In case you missed the news yesterday Deadline announced that A24, one of your premiere stops for all things horror, won the bidding war for the worldwide rights for Ian Tuason's horror flick, The Undertone. The Canadian horror flicked, produced in part by our friends at Black Fawn, had its world premiere at Fantasia and won the Audience Award for Best Canadian Feature
In a competitive situation, A24 has acquired genre writer Ian Tuason‘s horror film The Undertone, securing worldwide rights following its July 27th premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival.While unconfirmed, we’re told that there were six buyers in the mix, and that the deal was for mid-7 figures — a momentous one for a young filmmaker unveiling his debut feature.The Undertone stars Nina Kiri as Evy, a paranormal podcast host who returns home to care for her dying mother. Thereafter, she begins receiving recordings from a married couple plagued by strange noises in their house, pulling her into a spiral of fear and paranoia.
I made it my mission to catch The Undertone when I was at Fantasia the other week, putting it in our curtain raiser as one of my must see movies.
Of all the films that have depended on audio-instigated thrills and chills, The Undertone may be the best to have ever done it now. The sound design alone in this film is worth the price of admission... The Undertone is one of the best horror thrillers you will ever listen to.
So, this is great news for our friends at Black Fawn and everyone else involved with the production. All those years of hustle and hard work from the lads there it is good to be recognized by one of the biggest distributors in horror.
And for Tuason, not every director can say, 'Yeah, my debut feature horror film was picked up by A24'. Think of that for a moment. He joins the ranks of the likes of Ari Aster (Hereditary) and Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou (Talk To Me).
It is terrible news if you are like me, you program a film festival here in Canada and you were looking forward to trying to put it into your lineup later this year. A24 is the kind of company that doesn't need festival play and I can think of at least two other Canadian genre film festivals that would have liked to have booked it as well heading into spooky season later this year.
Still though, when breifly chatting with one of the folks at Black Fawn after I heard the news, the best news about this is that more and more people around the World will hopefully get the chance to watch and listen to The Undertone. I say that is a fair trade.