Turn it Up! is set for its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on June 4.Collingwood Film Co./Supplied
The team behind Collingwood Film Co. does things a little differently.
Based in the southern Georgian Bay area of Ontario, the production company led by partners (in art and life) Jesse Thomas Cook and Liv Collins specializes in low-budget horror – a staple of Canadian cinema going back to the tax shelter era. Yet for every gallon of fake blood used in a Collingwood production, there are just as many laughs and moments of heartfelt emotion, creating a genre that might be dubbed feel-good gore. What sets the productions further apart: They’re made outside the typical government-grant systems.
After scoring some mainstream recognition in 2023, when their film Cult Hero received a surprising six Canadian Screen Award nominations, and then following up that success quickly with the 2023 sci-fi splatter flick The Hyperborean, Cook and Collins are back with Turn it Up!, which is set for its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival June 4. Following the adventures of an indie rock band whose frontwoman accidentally opens a portal to an otherworldly dimension, the film, directed by longtime Collingwood Film associate Sam Scott, plays like Hard Core Logo meets Hellraiser, but with a decidedly lighter spirit.
Ahead of the premiere of Turn It Up!, Scott spoke with The Globe and Mail about diving into the deep end of Canadian genre filmmaking.
You started working with the Collingwood team as an assistant director with Cult Hero. What has the journey been like since then?
Jesse and Liv are two of my favourite people, so five or six years ago when I was brought on to that film, it was like a beautiful summer camp experience. The creativity just flows, and you’re changing things every night, just rolling with it and reworking it. And they have a loyal team around them, too, with others working on their fifth or sixth movie together. We just gelled. After that experience, I had a call with Jesse where he nonchalantly said, “I need to take a year off from directing, so if you’ve got any ideas for a movie, pitch me.” I sent him five sentences of half-baked scripts, and he was like, the third idea, let’s do that.
And there’s still the same team, overall, working on the film?
It’s a continuity of service. The same director of photography, the same composer, but I cannot emphasize enough that it’s the best combination of people who are creative and get their stuff done. It feels like a theatre company. I’d do a movie with them every single month.
These kinds of films, especially Turn It Up!, sound easier to sell than they must be to make. There’s a really tricky balance of tone needed for the extreme violence and then the comedy. How did you navigate that?
There were a few people who ahead of time said, the tone you’re going for is going to be really hard. Maybe you shouldn’t aim for that. But I knew the whole time that we were going to be winking at the audience, and trying to have as good a time as we can. It’s that absurd style of visuals, like a Stuart Gordon or Don Coscarelli movie, where we had to be wild and colourful. It also helped that I went to my favourite working band, Toronto’s Ace of Wands, and said, “Hey, will you please be the band in this movie?” Meaning, can I borrow your songs? It’s such a weird little movie – not like this perfect object that was a story I alone had to tell, but more open to everybody’s ideas.
You have an ace up your sleeve here in casting by getting Bruce McCulloch in a small but crucial role.
That was a tag team between me and Jesse where he said, “We should get somebody of note in this.” We thought, okay, a Bruce McCulloch type, but not actually him. But Jesse just e-mailed his agent, and 24 hours later he requested the script and we couldn’t believe it. I remember hearing the news and I was at the Y at the time, and I was sitting there in my swim trunks, just considering it for 10 minutes, and going, okay this movie is now real.
How important is the Tribeca premiere for a film like this?
The sarcastic joke I keep making is this is a prank, right? Maybe that’s the imposter syndrome talking, though. When we applied to festivals, and then heard back from Tribeca almost immediately, it was an incredible feeling. Jesse and Liv especially, they’re so supportive and brought me into this. I get a little emotional when I’m talking about it now, because they had so much faith in me. And the fact that this is my first movie, well, I just hope I get to do it again. With them.
Turn It Up! premieres June 4 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York (tribecafilm.com).
This interview has been edited and condensed.