she struggles to discern what is real and what is a part of her overactive imagination. The movie is a creepy mixture of slow-burn atmosphere and truly impressive audio. (If you can see it in a Dolby-equipped theater or other premium format, it is highly encouraged.)

TheWrap spoke to Tuason about the movie’s origins, selling the movie to A24 after its premiere last year at the Fantasia Film Festival and what his intentions are with “Paranormal Activity,” a new entry in the beloved franchise due out next year.

What was the genesis of “Undertone?”

It started off as a radio play. I wanted to explore this idea I had for creating a found audio experience on a completely audio-only medium. I was going to release episodes of a podcast, like the “Undertone” podcast. They would be investigating these files that were emailed to them and we would hear them listening to the files. The way I was going to do it was, the microphones in the house capture audio – and what if the sounds in the recordings begin to happen in the studio? I wrote a story like that, but it wasn’t very deep. It didn’t explore any other themes, like grief and guilt. I finished writing it around the time that my parents got sick. This was at the beginning of Covid, when I went back home in the same house that I shot “Undertone.” I was caregiving both my parents for the span of about three years, and they my mom passed, and then my dad passed, and then at the end of it, I had a house, I had a small inheritance, and I had this script that I wrote based on what the podcaster in my radio play was doing in between recordings. That’s how “Undertone” the movie was born.

What was the process of figuring it out in movie-form – what to show, what not to show, what to emphasize?

Well, I was drawing from other movies. I already had a list of shots and scenes or sequences that I wanted to steal, and I went down that list. But at the same time, I was re-watching a lot of the horror films that scared me. I drew from them in order to shoot this thing in an interesting way, which is difficult when you can’t switch locations, so switching style and cinematic technique that was my way of switching locations.

There’s a shot coming down the stairs that felt very indebted to “Evil Dead II.”

That was inspired by “The Changeling.” That’s when George C. Scott was listening to the voice of a child ghost recorded in the tape that he did in the seance. I stole that pretty much shot-for-shot, which wasn’t much of a sequence. It was more of just listening to audio, pushing in on Evie and then jump-cutting to pushing down a hallway and then down the stairs. And that’s from “The Changeling.”

What else were you looking at?

I didn’t really look for films to get inspired to design the sound; I had worked in virtual reality for a while and made some horror experiences there. I would be designing a 360-degree soundscape and I knew how to do it for a film based on my experience doing it for virtual reality. I was watching movies for the shots, for the frames. I took from “The Babadook.” I took from “The Guilty,” because I wanted to know how they shot someone on a phone call for the entire movie. I looked at that and I noticed that they would break the 180-line at least once per scene, but only once. It’s almost like you’re jumping back and forth, left to right, left to right, left to right. Every scene was… you know… I did that. It would be like a side profile of Evie from her left side, and then a three-quarter medium on her right side. And then I would just jump to the other side, and the other side, the other side, the other side. And then while she’s listening, I had a list of different angles to shoot her – extreme close-up on her headphone, and we just catch her eye, or a rear shot right behind Evie. Then the wides, of course, were important, because now you can see what’s lurking around the corner that Evie doesn’t see.

Can you talk about A24 picking up the movie?

That was the goal. The process was pretty long and I already had this goal in my mind for the entire time that we were making it. I could see that everything was aligning perfectly. Once we reached the end, I didn’t have a doubt that A24 was going to pick it up. I can’t even call it confidence. It’s just two plus two equals four. You can’t call it confidence that you know two plus two is four and that’s what I felt. And so when I did get that call, I was asleep. When the sale happened, I was asleep.

I remember waking up to a lot of text messages and I called my producer first, and he was drunk at the studio, celebrating with champagne, and he told me and I was half asleep. I remember my response was, ‘Hey, what do you think about this shot?’ And then I told him a shot that I had thought up for one of the next movies that I’m writing. And then he was like, ‘Did you hear what I just said?’ I was half asleep. I probably would have reacted differently if I was waiting for the answer.

There’s an EPK video interview that I did just a couple of weeks after we wrapped production and they asked me on camera, ‘What’s going to happen to this film now that it’s all wrapped?’ And I said, ‘We’re going to premiere at Sundance.’ That’s what I said. We didn’t. We premiered at Fantasia, but I did say we’re going to premiere at Sundance and either Neon or A24 is going to buy it. They didn’t disbelieve it, but they didn’t believe it. Then when it happened, they were like, ‘You were wrong about Sundance.’ And then then we got a call about Sundance [for the special screening this year], and then I was like, ‘Oh, okay, there it goes. That adds up.’

Was there a version of the movie where the audio from the movie is being analyzed by another podcast?

I originally thought of “Undertone” as a trilogy. I’m working on the two sequels. Whatever you just said, you’re going to be interested.

You’re about to jump into a new “Paranormal Activity.” What is your intention with that and are you nervous at all to jump into a giant franchise?

I’m not scared because I was pretty confident that “Undertone” would work and I could see that it did. And I’m taking the same principles and I’m making “Paranormal Activity” the exact same way, with the same team. And also, I’m a big fan of the franchise, so I had a lot of fun creating a new world and then revealing how it’s connected to the old world.

“Undertone” is in theaters now.

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