Memphians stand out in 'Savage,' debuting tonight

MTV Networks

Among Memphis actors starring in MTV2's "Savage County": Jeff Pope (from left) as Orry, Jimmy Crosthwait as Willard, and Ivy McLemore as Angie.

An acidic tank of human soup, a girl falling face first into the whirring blades of an overturned lawnmower and the maniacal cackle of local legend Jimmy Crosthwait are among the highlights awaiting viewers of "Savage County," the made-in-Memphis horror movie that makes its national debut at 10 tonight on MTV2.

Cable programs often are rerun throughout the week, but tonight's screening -- a sort of Halloween-month special event for the Music Television network -- won't be repeated unless the film gets good ratings, according to writer-director David Harris.

MTV Networks

Among Memphis actors starring in MTV2's "Savage County": Jeff Pope (from left) as Orry, Jimmy Crosthwait as Willard, and Ivy McLemore as Angie.

Inspired by such gruesome tales of hayseed homicide as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Eaten Alive," "Savage County" was intended to be an eight-episode horror serial. Instead, it will make its broadcast debut as a 79-minute feature.

Produced by Craig Brewer and Erin Hagee for Brewer's BR2 Productions, "Savage County" is a spin-off in strategy if not content from Brewer's "$5 Cover," a 15-"webisode" drama about Memphis musicians that was originally developed as an online serial for MTV New Media. MTV's Harris was a producer for the series, which debuted May 1, 2009, on television as well as online. For "Savage County," Harris recruited many of the local cast and crew who worked on "$5 Cover."

The version shown tonight on MTV2 will be missing the profanity and some of the violence seen by those who attended the movie's Memphis premiere a week ago at the Malco Studio on the Square. Uncut, "Savage County" likely would earn an R rating, thanks to scenes involving power tools and farm butchering techniques.

The film airing tonight is just the central component in an elaborate "transmedia" experience that includes such online, supplementary "Savage County" hoopla as a gory/sexy Web-comic prequel (savagecounty.com); an impressively detailed newspaper (savagecountygazette.com); a blog about one of the missing victims (whereisdorothykramer .blogspot.com); YouTube videos; and Twitter feeds from the various characters.

Born in Puerto Rico, raised in Texas and now a resident of California, Harris, 34, was inspired to shoot "Savage County" by the efficiency of the Memphis "$5 Cover" crew and by his love of old-school 1970s horror movies, which frequently pitted "primitive" family units in a battle of wits as well as brawn against attractive, cocky "sophisticates," as in "Chain Saw" and "The Hills Have Eyes."

Shot in Memphis and the Mid-South in late summer 2009 on a $250,000 budget (not bad for a Web series, but very small for a feature), "Savage County" -- co-written by Dan Alvarado -- is the story of a group of high-school students in small-town/rural Texas who become victims of the murderous, isolated Hardell family after a ring-and-run prank results in the death of shotgun-toting "Old Man Hardell" (Memphis' John Malloy).

At first, the teenagers hope to cover up their part in the killing. "Calm down!" says one, trying to assuage fears of police detection. "This isn't freakin' 'C.S.I.' -- we don't even have a Starbucks!"

But the Hardells -- who brand victims with a stylized "H" that spreads at the top into a pair of Texas cattle horns -- are eager for vengeance. "You think you can kill our kin and get away with it?" Willard Hardell (Crosthwait) tells one of the kids. "You're not very bright."

An artist, musician, puppeteer and singular personality whose contributions to the local and even national counterculture were chronicled in Robert Gordon's history "It Came from Memphis," Crosthwait -- whose signature long hair and beard were readymade for the role -- is a natural scene-stealer. He's convincingly sadistic as Willard, a character who combines the bossiness of the Cook with the bloodthirsty enthusiasm of the Hitchhiker from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."

Crosthwait is matched by his brother "scary old hillbillies," both played by local actors. Wearing a mask that might have been designed by Leatherface if he'd seen the Broadway production of "The Phantom of the Opera," hulking Patrick Cox is Kasper, a surprisingly articulate behemoth who might be the real brains of the family. The final Hardell is Orry (disparagingly referred to as "Mumbles"), a mentally challenged man-child with the patchy haircut of Basil Rathbone's unfortunate female experiment in "The Black Sleep" (1956). Orry is played by Jeff Pope, also memorable as record producer Packy in "$5 Cover."

Most of the teenagers -- a sports star, a nerd, a pregnant valedictorian, a man-stealing babe and so on -- are played by professional actors from Los Angeles. But the most distinctive member of the group, Angie, is played by Memphis' Ivy McLemore, who made her movie debut as the runaway in Mike McCarthy's exercise in local femme-fatale futurism, "Cigarette Girl." In "Savage County," McLemore sports a pierced nose, a semi-shaved head, blue hair dye and torn pink fishnet stockings, which she dangles in a pond while the other kids drink and flirt.

The Savage County sheriff is menacing John Still, who has appeared in all Brewer's features, perhaps most remarkably as the heavy-fisted chop-shop boss in the director's first feature, "The Poor & Hungry."

Also outstanding is the production design of Memphis' Darian Corley, who, with limited resources, created the Hardell's torture room and the Arkansas barn set that features the huge tank of "soup" (think of Vincent Price's vat of molten tallow in "House of Wax"), traversed by a catwalk that had to "break" on cue, to enable actors to fall to their gurgling doom.

Doing much of the emotional heavy lifting and patching up any cracks in the narrative is the original score by Memphis' Jason Freeman, which is bluesy and suspenseful, as needed, and so full that it makes the film seem much more expensive than it was.

The soundtrack also includes cuts by such local performers as Al Kapone, Lord T & Eloise and Eldorado & the Ruckus.

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