In the same vein as the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes 2010’s Savage County. A bunch of high school students go for a day at a swimming pond, an event that goes awry for one of them. When alterna-girl Angie (Ivy McLemore) gets pushed in the drink as a gag, she storms off in anger.

While Angie stews, the others dare wimpy junior Patrick (Doug Haley) to “ding-dong ditch” at the residence of the Hardell family, the resident local freaky hicks. When Patrick does this, an older Hardell emerges with a gun – and superstar jock Noah (Sinqua Walls) whacks him with a shovel before he can shoot the teen.

This kills the old man and sets up a showdown. The Hardells like to abduct and torture girls; earlier, we saw how they treated missing classmate Dorothy (Melissa Carnell). As she wanders back from the pond, Angie stumbles upon the house and ends up in their clutches, so her friends need to try to rescue her.

On the surface, that seems like a decent idea for a movie, and at its core, I suspect someone could scrounge a fair to good horror tale out of the material. Unfortunately, writer/director David Harris fails to find any way to develop the story into anything other than a turgid dud.

For one, too much of the movie lacked a sense of believability. I don’t mean this because of the notion of the murderous hicks and their torture chamber; yeah, that’s a cliché and not particularly realistic, but it’s not the main problem, as I’ll accept that conceit within the horror film genre.

I find it more difficult to swallow the disparate nature of the kids who hang out together. You have the class president, the valedictorian, the nerdy AV kid, the punky alternagirl, the star athlete and the bad girl and her 22-year-old ne’er-do-well boyfriend.

Really? On what teen planet would this crew be partying and spending time together? Granted, the movie makes some minor attempts to explain the connections; some of the kids are related, and it seems that Patrick gets the social boost because the others use him for his AV talents.

I still don’t buy it, though, and the story progression also stretches logic. For all the events to come together, the movie requires way too many reaches. It never handles these well, so we don’t accept them; indeed, they seem to odd that they openly distract us from the story.

It doesn’t help that other gratuitous choices appear. Noah’s prom queen girlfriend Caitlyn (Rebekah Graf) gets grounded and can’t accompany the others, so we see her via her webcam; she apparently never goes away from it, and she DJs for an unknown audience. Why? I have no idea. Caitlyn’s antics provide much of the movie’s music, but we don’t need them; the flick could’ve just used the songs without this odd explanation. Caitlyn does play a more active role later in the movie, but her online DJ thing just offers another weird decision that takes away from the story.

Perhaps I wouldn’t have been as distracted by all the goofy choices if County delivered any scary goods. Alas, there’s not a jolt or a jump to be found in this tedious mess. I guess the Hardells are supposed to give us the willies, but they’re such stock hillbilly weirdos that they’re not disturbing at all; they’re just too cartoony and predictable to muster any threat.

The movie’s torture/horror moments can’t provoke any reaction either. Partly that’s because they lack good pacing and direction, but it’s also because we don’t invest in the teen characters at all. If we don’t care about the participants, their fates don’t matter to us, and that’s the problem here.

Really, though, the main issue stems from the lackadaisical direction. Harris doesn’t seem to know how to propel the story along, so it just kind of rambles and lollygags for its 79 minutes. A dull horror movie isn’t a good thing, and that’s Savage County’s biggest crime: it’s a slow, muddled mess without any scares or drama.

Savage County appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.78:1 on this single-sided, single-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. As far as SD-DVD transfers go, this one looked average, though it had its ups and downs.

Sharpness was usually fairly good, though. Wider shots tended to be a bit soft, but those instances weren’t major, and the movie usually demonstrated pretty decent clarity and accuracy. No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and edge enhancement failed to appear throughout the movie, though some blockiness materialized. Source flaws weren’t a factor.

Colors varied depending on the film’s stylistic choices. Quite a few shots opted for natural hues – especially those out at the pond – but the palette went for various dominant colors on other occasions, usually to reflect moods. For instance, bathroom scene scenes featured a sick green tone, and the creepy shots at the Hardell place focused on some garish oranges. The quality of the colors was erratic; some of them looked vivid and full, while others seemed messy and runny.

Blacks tended to appear somewhat loose and inky, and shadows were often too dark. The shadow scenes weren’t horribly dense, but they could be a bit tough to discern. All in all, there was enough positive material on display for a “C+”, but it wasn’t an inspiring presentation.

I didn’t find much memorable material within the film’s Dolby Stereo 2.0 soundtrack either, partly because it lacked much ambition. This was a mix that focused on the front and even within that realm didn’t have a lot to do. Music and effects spread to the sides in a minor way that failed to deliver much breadth. For all intents and purposes, this track tended toward glorified monaural; I’d be hard-pressed to point out any notable information from the sides.

Audio quality was decent. Despite some dodgy looping at times, speech was reasonably natural most of the time, and the lines were always easily intelligible. Music tended to be atmospheric and low-key; the score and songs offered acceptable range and impact. Effects were also fairly clear and accurate, though they didn’t have much to do. This ended up as a decidedly bland mix.

In terms of extras, we find a trailer for the film – and that’s all she wrote!

I can forgive many flaws in horror flicks, but dullness isn’t one of them. What’s the point of a scary movie with no scares? There isn’t one, and this lack of jolts dooms Savage County. The DVD comes with average visuals, bland audio and virtually no supplements. You can find plenty of effective low-budget horror movies out there, so keep looking and skip the boring, aimless County.