undertone Budget

What Is the Budget of Undertone?

Undertone (2026) was produced on a budget of $500,000, making it one of the most cost-efficient theatrical horror films in A24's catalog. Director Ian Tuason shot the film in his childhood home in the Rexdale neighborhood of Toronto, Canada, in February 2025, with a minimal crew and a cast that was deliberately limited to reduce on-screen presence as a structural horror device. A24 acquired worldwide distribution rights following the film's world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in July 2025.

The film grossed $21 million worldwide in theatrical release following its March 13, 2026 US opening, delivering a return of 42 times the production budget. This extraordinary ratio places Undertone among the most profitable horror films of recent years on a cost-relative basis, continuing A24's pattern of backing formally ambitious genre films at minimal budgets that achieve outsize cultural impact.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

• Nina Kiri as Evy: Kiri carries the film almost entirely alone on screen. Her dual role as grieving daughter and paranormal investigator demanded sustained emotional performance across the film's 85-minute runtime. As the film's primary on-screen presence, Kiri's compensation likely represented the largest single line item in the $500,000 budget. Michèle Duquet plays Evy's dying mother, the only other character who appears physically on screen.
• The Rexdale Childhood Home: Tuason shot Undertone in the specific house where he grew up in Rexdale, a neighborhood in northwest Toronto. Using a personal location eliminated rental costs and gave the production an authenticity of spatial memory that informed the film's exploration of inherited trauma. The location's particular acoustic properties, including the way sound travels through its walls and floors, became a creative asset for the sound-design-driven narrative.
• Sound Design: Undertone's defining creative choice, using off-screen sound and the absence of on-screen characters as its primary horror mechanism, placed extraordinary demands on the sound department. The film was mixed in Dolby Atmos, and the audio post-production budget represents a significant portion of the overall $500,000. The demon Abyzou is never seen, only heard, making the sound design the film's de facto monster.
• Voice Cast: Adam DiMarco (The White Lotus) voices Justin, Evy's podcast co-host, while Keana Lyn Bastidas and Jeff Yung voice other characters who remain off-screen throughout. Recording sessions for voice-only performances in a dialogue-driven horror film require careful directorial guidance to sustain the illusion of physical presence.
• Post-Production and A24 Collaboration: A24's acquisition post-Fantasia brought the distributor's post-production support and marketing infrastructure to the film. The theatrical P&A spend on a film of this critical profile likely exceeded the production budget itself, a common dynamic for A24 prestige-horror acquisitions.

How Does Undertone's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

Undertone's $500,000 budget and $21 million worldwide gross place it in exceptional company among formally innovative micro-budget horror hits:

• The Blair Witch Project (1999): Budget $60K | Worldwide $248M. The foundational micro-budget horror success story. Undertone shares the formal innovation of making absence (no monster visible) the primary source of dread.
• Hereditary (2018): Budget $10M | Worldwide $80M. A24's horror landmark that elevated the studio's genre credibility. Undertone is produced at 5 percent of Hereditary's budget with 26 percent of its gross, a remarkably efficient comparison.
• Talk to Me (2022): Budget $4.5M | Worldwide $91M. The A24-distributed Australian horror hit, produced by the Philippou brothers, is a close strategic analog: low-budget, formally distinct horror with a strong festival launch translating to strong theatrical performance.
• The Babadook (2014): Budget $2M | Worldwide $10M. Tuason cited The Babadook as a primary influence. Undertone's sound-as-horror approach extends Babadook's use of a grief-externalized monster into purely aural territory.

Undertone Box Office Performance

Undertone grossed $21 million worldwide following its US theatrical opening on March 13, 2026, distributed by A24. The domestic opening weekend was $18 million from a theatrical run across multiple markets, marking a strong debut for a micro-budget horror acquisition. The film became available for digital streaming via Fandango at Home on April 14, 2026, following the standard theatrical window.

The $21 million worldwide gross represents a 42x return on the $500,000 production budget. Even accounting for A24's marketing expenditure, which for a wide horror release likely ran $8 to $15 million in paid media and distribution costs, the total investment was well below the gross, making Undertone one of A24's more profitable recent acquisitions.

• Production Budget: $500,000
• Estimated P&A: $8-15M (A24 wide release)
• Domestic Opening Weekend: $18M
• Worldwide Gross: $21M
• Estimated Studio Share (50%): Approximately $10.5M
• ROI on Production Budget: Approximately 4,100% (gross vs. production budget)

Undertone earned roughly $42 for every $1 invested in production, an extraordinary efficiency ratio. The real profitability picture includes A24's P&A investment, but the gap between production cost and gross is wide enough that the film is almost certainly profitable across all windows. Audiences gave it a "C" CinemaScore, indicating the film's unconventional approach divided genre audiences expecting more conventional horror beats.

Undertone Production History

Undertone is the feature directorial debut of Ian Tuason, a Canadian filmmaker of Filipino heritage who developed the project as a deeply personal exploration of grief, inherited trauma, and maternal relationships. Tuason shot the film in February 2025 in his childhood home in Rexdale, a neighborhood in northwest Toronto's Etobicoke district, using the house's actual rooms, corridors, and acoustic properties as an extension of the narrative.

The film's premise follows Evy (Nina Kiri), a paranormal podcast host who receives anonymous audio recordings from a couple experiencing paranormal activity. As Evy investigates, she discovers references to Abyzou, a demon from folklore associated with miscarriage and infanticide, and evidence that the entity has become aware of her. The film's structural conceit, never showing Abyzou or the couple whose recordings Evy receives, keeps the horror entirely in the realm of suggestion and sound.

Tuason cited The Babadook (2014) as his primary horror reference and a specific motivation to make grief the engine of the supernatural threat rather than its backdrop. He wanted "minimal visual information" to let audiences project their own fears onto the ambiguous sounds and implications, a formal challenge that required exceptional collaboration with sound designer and composer teams. The film was mixed in Dolby Atmos specifically to use spatial audio as a storytelling tool.

Undertone premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal on July 27, 2025, where it won the gold audience award for Canadian films, providing A24 the confidence to acquire worldwide rights and commit to a wide theatrical release. The March 13, 2026 US release positioned it in the horror market's typically strong Q1 window, away from summer blockbuster competition.

Awards and Recognition

Undertone won the gold audience award for Canadian films at the Fantasia International Film Festival in July 2025, the recognition that triggered A24's worldwide acquisition. The Fantasia gold audience award is a meaningful validation within the horror and genre film community, historically associated with films that subsequently achieve broader commercial success.

Following its theatrical release, Undertone did not receive nominations from major North American awards bodies, consistent with its "C" CinemaScore and mixed audience response. The Dolby Atmos sound design received specific critical recognition, with several reviewers noting it as a potential craft award candidate, though the film's divisive audience reception limited its awards momentum.

Critical Reception

Undertone earned a 74 percent Tomatometer rating from 182 critics and a Metacritic score of 65 out of 100 from 31 reviewers, placing it in the generally favorable range. Audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes tracked at 50 percent from over 1,000 verified ratings, a significant gap between critical and audience reception. Audiences gave the film a "C" CinemaScore. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus described it as a "supremely spooky sonic ordeal" that "masterfully uses negative space and unsettling audio to build creeping dread."

Critics who championed the film consistently focused on the sound design as a formal breakthrough, noting that Tuason achieved genuine psychological horror through purely aural means without relying on jump scares or visual monster reveals. The film was praised for its thematic treatment of grief, specifically through the Abyzou mythology's connection to maternal loss, as lending the horror real emotional weight.

Critics who were less enthusiastic found the film's refusal to provide conventional horror payoffs frustrating rather than formally innovative. The "C" CinemaScore reflects a segment of the horror audience who expected more traditional creature-feature elements and found the purely sonic approach more exhausting than terrifying. One strand of negative reviews focused on the demonic-messaging premise as uninspired despite the formal execution, arguing that the film's formal innovation outpaced its narrative originality.