Nina Kiri and Ian Tuason on the Paranormal, Fated Success of A24 Podcast Horror Film undertone
The actress and writer-director reflect on the indie hit’s overwhelmingly positive reception and reveal exclusive details about its follow-up
by Lana Thorn 10 April 2026
Vertigo Releasing
The chilling story of a podcast host haunted by a set of mysterious audio recordings, undertone has gone from humble indie horror beginnings to securing an A24 wide release, already making back 40 times its half-million dollar budget. With its carefully crafted tension, immersive sound design, and gripping lead performance from Nina Kiri, what’s surprising isn’t the film’s dramatic success—but the fact that writer-director Ian Tuason eerily predicted it, right from the distributor down to the acquisition fee.
Kiri (The Handmaid’s Tale) plays Evy, a woman whose only respite from being a caregiver to her mother is running paranormal podcast “The Undertone” with her co-host Justin (Adam DiMarco). When 10 mysterious audio files, recorded by a pregnant couple, are anonymously sent to the podcast, Evy starts noticing strange parallels between the recordings and her real life. Inspired by a deeply personal experience, Tuason wrote the film, his debut feature, while caring for his parents full-time, and eventually shot it in their family home in Toronto, Canada, to save money. With flickering lights and other strange occurrences, the crew was convinced the house was haunted, but the writer-director was directing his energy towards a more positive cosmic force.
“Some miracles happened on set,” Tuason tells me over Zoom. “Certain shots were just working perfectly before my eyes, and then I felt like there was some kind of force happening. I started telling my crew that we would premiere and then get picked up by either Neon or A24. I gave a number around $5 million—I won’t say the number it sold for, but it was around there—and I even said Sundance.” When the film was selected at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest instead of the prestigious American indie festival, the crew lost faith in Tuason’s predictions. But fast-forward to January 2026, and undertone had been acquired by the filmmaker’s top choice, A24, and held its US premiere at Sundance. “They said: Ian, you’re right—who’s going to win the World Series?”
Vertigo Releasing
The film’s success seemed similarly fated for Kiri. “My sister saw a psychic four years ago, and she said to her: Something big is coming for your sister. I keep seeing Fantasia. After [undertone premiered at Fantasia Fest], the film becoming so much bigger is a validating feeling that has brought me a lot of peace. In this industry, it’s just such a relief when you make something and people are actually going to watch it.”
undertone marked another horror project for the Serbian-Canadian actress, who got her film career started in indie Canadian genre movies like The Heretics, for which she won Best Actress at Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival. Still, as the only person on screen for the vast majority of the film (DiMarco’s co-host is only heard, not seen), there was an understandable anxiety when approaching work that ranged from physically demanding, nightmarish set pieces to scenes that felt like one-act plays. “It was just like, Oh, my God, can I do this all day and be fine?” she recalls. “I sometimes have this fear that I’m not going to be able to make it and everything will be ruined.” However, despite those occasional negative thoughts and the harrowing material, Kiri was determined not to isolate herself as a performer and was locked in with the rest of the crew as they tackled the film’s most ambitious shots. “That last one-take, everyone’s behind the monitor checking if we got it and cheering when we did. It just felt like being with friends and playing. It was so, so fun.”
For his part, Tuason’s battle was making the most frightening movie possible—a task he approached with mathematic precision. As someone who doesn’t scare easily, he rewatched films that managed to spook him and took notes on the frequency of big scares, developing a ratio he could apply to undertone. The next step was meticulously designing the soundscape, which was later enhanced for Dolby Atmos after A24 came on board. When I ask him what’s the scariest sound he’s ever heard in a horror movie, his initial answer is dead silence. “I’m thinking of the 2001: A Space Odyssey scene when [spoiler alert] Hal kills the astronaut, and we just cut to him spinning in space to dead silence,” he says. “But, you know what, I have to say it’s actually when the children giggle outside the tent in The Blair Witch Project. That’s a good one.”
Vertigo Releasing
undertone has followed in Blair Witch’s footsteps as a Sundance horror hit, and for Kiri and Tuason, the best part of the success is what it means for future projects. “The thought that everyone's going to get more opportunities from this—and that Ian's going to make so many more movies—is such a nice feeling,” the actress says. Tuason agrees, adding, “What I'm most happy about is just being able to make my next movie.”
That next film is the eighth instalment of the Paranormal Activity franchise, slated for release next year, which Tuason was hired for on the merits of this directorial debut. Beyond that, the writer-director is also developing an undertone trilogy, in which Kiri will make an appearance in some capacity. “I won't say much, but the next one is the story of Mike and Jessa [the pregnant couple heard in the haunted audio files],” he teases. “So we can see them now. I’ll leave the third one a mystery, but I am talking to A24 about it. It looks like it's going to happen.”
undertone is now playing in UK and Ireland cinemas.