When I was a kid, I remember seeing a few short parts of George McCowan's Frogs (1972) on TV. Of course, since I was a giant pussy about horror movies as a kid, I never sat down to watch it in full. But I recently noticed that it's on Netflix and decided to finally see this movie in its entirety, despite the somewhat low rating it seems to generally receive.

Sam Elliott (Tombstone, The Big Lebowski) stars in this cheesy movie about frogs and other reptiles who have had enough of humanity's bullshit. Just look at the poster if you don't believe me on the cheesy part. A human hand dangling out of a giant frog's mouth! Unfortunately, that never actually happens in the movie except for this animated frog at the very end of the credits, but I think it still really sets the tone for what you should expect from the movie.

Find out if this is 1970's cheese worth watching with another... Reviews with Ballz!


Right away, Frogs lets you know that it's intended to be an eco-horror movie as we watch Pickett Smith (Sam Elliot) make his way through a swamp in a canoe, taking pictures first of the various wildlife in the swamp and then of things like litter and sewer water that have made their way into the swamp. Now I'm not someone who goes out of their way to protect the environment (don't get me wrong, I'm not some fucking litterbug either), but this is a pretty grim opening.

Eventually, Pickett meets up with the Crockett family, who live in a mansion in the area and as you eventually find out, have gathered for a celebration. One of the first things they talk about to Pickett is how much they dislike the frogs in the area because they can't sleep at night from the noise. So Pickett decides to stick around, both to try finding a solution to their frog problem that doesn't result in wiping out the area's wildlife and to also enjoy the celebration that the Crocketts have planned.

It's not long however before the bodies start piling up, each death caused by the wildlife in one way or another. Frogs, snakes, alligators, and even birds take part in teaching the humans a lesson for fucking up the swampland and surrounding area. As I watched, I couldn't help thinking of Skinny Puppy's song, Nature's Revenge, though that's about weather, not animals. Because that's exactly what this movie was: nature's revenge. And that concept worked rather well in providing a pretty entertaining, cheesy, horror movie.



I really ended up liking this movie a lot by the end. The isolation of it all and the idea of something overthrowing humans are two things that have always appealed to me in horror movies. There's little blood, but that's not surprising considering when it was made. But what blood is there is used effectively. There was also a pretty nasty shot of a corpse that I thought was done rather well for a movie like this.

My Rating: 4/5