Is 'Undertone' Hiding Something Deeper?

A look at some theories regarding Undertone and whether it hides deeper meanings, themes, and clues beneath its surface narrative.

I am sure a lot of you have all watched Undertone by now, a film that I liked, but has certainly got mixed reviews, and I completely understand why someone would not dig it!

But do we have more to the film? Here are some intepreations about the film, a couple of which I had while watching the film, while others I have read up about and paraphrased.

These aren’t matter of facts, as they are just interpretations/theories, but I think some of it does make sense, even if some don’t have enough direct evidence.

Still, I find it quite interesting.

The cursed recording at the start and end

The film opens with a recording presented as a “cursed audio tape”, which framed like it contains something dangerous that spreads through sound, and treated like the origin point of everything that follows.

Later, the same idea returns at the end, which makes the structure feel circular instead of linear, maybe showing that nothing really resolves in a clean way, it just returns to the same audio concept again.

In a non-supernatural reading, the recording could be understood as a looped structure for Evy’s thoughts, and the fact that it bookends the film maybe suggests repetition rather than progression.

It could also be read as her mind circling the same core event (her mother’s death, her guilt, her fear of motherhood) and reinterpreting it through the “curse” framing again and again.

The idea that “sound carries the curse” also works as a stand-in for how intrusive thoughts work in the film - the recording becomes a way to externalise something internal - so it becomes more of “this audio is making things happen”, which turns internal distress into something outside her control.

So, is the reason it starts and ends the film because it makes everything in between feel like something contained inside that loop rather than a straight story with a beginning and resolution?

Why the movie feels reversed or upside down

The film also constantly uses reversed children’s songs, mirrored shots, distorted audio, and scenes that feel out of sequence, and even small visual details like the fragmented “undertone” title reinforce an idea that things are not being shown in a clean, forward-moving way.

This could be read as the film deliberately rejecting normal chronological storytelling, with the events not acually being shown in a stable order, but in a reshuffled, repeated, or mirrored fashion, so with this interpretation, the “reversal” could be a way of showing that Evy’s experience of time is unstable in the story, where events don’t feel anchored, so the film reflects that by presenting them in a way that feels like they’re constantly folding back on themselves.

That may also explain why cause things seem to happen before they are explained, or are referenced after they already appear, which creates that upside-down feeling throughout the film.

The urn and what it implies about her mother

The urn is one of the most consistent objects in the house, where it just appears repeatedly in the background like part of the furniture.

So, does the urn strongly suggests that Evy’s mother is already dead before most of the story unfolds, possibly even before the main events of the film begin, and could be the clearest physical object that points to that reality.

Evy doesn’t actually fully engage with it., nor is it a focus of dialogue or emotional processing, even though it represents a major loss, and that creates the idea that the truth of her mother’s death is always present but not fully acknowledged.

We also never actually see the nurse that is meant to be present, and at the end, we also see the bed is made.

And what about Evy admitting her mom is dead, just before her ‘spiral’ goes full force?

Why Justin might not be a real person

Justin is presented as the rational voice in the podcast, where his presence is only ever through audio, but as the film progresses, his voice also starts to change, where it becomes less stable, more distorted, and eventually begins to blend with the Abyzou audio effects.

So, could Justin be a split-off part of Evy’s thinking rather than a separate person, where he functions like a structured rational voice she can “hear” and respond to, allowing her to organise her thoughts into dialogue instead of internal monologue?

If so, that would make the podcast feel like a conversation, even if it’s actually one mind trying to stabilise itself through imagined interaction, so then that structure breaks down, Justin breaks down with it, which is why his voice becomes unstable and eventually disappears.

You also see Evy at the end talking to Justin, even when the laptop is shut and the podcast apparently not recording.

The podcast tapes as Evy reprocessing her own life

Before long, the content of the tapes starts to feel increasingly personal to Evy, with the stories about Mike and Jessa*, in particular, mirror themes of pregnancy fear, isolation, anxiety, and death in a way that does feel closely aligned with Evy’s own situation.

With this, the podcast is not just about a curse, but maybe also a way for Evy to reframe her own experiences instead of directly processing what is happening in her life, so she simply just converts it into structured horror narratives, where Abyzou becomes the label that everything gets pushed into, so the curse explanation becomes a way of turning emotional reality into something external, structured, and “explainable”?

The tapes therefore could functiom more like a rewritten version of Evy’s emotional reality disguised as investigative content, and also, remember the phone call from the doctors? 3am?!?!

*Are Mike and Jessa a psychological manifestation?

Why the supernatural events feel inconsistent

Throughout the film there are moments where objects shift, religious symbols appear to move, lights flicker, and audio behaves unpredictably, but could these events be understood as perception shifting from moment to moment, rather than supernatural, so the house feels unstable because Evy’s experience of it is unstable?

Objects, sounds, and symbols could take on different meanings depending on what she is focused on or afraid of in that moment, which makes the environment feel like it is changing when it may not actually be doing so consistently?

Putting it all together

• The cursed recording at the start and end creates a looping structure that frames the entire story as repetition rather than progression.

• The reversed imagery reinforces the idea that time and memory are not being presented in a stable order.

• The urn anchors the reality that her mother is already dead but not fully processed.

• Justin functions like a split rational voice rather than a separate person.

• The podcast becomes a way of converting personal trauma into structured horror storytelling.

• Abyzou becomes a name for emotional distress rather than a literal entity.

• The supernatural effects become shifting perception rather than consistent external events.

So, instead of a demon story, Undertone could be read as Evy alone in a house trying to make sense of her mother’s death and her own fear of motherhood, while her perception of reality becomes increasingly unstable and layered with meaning.

The horror then comes from how everything gets turned into a narrative she can’t escape, looping back on itself like the cursed recording that opens and closes the film.

Personally, I 100% think the mother was dead the entire time, and I do think we have more going on here than surface level suggests.