LOGAN SQUARE — A comedy-horror movie that's been described as a love letter to Logan Square is set to premiere Friday.
"Killer Piñata" was imagined in Logan Square, set in the neighborhood, shot in the neighborhood and will premiere at the neighborhood's premier theater this weekend.
"The fact that it is in Logan Square is really important to us," said Jennifer Kunkel, a producer of the film. "It's not just filmed here. It's set here."
The movie prominently features many recognizable shots of the neighborhood and its landmarks.
"When we went out to find locations to film, the businesses were really supportive of us," Kunkel said.
The "micro-budget film" is more than a year in the making.
The premiere is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Friday at the Logan Theatre.
There is a pre-party that starts at 7 p.m. and tickets are $10.
The four-member team behind the movie, Angry Mule Productions, works together at Creative Healthcare Solutions, a consulting and recruiting firm.
They watch a lot of movies during the work day.
Most days they throw on a B-comedy as background noise.
"We eventually reached the point where we literally did watch every single movie on Netflix that was two stars or under and we decided to make our own," Kunkel, 34, said.
The film, shot in the style of a "B movie" horror comedy, is the first by Angry Mule Productions.
Of the team, only Stephen Tramontana had any real movie-making experience before deciding to make the film.
Paul Summers was the director of photography/editor and Nick Weeks served as executive producer.
The crew shot "Killer Piñata" in eight days last November and has spent the past year in post-production.
"It's definitely supposed to be kind of a throwback to the straight-to-video, so-bad-they-are-good kind of horror movies from the '90s," Kunkel said.
The movie was produced on a tiny budget thanks to a $3,100 crowdfunding campaign.
That budget meant making props out of chicken wire and creating fake blood in the living room.
The plot of the roughly 1½-hour movie is based on a possessed piñata that is seeking revenge.
The protagonist? A hook-handed woman whose goal is to hunt down the evil papier-mâché beast.
"So many people in the community were really supportive, so we wanted to bring it here first so everybody could get a chance to see it," Kunkel said.
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