Factoid:Poor White Trash opens today at the Varsity Theatre, 418 S. Illinois Ave.

Lorena David still remembers the lightning crashes and frog-strangling rains of Southern Illinois thunderstorms.

The cornfields, the farmhouses. There’s just so much romance to the place, she said. A movie’s worth, even.

In the buggy summer of 1999, David a producer with L. A.-based indie film company Kingsize Entertainment and her cohorts ditched California palm trees for deep Southern Illinois, choosing Benton as the site for their movie Poor White Trash, which opens today in Carbondale.

And it was the small town’s lack of Hollywood glitter that made it love at first sight for David and her colleagues.

Poor White Trash borrows the downhome charm of Southern Illinois filmmakers shot scenes at Big John’s market in Benton and Ten Pin Bowling Alley in Du Quoin and scrambles it with wild fictional trailer park denizens who inhabit Sunrise, Ill.

The story swirls around young Mike Bronco (Tony Denman from Fargo) who drags along his best friend on a shoplifting spree to earn tuition money so Mike can leave behind his double wide for an SIUC education.

Director Mike Addis co-wrote the film via e-mail and Instant Messenger, zipping bits of the screenplay across cyberspace after a news of the weird-style brief piqued his interest.

The article related the tale of a mother, her son and the boy’s friend who went on a shoplifting spree to snag groceries and other small items. Addis and co-writer Tony Urban pounced on the idea and turned it into a trailer park crime caper.

But despite the PWT moniker, the Hollywood crew insists they have nothing but respect for Southern Illinoisans. Co-producer Justin Conley grew up in Benton but was still impressed by the level of hospitality afforded the film crew.

Out here [in L. A.], people just don’t talk to each other, he said. But in Benton, we had more support than on any other film I’ve worked on.

Conley estimates that nearly 100 folks would show up each day to grab autographs and watch the filming circus from their lawn chairs. All the extras in the film are locals, too. And some SIUC students worked behind the scenes of the project.

Colin Wrobel, a senior in cinema and photography from Oak Park, sweated out 17-hour days on the set. As a production assistant, he oversaw the nitty-grittiness of film-making, yelling Quiet on the set! and Rolling!

He also remembers having to dote on one of the actresses, Sean Young, during a particularly scorching day.

To keep Young in the shade, Wrobel had to run behind her golf cart with a freakin’ umbrella.

She had her moods, he chuckled. But you know, she’s an actress.

The punishing heat and crazy Southern Illinois weather caused plenty of production problems:cast and crew guzzled 12 cases of bottled water daily and sodden mud sucked up equipment trucks. During some outdoor shoots, cicadas perched in nearby trees were so loud microphones could not pick up actors’ dialogue.

Addis recalls one searing afternoon where a stunt man was to be torched.

He had to roll around on the asphalt to put out the flames, Addis said. And he said the ground was hotter than the fire.

The harsh conditions, whirlwind shooting schedule and the small size of the production knit together the cast and crew.

Wrobel and other production assistants hung with the young actors at the Day’s Inn bar in Benton, shooting pool with Denman and Patrick Renna.

Thirty days on a film is better than four years in college, Wrobel said. It was the best time of my life.

Addis, himself, still feels the electric charge that comes with film-making.

From a hamburger stand in Dallas, Texas, Addis raved about the cast and the little town of Benton.

We really lucked out with the cast, he said over a crackly cell phone. Like Will Devane he’s usually a Kennedy. And in this he’s a twisted, twisted lawyer. Real greasy.

Addis’ production diary called every day in Benton just like Hanukkah.

So what’s the cosmic pull of this little burg?

Benton has an allure all its own, he said.

It has a cinematic quality, offered David, adding that actor John Malkovich also calls Benton home.

It must be in the sun and the moon and the stars, laughed Benton Mayor Pat Bauer. We just hope Hollywood shines on us again.