Hollywood festival calls another local moviemaker

Could a second Memphis moviemaker find fame at the Hollywood Film Festival?

Jeremy Benson of Bartlett hopes so. On Oct. 26, his new feature, "Live Animals," screens at the festival, which runs Wednesday through Oct. 27 at the ArcLight Cinemas multiplex in Hollywood.

Christian Walker tries to escape his evil "white slaver" in the horror film "Live Animals."

John Anderson/Special to the Commercial Appeal

Harlan T. Bobo, who is back in Memphis to record a new album, plays at Automatic Slim's Tonga Club tonight.

Memphians will get a chance to see what Benson calls a "gritty and violent drama" in pre-Hollywood screenings at 7 and 9 p.m. Oct. 21 at Malco's Studio on the Square, 2105 Court at Overton Square. Admission is $10.

Benson, 30, the commercial productions supervisor at WREG-TV News Channel 3, said he's excited to have a film accepted in the 12-year-old Hollywood festival -- and to be following in the footsteps of the Memphis' most famous resident filmmaker, Craig Brewer.

"Honestly, the first day we heard we were accepted, we didn't tell anybody," Benson said. "We waited like three days. We were like, 'This might be a joke.'"

In 2000, Brewer's debut feature, "The Poor & Hungry," was shown at the Hollywood Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Digital Feature. Among those who attended the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton where Brewer accepted his prize were such festival honorees as Russell Crowe, Morgan Freeman, director Richard Donner, and -- accompanying Brewer -- Wanda Wilson, proprietor of Midtown Memphis' P&H Cafe, which gave Brewer's film its name.

The Hollywood victory gave Brewer credibility in the movie industry, and helped launch him toward his followup feature, the Oscar-winning "Hustle & Flow," which was released by Paramount Classics.

"Live Animals" shares a cast member with Brewer's film and is similarly low budget, but is a more straightforward and commercial genre exercise: a horror film.

Shot in Collierville and North Mississippi over weekends and nights from October of 2006 through the spring of 2007, "Live Animals" is the story of an evil "white slaver" who keeps his captive human cattle in an old barn.

The slaver is played by John Still, who appeared in "The Poor & Hungry" and "Hustle & Flow." Christian Walker and Jeannette Comans play a brother and sister who try to escape from Still's clutches. Burly Patrick Cox ("The Book of Noah") is another villain.

The movie seems reminiscent of such 1970s horror films as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," and its gruesome poster suggests such modern thrillers as "Saw" and "Hostel." Benson, however, claims the film he wrote, directed, and co-produced and co-scored (with Mark Williams) has a less likely source.

"We got the idea out of 'Pinocchio,' to be honest," he said, citing the children's story about a living puppet who is tricked, kidnapped, sold and imprisoned.

"Live Animals" is Benson's fifth feature in the past seven years, and the first to receive any sort of attention. It was preceded by a pair of buddy comedy/romances, "Friday's Menu" and "Nothing But Flowers"; another horror movie with Still, "Shutter"; and a father-son drama, "The Smallest Oceans." (Benson is the father of two; his almost year-old son, Brandon, was born during the production of "Live Animals," he said.)

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