One of my favorite videogames is Frog Bog for the Intellivision. It is a simple premise and had been a game even before that particular incarnation. Each of two players controls a frog, trying to catch as many airborne insects as they can as the leap from one of two lily pads. It is uncomplicated and relaxing to the extent of bordering on being a Zen exercise.
In 1972’s Frogs, the titular creatures don’t seem to do any killing, yet they are repeatedly shot in close-up as if they are some sort of menace. Even in some of the great numbers shown here, it is hard to imagine them being a threat. This horror movie has a surprisingly high body count, but the means of those deaths are through snakes, lizards, gators, turtles, spiders and Spanish moss. That’s right—that soft stuff you see hanging from trees in the deep south. It somehow wraps around one victim like a boa constrictor.
But the number of people even injured by toads in this would appear to be zero. Though we don’t see who or what cut the phone lines, I like to think it was them, if only because they should be making some sort of contribution if their name is in the title. I wish we could have seen their pudgy bodies climbing up utility poles, complete with utility belts and tiny hard hats.
This is a movie with an environmental message which is established under the opening credits. We see Sam Elliott in a canoe, first taking pictures of various swamp creatures before moving on to capturing images of litter in the water. That the font of the text superimposed over this montage is in Comic Sans does not diminish the power of the sequence.
Moving out the open water of a lake, he finds his canoe overturned by Adam Roarke’s speedboat, which he had been navigating while intoxicated. At least the man went back and rescued Elliott, though that man’s camera and other belongings are now unrecoverable. Also in the boat is Joan Van Ark, Roarke’s sister. She insists he come with them back to the island.
It is there our hero meets the rest of the large number of family, and their friends, of wealthy industrialist Ray Milland. This wealthy and humorless man has no joy in his life except or this annual gathering on this island, with its plantation mansion. From his wheelchair, he commands all to do his bidding. He declares to Elliott man is master of the world, and he will bend nature to his will. I was reminded of a Simpsons bit where there’s a film titled Man vs. Nature: The Road to Victory.
Milland’s control of nature includes the use of pesticides and other means to cull the curiously excessive frog population evident on the island this year. He dispatches Elliott to search for an employee who has gone missing since going around the vast property to implement these measures. It is no surprise when Elliott finds an abandoned pesticide container. Alas, he also finds a great many animals that I can only hope were momentarily rendered unconscious for this production. He also finds the corpse of the missing man. That Elliott is the one who will consistently be the first to find each additional victim would have me wondering if he was a serial killer.
The movie suggests these people deserve what happens, which I think is questionable. Some of indications of this perspective are in casual conversation elements such as one character lamenting how new population restrictions on paper mills will negatively impact dividends. Given the gutting the EPA has experienced this year, I can only assume who these people would have voted for in the last election. But, for as nasty as Milland may be, he knows exactly who he is. Consider his response to an accusation: “You sound like the worst of the ugly rich.” “We are the ugly rich.”
I could like the great many characters on this little island, but I won’t. Many of them are very thinly sketched, as to be expected when all but a handful of people will be nothing but fodder for the body count. Among the more interesting characters who are not leads are the two servants who, of course, will be Black. The only Black actor among the guests is Judy Pace, who also seems to be having the most fun among the cast. The family is Crockett, and she confides to the maid she feels stranded in Crockettland, though she could have said Crackerland, which would be funnier and just as true. I like how the only three people to defy Milland’s rule and try to make an escapee are the three Black actors. It’s like these are the only three people, bar Elliott and Van Ark, with any sense.
Though I am not a fan of the wildlife or weather in the south, I think every viewer of this would conclude this was likely a miserable shoot. I don’t know if the leeches on Hollis Irving are real of fake, but the swamp puddle she takes a faceplant into looks incredibly gross. One shock is George Skaff running right past and gator then, even more shockingly, wrestling with it. I don’t know if it is the actor we see doing the actor, but whoever is doing that gets my kudos.
The photography in this is better than I expected, though some other pictures from American International had even better camera work. Admittedly, most of the imagery is simply competently done, but there are some moments are noteworthy for their shot composition. There are some particularly nice shots of sunlit beams of mist through moss-covered trees.
The tone skews toward light throughout the film, but nothing is laugh-out-loud funny. Still, there is an amusing animated bit at the very end of the credits, where a frog with a human hand dangling from its mouth hops to halfway across the screen, stops to swallow the appendage and then hops offscreen. It isn’t much, but it is a nice touch.
It may sound like I am being unduly harsh on Frogs, but I actually found much to enjoy in it. The environmental message is admirable. It somehow manages to succeed as both camp and a horror film, even if nothing is particularly scary. It seems to know exactly what it is and I am willing to meet it on its own terms. As I write this, it has a 4.4 out of 10 on IMDB, so I feel like I am one of the few willing to give it a fair shake. Maybe everybody else was expecting killer frogs and felt they were the victim of false advertising.
Dir: George McCowan
Starring Ray Milland, Sam Shepherd, Joan Van Ark
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray