The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue Coverage

I wouldn’t say I followed The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue since I first heard of it but when I did, I was anxious to see it. This was during the time where I explored the horror community of Chicago from on the web so I was bombarded with ads for the upcoming horror/comedy film. That was a year ago and I’m willing to bet that it went on before that time. Well, yesterday night was the long-awaited premiere of the film and I had to go. Of course, I got there early and soon after, the line wrapped all around the Music Box.

The premise of the film is about Marion and Jarmon Mugg, who inherited a brownstone apartment after their mother died. This apartment was of course used as a speakeasy during the Prohibition era. However, many of the tenant’s pets have gone missing and the two landlords find out that it’s a Mole Man that lives under the building. Now it’s up to them to attempt to flush him out and kill him before he starts eating the tenants once the pets are all gone.

Mole Man of Belmont Avenue did have some star-value to it. Most of the horror community will recognize Robert England who played Mr. Confab, a tenant who is sort of an aging swinger. There was also Tim Kazurinsky, who many will know as Sweetchuck from the Police Academy films. In Mole Man of Belmont Avenue, he plays Harold, a down-on-his-luck maid. I also thought Steve Carell was in it too but that was Dave Pasquesi who had numerous roles in other studio made films.

So, I met up with horror blogger Nicki and her friend Richard Diaz and we sat at the very back of the theater and watched the movie. Everybody who worked on the film, everybody who had anything to do with the film as well as family all sat in the center and the rest of us moviegoers had to ‘scratch and claw’ our way on the sides.

My general consensus of the movie: I liked it. It wasn’t the best indie film that I have seen but for a film that was made on nothing and given the dedication everybody had, it was fun to watch with a few laughs here and there. This of course was directed and written by Mike Bradecich (who bares an uncanny resemblance to Seth Rogan) and John LaFlamboy. Everybody did a fantastic job of portraying his or her characters and personally, my favorite character in the whole film was Marion Mugg who is this sarcastic, monotone douche. The special effects were great the movie looked really good. There were a few minor complains and most of it included the humor that was hit or miss with me. The pacing was a little off and during the pot smoking scene there was a girl having sex that just didn’t feel like it belonged in the story. Plus, some of the irrelevant scenes dragged on. However, other than that there wasn’t much to complain about. I liked it and I wish it well in whatever film festival it gets submitted to.

There was a Q&A afterwards where Mike and John revealed how they did some of the things in the movie. One of my favorites was the basement scene was actually part of a church and the caretaker was showing them around and he said, “See, over here somebody buried something… I don’t know what it was. Now this lump over here, I wouldn’t step on it if I were you.” The scene in the movie where the cop tases Marion, they need the sound effect of the taser so they kept pressing it but it also kept sending a signal back to the police station telling them ‘Hey, an officer needs help because they keep tasing this guy and he isn’t going down.’ Among other things like the Animal Rights people, the police situations and general filmmaking trouble, the Q&A was very fun.

Overall, it was a pretty good night. I didn’t stay around for the beer and food but I still enjoyed the film.

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