Canadian director turns tinnitus pain into rock ‘n’ roll horror film debuting at Tribeca

In his mid-twenties Sam Scott, who plays the drums, began hearing a near-constant buzzing sound in his ear, even when there was no outside noise causing it.

Scott soon found out he was suffering from tinnitus, a condition that causes the perception of noise and can range from being merely bothersome to severely interfering with day-to-day life — affecting sleep, mood and ability to focus.

For Scott, who turned the experience into a new movie starring comedian Bruce McCulloch and horror-film stalwart Julian Richings, it was a helpless feeling not knowing what was happening to his hearing.

Doctors said the damage to his ears was caused by exposure to loud sounds while playing in a band, and he said he wasn’t using earphones for protection.

After testing from an audiologist, he was told there wasn’t much that could be done.

“They gave me information for a support group that was like people living with tinnitus and that’s it. They were like, ‘That’s all we can do.’”

The experience shook him, imagining that the ringing in his ears could be with him his entire life.

The Clinton, Ont.-born filmmaker said the tinnitus subsided years later, and that’s when he sat down to write “Turn It Up!”, a horror-comedy debuting Thursday at Tribeca Film Festival.

“Being told that tone you hear, you better like it. Because it will be there until you’re dead. And I’m so lucky that it went away, but there are a lot of people who are not as lucky,” Scott, now 38, said in a video interview from Toronto.

An estimated 37 per cent of Canadians experienced tinnitus in 2019, according to the government’s latest data.

“I think it was a way to deal with the fear of it coming back, as there is never any guarantee it will go away.”

In the film, the lead character is a frontwoman for an indie rock band touring across the country trying to catch their big break. She also suffers from tinnitus, but while we see her in pain, it also serves as a form of protection — the condition ends up helping her fend off evil from another dimension.

Toronto-born actress Justine Nelson plays “AC,” with Scott directing her on how to portray the pain she had never experienced. He called it the “audio equivalent of a constant itch,” noting that in the film, Nelson embodies the frustration and hopelessness of the condition.

“Turn It Up!” is Scott’s first feature film and was produced by Collingwood Film Co.

When Producers Jesse Thomas Cook and Liv Collins found out the film had gotten accepted into Tribeca, Scott said they called him screaming into the phone so loudly “I had to hold it away,” he laughed.

The film is looking for sales and distribution out of the festival.

The horror-comedy gives audience a fun-campy feel, combined with over-the-top guitar rifts and a lot of gore. There is even an element of David Cronenberg-like practical effects from his film “Scanners,” which featured a famous head explosion scene.

McCulloch, of “Kids in the Hall” fame, plays an army Major trying to figure out why all these strange deaths are occurring. He said with his improv background, he couldn’t help but throw a few lines into the script to see if his director enjoyed it.

“I always add some stuff, it’s a common thing, and maybe because I have ADHD so much, it’s like, OK, we got that. Should we try something else? Should we do something else at the end or something?”

Watching McCulloch create and craft new lines was a joy, Scott said, because when you hire comedians you want to leave room for them to play.

“They’re gonna come up with something maybe funnier than I came up with while sitting in this chair,” Scott said.

McCulloch said it didn’t feel like this was Scott’s first feature, and that “Sam’s a natural, as we like to say in the business.”

“Turn It Up!” filmed in London, Ont. and Owen Sound. Scott said he had worked with many of the local craftspeople on earlier projects in his career, which include the horror short “Spoons,” and the documentary concert film “Beams: Ego Death.”

The movie joins recent Canadian filmmakers using sound as a key storyline in their features. Toronto-born director Daniel Roher’s “Tuner,” featured a piano tuner who suffers from hyperacusis, a condition where regular everyday sounds are extreme loud and painful, while the film “Undertone” directed by Montreal-born Ian Tuason, used immersive audio to enhance the horror.

Scott thinks Canada’s indie film scene is having a moment right now, and joked while “it’s not cool to say Canadian content is cool,” the proof is in the success.

“I’m hoping that there’s something maybe happening with Canadians, like, ‘wow, they know how to make a movie. They know how make a show.’ There’s all these hidden gems.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2026.

Craig Macrae, The Canadian Press