Frog-g-g! (released in Japan as Frogman) is a 2004 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Cody Jarrett. When a small US has its water supply contaminated, a United States Environmental Protection Agency agent must track down the cause and the monstrous frog that it creates. The basic monster plot is borrowed from Humanoids from the Deep. It had one week at the box office, and was then released on DVD.
Dr. Barbara Michaels, (Kristi Russell) from the Environmental Protection Agency arrives in a small US town, determined to prove that the residents are at risk from contaminated water, originating from the town’s biggest employer, Grimes’ chemical plant. After finding mutated fish and hearing tales of ‘tadpoles the size of frisbees’, she confronts Grimes who aggressively refutes the allegations, despite his track record in health and safety issues and warns her not to meddle in his business. Pausing only to conduct a lesbian affair with a local bartender, Michaels takes her findings to the town sheriff, who is similarly displeased that his quiet town is being dragged through the mud by an outsider, not least because his brother-in-law is Grimes. Despite a break-in at her lab destroying all evidence of her findings, lab samples sent back to her base in the city reveal the DNA found to be something frog-like but with an alarmingly close match to humans. So close is the match that the mutated frog has taken to the streets, only being able to reproduce by raping the town’s lady-folk. When Grimes’ own family start being attacked by the creature, the opposing forces finally come to their senses and attempt to track down the beast, who is quickly hopping from the town’s high school football final to an all-girl catholic school…
Taking inspiration from obvious targets such as Creature from the Black Lagoon, Humanoids From the Deep and Alligator but also the raft of 1980′s horror films which took the dumping of chemical and nuclear waste as the spark for monstrous carnage, Frog-g-g! doesn’t attempt to be a serious horror film at any point and at best could be said to lampoon the exploitation fillms which themselves took events to illogical conclusions. Although a step above Syfy channel fodder, we aren’t quite in head-spinning Troma territory – the tiny budget is wasted neither on acting talent (only Mary Woronov from Silent Night, Bloody Night and TerrorVision has a CV worth investigating) nor the frog monster, which resembles a cheap Greedo fancy dress costume.
The monster itself makes only brief appearances, a great shame as although the costume is absolute rubbish, he does deliver some laughs and some energetic, as well as gymnastic, sexual activities. The lesbian lead character makes a nice change and despite one mention of ‘Doctor Dyke’ is vilified for interfering rather than her sexuality, although the final act reveals why this has been shoe-horned into the plot. An utterly harmless 80 minutes of fun with a final shot that will make even the most stony of faces crack out a smile.
Daz Lawrence
