Pinoy filmmaker Ian Tuason goes global as A24 distributes buzz-filled horror debut ‘undertone’

“undertone” premiered at Canada’s Fantasia, an annual film festival specializing in fantasy, horror, and sci-fi, on July 27, 2025. It won gold in the Best Canadian Feature category. It later screened at Sundance, America’s largest indie film festival, last January.

A landmark distribution deal with A24

Months later, Deadline reported that A24 secured the film’s worldwide distribution rights in a “mid-7 figures” deal involving “six buyers in the mix.” Such a deal is an extraordinary milestone for a filmmaker in his feature debut.

Before “undertone,” Tuason built his career directing live-action virtual-reality and POV horror shorts like “Sit Back,” “Uncanny Valley,” and “Experience: Colorblind,” per his Letterboxd page.

A24’s acquisition is a “sana all” moment. The studio is behind critically-acclaimed, award-winning titles such as “Moonlight,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Whale,” “The Zone of Interest,” “Past Lives,” and “The Brutalist.” To date, A24 has earned 87 nominations and 21 wins at the Academy Awards or Oscars, regarded as the highest honor in the film industry.

The company has also helped elevate horror, a genre often seen as cheap and low-brow, into arthouse prestige—as seen through its titles like “Midsommar,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” “Hereditary,” and “The Lighthouse.”

With “undertone” joining A24’s catalog, Tuason is being positioned alongside contemporary horror auteurs like Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, and Ti West—a rare space few filmmakers, let alone Filipinos, ever reach.

From “undertone” to the Paranormal Activity reboot

And Tuason is only getting started. According to a The Hollywood Reporter exclusive last December, Tuason is set to direct the reboot of “Paranormal Activity,” the franchise that revitalized the found-footage horror subgenre popularized by the likes of “Cannibal Holocaust,” “The Blair Witch Project,” and “•REC.” The new entry, dubbed “Paranormal Activity 8,” is slated for 2027.

“undertone” film has earned generally positive reviews, with critics praising Tuason’s direction and atmospheric control, as well as Kiri’s performance.

RogerEbert.com managing editor Brian Tallerico, in his 3.5-out-of-4-star review, highlighted Tuason’s “expert use of space,” noting how the director “prioritizes elements such as negative space, a constrained POV, canted angles, and simply incredible sound design to lock viewers into the same nightmare as his protagonist.”

“He doesn’t want you to watch something unfold; he wants you to feel it as sound and image reach something primally fearful,” Tallerico said.

Writing for Variety, critic Siddhant Adlakha said Tuason “proves himself a deft enough tonal tinkerer at times, marking a notable arrival in the world of independent tech horror, regardless of where things end up.”

“undertone” will hit US theaters this March, in no less than Friday the 13th. There’s no word yet about its Philippine release, but Filipino cinephiles are watching closely.

 

 

“undertone” has earned generally positive reviews, with critics praising Tuason’s direction and atmospheric control.

 

 

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