The Mole People

1956 Directed by Virgil W. Vogel

...a savage civilization a million years old, raging with blood-lusting fury!

A party of archaeologists discovers the remnants of a mutant five millennia-old Sumerian civilization living beneath a glacier atop a mountain in Mesopatamia.

John Agar Cynthia Patrick Hugh Beaumont Alan Napier Nestor Paiva Phil Chambers Rodd Redwing Robin Hughes Frank Baxter Eddie Parker

Alternative Titles

Le Peuple de l'enfer, Rebellion in der Tiefe

horror adventure fantasy science fiction

77 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Ian West ★★★ 4

Hollow earth 1950’s Universal horror that tackles space revolt is best watched on a lazy weekend morning or super late at night when everyone else is passed out. Love the rubber suit look of the mole people, and the collapse of the weirdo under dweller old school albino hierarchy shit as the mole people revolt on them! Also, what a downer ending.
Review by Ian West ★★★ 3

“A narration by Dr. Frank Baxter, an English professor at the University of Southern California, explains the premise of the movie and its basis in reality. He briefly discusses the hollow earth theories of John Symmes and Cyrus Teed among others, and says that the movie is a fictionalized representation of these unorthodox theories.”
Perfect Saturday morning mole movie
Review by Joachim Andersson ★★½

My daughter was born in August of 2013 and I was wearing a t-shirt of The Mole people, something that was very appropriate considering what she looked like when she came out of her mothers womb. I had owned the movie for years but somehow never got around to watching it, until I picked a nice german bluray of it at the Weekend of horrors in Germany in early november this year. I'm not so sure that The Mole people needef a blu ray showcasing its not so special effects in hi-def but here it was. Not very good (how the hell can you make a 77 minute movie drag) but cozy like only the crude scifis of the fifties…
Review by AJ ★½

I missed out on the MST3K marathon yesterday so I had to watch one today. The riffs started strong but tapered out after the halfway point.
The film is exactly what you expect and want from 50’s camp sci-fi, but I do love me a hollow earth adventure.
Review by knjr ★★½

Hooptober 6.0
5/31
One of the most underrated subgenres ever must be 50s sci fi. It is equivalent to what the 80s did with slashers. So many movies with different premises, some original and well executed, others pretty cheap looking and all in all bad.
The Mole People features superb sets, very aesthetically pleasing that gave credibility to the film when our group of archaeologists climb snowy steep mountains or wander through the massive mystical ancient world that they accidentally discovered. These archaeologists are like a crew of Indiana Joneses, deep knowledge in a variety of fields, combat ready and of course the ability to climb, boulder and more stuntman qualities in general. All that science talk actually made up…
Review by Klon ★★★

How many films from the 50s - of ANY genre - deal with a slave revolt!? I had forgotten what a weird little delight this hollow-earth movie is. The titular Mole People are rubbery and easy to goof on, but the moment when one of them tries impotently to talk to a human is surprisingly emotionally effective (it’s not like I was crying or anything, I’m a full grown man). Technically, this is a Universal horror film, so I expect a Dark Universe reboot.
Review by Ira Brooker ★★½

Archaeologists Hugh Beaumont, John Agar, and Nestor Paiva stumble across an underground sun cult presided over by a be-robed Alan Napier and powered by the titular mutated slaves. I wonder how the estate of Jules Verne felt about all this?
I can't tell you what exactly it is, but I just can not abide by John Agar. I find him to be the smuggest and jerkiest of all the regular '50s b-dudes, to the point where he detracts from my enjoyment of stuff that's otherwise my cup of tea. Anyway, he's as Agarry as ever here, but at least it's in service of some cool underground sets. The mole people are pretty cool looking even if they're clearly dudes in…
Review by $AM ★★

severely disappointed. thought it was called “them ole people” and was a 50s sci-fi invasion flick where old people are the invaders bcuz old people are sometimes scary. instead it’s called “the mole people” and is... about archaeologists who discover a bunch of albino elf-ish people living inside the earth who have enslaved the titular mole people? i mean... ok?
Review by Countess Anya Sanguina ★★★½

ℝ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘: 🏔️🧗‍♂️⛏️👾🔦⛓️ 🍄(7/10)
𝕄𝕊𝕋𝟛𝕂 ℝ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘: 🏔️🪢🧗‍♂️⛏️👾🔦⛓️🍄👩‍❤️‍👨 (9/10)
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Review by Ripplin ★★½

After an unnecessary-yet-intriguing-and-amusing introduction by Prof. Baxter, we are introduced to a group of scientists led by Dr. Bentley (John Agar), Dr. Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont) and Prof. Lafarge (Nestor Paiva), who are in search of a lost Sumerian city dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. After some padding...sorry, I mean long hiking and climbing scenes (followed by some long cave exploration scenes), they find it, and it's inhabited by a race of albinos decended from Noah's ark. They also find mutant mole people, for some reason.
Well, this is typical 50s Saturday matinee kiddie fare, complete with low budget everything, weird ideas, plot holes, forced romance (between Agar and Cynthia Patrick, who should also be an albino, but isn't), but some…
Review by LarsN

The Professor who intros the film has the same mannerisms and speaking style as Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Review by Mark Monlux ★★★

I never liked the ending of this film. I have since learned that the original ending was cut and the current ending added in response to concerns that the audience might raise objections to a 'mixed' couple. As if the message of 'enslavement bad' wasn't obvious in the storyline.

Recent reviews

Review by Eric The Dread ★½

The Citizen Kane of films about mole people.
Review by Kurosawa ★½

MST3K rating: **1/2
Review by kyletague ★★½

Love that they threw the Star Trek insignia on what is clearly repurposed sets from one of the Mummy sequels and called it a day
Review by hexibar ★½

Charming in its inefficiency. But really, it’s just ridiculous.
Review by A Projected Life ★★★★

An excellent example of 50s Sci-Fi, with a big dose of adventure thrown in. Kind of a cross between a Jules Verne and an H.G. Wells novel. It's quite goofy, but utterly enjoyable.
2021: 43/801
Review by ChrisStewardson ★★½

This is a flawed movie; with a slow start, uninteresting characters, and very little urgency.
But, to its credit, I love what the film does with its titular monsters: the Mole People. The “beasts of the dark” not only look great, but they’re sympathetic and endearing. You genuinely want to see them revolt; and when they do, it’s exciting - though you are left questioning why they didn’t simply do so earlier.
Review by Buzzbrain ★★★

Archaeologists be like
“Yeah this is from the past”

2021 Cult Movie Challenge, week 3
Review by Ripplin ★★½

After an unnecessary-yet-intriguing-and-amusing introduction by Prof. Baxter, we are introduced to a group of scientists led by Dr. Bentley (John Agar), Dr. Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont) and Prof. Lafarge (Nestor Paiva), who are in search of a lost Sumerian city dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. After some padding...sorry, I mean long hiking and climbing scenes (followed by some long cave exploration scenes), they find it, and it's inhabited by a race of albinos decended from Noah's ark. They also find mutant mole people, for some reason.
Well, this is typical 50s Saturday matinee kiddie fare, complete with low budget everything, weird ideas, plot holes, forced romance (between Agar and Cynthia Patrick, who should also be an albino, but isn't), but some…
Review by James Gilbert ★★★

A team of archeologists (John Agar, Hugh Beaumont, Nestor Paiva) go inside of a Mesopotamian glacier, and discover the remnants of Sumerian civilization that has stayed around for five millennia.
This picture doesn't exactly know what it wants to be.
It is conflicted between being a fantasy-adventure with this civilization, or a sci-fi horror with the mole monsters.
It does the latter the best, so I'll go with that first.
Any scenes with the humanoid moles are very fun, with decent effects work.
The suits are obviously rubber, but the detailing they get is quite good.
And I like how in several scenes you can just see them digging up through the ground, even if the shot's main focus is…
Review by G4ZDTechTV

Watched via MST3K.
Review by Beef

🎃🦇👻☠️Season Of The Witch 2020☠️👻🦇🎃
Oh boy, you know a film is gonna be good when it leads with 5 minutes of a lame-ass professor awkwardly, desperately trying to convince the audience that it might actually be possible for mole people to be living inside the earth.
Review by Whrlingdervish ★★★

Kinda felt like a long Twilight Zone episode. Not that that’s a bad thing, you just have to be in the mood for that sort of thing.