The proliferation of podcasts in recent times may seem like a solid starting point for such fare, if the filmmaker can find something more interesting to focus on than an individual sat at a desk and wearing headphones, and in that respect Undertone gives itself a mountain to climb.
Justin passes on an anonymous email he’s received containing a string of random letters and 10 short audio files that suggest all is not well in the world of a young couple who’ve been recording each other in their sleep – cue Evy’s nonplussed face when she hears sleepy renditions of nursery rhymes which, Justin claims, reveal murderous messages when played backwards.
While all this is going on, writer-director Ian Tuason drip-feeds his audience a few facts about Evy; she’s caring for her invalid, comatose mother in an otherwise empty house, while wrestling with alcoholism and processing recent news of pregnancy.
Sound recordings have been integral to movie plots in the past (think Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, or Brian De Palma’s Blow Out), but here the lens is trained exclusively on one character for three-quarters of the running time and struggles to hold viewers’ attention.
To prevent boredom setting in, that character needs to be played by an expressive actor capable of relaying a range of emotions, and unfortunately Kiri’s largely stony face is more akin to a jaded call centre worker, or someone sitting statue-still for a passport photo and waiting for minutes on end to hear the click of a camera.
View Green Video on the source websiteIn all fairness, Tuason ups the ante in the last reel, the pedestrian tease of what went before giving way to more palpably spooky shenanigans, but it’s a ludicrously long wait for the yarn to step up a gear that runs the risk of the audience having already given up on the whole affair.
Consequently, it can be deemed a financial success, if not necessarily a creative one; this particular Undertone is ultimately, frustratingly, under-cooked and underwhelming.
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