Channeling grief into art is a process for many filmmakers, including Ian Tuason, the writer and director of A24’s Undertone. Tuason’s horror movie came after one of the darkest periods of his life. Tuason served as the caregiver for his parents during the pandemic after they were diagnosed with terminal cancer. Tuason moved back into his childhood home in Toronto and helped his parents during their final moments. His mother died months after the initial diagnosis, and his father passed away two years later.
Ahead, Tuason tells me how he expressed his trauma through horror movies. Tuason’s originally planned for his horror story to be a radio play. However, it eventually transformed into the script for his feature film debut, a possession movie built around found audio.
In Undertone, Evy (Nina Kiri) is one half of a popular paranormal podcast with her friend, Justin (Adam DiMarco). Evy broadcasts from her childhood home, where she serves as the caregiver for her dying mother (Michèle Duquet). For their next episode, Evy and Justin listen to mysterious recordings sent from a married couple. The investigation into the frightening audio files causes Evy’s life to unravel, as paranormal forces infiltrate her home.
Ahead, Tuason explains the patience required to build suspense and dread in an atmospheric horror. The sound, or lack thereof, is Undertone’s biggest asset. Tuason also tells me about a movie that inspired a major sound decision in Undertone. Tuason has crafted one of the scariest movies of 2026, so it’s no surprise that Paramount hired him to write and direct the next Paranormal Activity.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Undertone utilizes effective pacing for an atmospheric horror
Patience is key
DAN GIROLAMO: What I really admired about this film is that it showed such a great deal of patience. I think there’s a natural inclination in even today’s movies where they have to make a big scare, and they have to do a big moment in the first 5 to 10 minutes to grab the audience. With this film, it really takes its time establishing the atmosphere and building that sense of dread. During the writing process, how did you determine the right time to scare the audience?
IAN TUASON: Yeah. I mean, I watched four or five of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, and I kind of noticed a formula there. A string of what I call “creeps”—little clues that lead up to a bigger scare, which could be a jump scare, or it could just be a really scary revelation. Then, I started counting them for each movie, like Hereditary and The Babadook. I noticed the ratio of creeps to scares and how many there are in the movie seem very similar in these sorts of movies. And then in these other sorts of movies, it’s like off. It’s a big difference.
I kind of nailed down the formula of the movie I wanted to make, which is that slow-burn, creepy movie. So I used a ratio similar to Paranormal Activity and The Exorcist but not so much like Hereditary and The Babadook. It’s more of jumping this way and that way. The ratio is more of 2 to 1 as opposed to 5 to 1.
I’m sure you’ve lived with this movie for so long. Is there a scene that still scares you rewatching it back?
TUASON: [Smirks] No. Nothing scares me anymore. I’ve seen it too much. I mean, I’ve seen it in my head way more for such a longer period of time than the year it’s been made. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and I’ll have a thought, and I’ll imagine something, and I’ll scare myself to a point where I can’t go back to sleep. Then I write it down. I think that may have been how I came up with all the scares in Undertone. But yeah, once the scare’s done…
It’s over.
TUASON: Yeah. It’s over. I’m sick of it. [Laughs]
Horror is a genre for personal stories
Ian Tuason turned tragedy into a movie
Credit: Dustin Rabin/A24
Why is the horror genre such a good vehicle for a story about death, loss, and grief? I feel like we’ve seen it so many times: writers and directors use horror to express their feelings. In your case, why do you think horror was the genre you decided to go for?
Well, you know, it was a personal film for me because I experienced it. I experienced caregiving with my parents. It was the darkest period of my life. I couldn’t express that story in any other genre. I could try, but then it wouldn’t be capturing the essence of that experience, especially because I was alone doing it, right?
I have one other sibling, and he has three kids. I’m not married. I don’t have kids. Evy was experiencing isolation, feeling trapped, and struggling with emotions like guilt. You want to get out of that situation, but you love your parents, and now you’re starting to feel guilty about wanting to leave the situation. You spiral downwards, and any good horror film is just a descent into darkness.
I love the idea you had with the noise-canceling headphones. That first time the sound cut out, I even looked around like something was going to come toward me. Take me through the origins of that in the script. I know you wrote a lot of the directions in it. Did you always want the sound to cut out like that the first time the headphones go on?
TUASON: No. At first, I was playing around with the idea if found footage could be audio only. I found some alleged hauntings recorded on a recorder, just heard audio. I would be listening closer and then anticipating something scary, and that was even scarier than the thing that I heard. So I started playing around with that first.
Then, I saw Kimi. [Steven] Soderbergh, I saw he did the noise-canceling headphones. I thought it was perfect for this movie. As I was imagining Evy listening to these audio files that are scary, and not being able to hear what’s happening around her in her house, that just added another layer of fear I didn’t know until I saw Kimi, and I started writing it with that in mind. I got lucky there. Good thing I saw Kimi. [Laughs]
How does Ian Tuason get out of a horror mindset?
Comedy, rom-com, or more horror?
When you’re doing a horror like this, are you someone that likes to wind down by doing the opposite, like “I want to watch a comedy or a rom-com”? From your experience, what do you like to do after essentially getting the “you know what” scared out of you?
TUASON: Yeah, definitely. I go to a comedy. I have to watch a comedy. I have to watch something funny, even if it’s just YouTube videos of cats. Then, that’ll kind of just get me out of there and get me out of that mindset. But I always go back to horror. [Laughs] You want that thrill again, right?
Ride the wave.
TUASON: Cats are too safe.
Undertone opens in theaters on March 13, 2026.
undertone
Release Date
March 13, 2026
Runtime
84 minutes
Director
Ian Tuason
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