Executive Producer
Undertone is an award winning film I co-produced in Toronto. It first debuted at the Fantasia Film Festival in 2025 where it one the Gold Audience Choice award. There was then a bidding war for distribution and we ended up partnering with A24. Later that year, Undertone was selected to have its American Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
Synopsis
What do you do when you have limited time with your dying parent? You wait. And that’s what Evy (Nina Kiri, THE HANDMAID’S TALE, THE HERETICS) does as her mother lies on her deathbed, at home instead of a hospice. This deathwatch is solitary, but she has The Undertone, a paranormal podcast she co-hosts with her friend Justin, where she’s the resident skeptic to his more open-minded views. They explore “all things creepy,” which helps her concentrate on something other than her mother’s inevitable passing.
When Justin receives an email with ten mysterious audio files from an anonymous sender, the duo listens to them on air to find Mike, his partner Jessa, and their nightly bedtime ritual. Each recording becomes increasingly sinister, and Justin starts to hear disturbing discoveries with nursery rhymes and weird sounds. As Evy’s mother worsens, she gets some surprising news and finds strange drawings, religious icons, and upsetting things happening with her mother. The house becomes more overbearing and unsettling in its emptiness as she investigates the audio files. The two things seem to have nothing to do with each other, but soon, Evy and Justin become more than podcast hosts. They evolve into helpless spectators as an unbelievable nightmare unfolds.
What the Trailer
Making a Great Product
I’ve always been passionate about film production and have been making content in some form all my life. Making a commercially viable movie is a lot like making and launching any product.
I was attracted to this project for a few reasons.
I trusted the lead producer Dan Slater. I’ve been working with him for years on a number of projects and I’ve seen him get better and better every step. He was excited about this film’s potential and that made me excited.
The budget to make a great product was very manageable. I crunched the numbers and I knew that the worst case ROI would still be OK. We could go direct to streaming and break even.
The unique concept. Novelty is very important and gets rewarded.
Horror fans still go to the movies. The one genre that has suffered the least at the box office is horror. Its a community affair. People like to scream together.
