Friday, March 5, 2010

Hell Comes to Frogtown

I understand that the title Hell Comes to Frogtown might seem a little confusing at first. But let me break down it's individual parts. First, Rowdy Roddy Piper (They Live) plays Sam Hell, one of the last fertile men on Earth. Nuclear war has killed most of the world's men and dried up almost all the rest. It's up to the remaining breeders to continue the species, hence the second word's possible double entendre. As for Frogtown, that's really the easiest part to understand. You see, nuclear war can have all sort of nasty side effects. Aside from acting as global spermicide, the fallout also mutated a large percentage of the population into frog creatures. Incidentally, at some point, these frog creatures formed a town. Now put those pieces together:

[Now that's how to utilize a Floating Head.]

In the future, women have obtained social, political, and military power. Don't get it twisted, they're still sexy, but now they have guns. With the future of all mankind at risk, Sam Hell partners up (i.e. has electric tasers secured to his junk) with two of these sexy dominants and ventures into Frogtown to save a harem of impregnable ladyfolk. (They're sexy too.) All seems well and good for the testosterone-fueled macho man until the Frogs catch on to their plan (save the women and then have sex with them).

Do you remember that episode of "Star Trek" where
Captain Kirk sloppily fights that man-lizard?

That's a lot what Acts II & III are like. This film takes a campy Howard the Duck turn about thirty minutes in and doesn't let up until the credits roll. But the saving grace of Frogtown (the movie, not the actual town of frogs) is that it knows how ridiculous it is. One of the film's funniest moments comes after a bazooka-wielding baddie delivers a speech so long it would make a Bond villian proud. I don't want to spoil it (because I'm positive after this review Hell Comes to Frogtown will be shooting up Netflix queues nationwide) but it'll at least make you chuckle. If camp is what you want, then it's amazing you haven't seen this yet. Or maybe you have. I'm making a lot of assumptions here.

Have you experienced Hell Comes to Frogtown? Will you now? And most importantly, if you landed a job remaking this movie today, would you stick with frogs? Or are you switching to a more menacing member of the animal kingdom?

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I want to re-watch this soon, and was thinking of attempting to try this weekend. I may go see if my local video store still has a copy tomorrow.

I have to say after seeing the poster, I'm curious as to whether the frog creatures look like the frog creatures I remember from some of the episodes of Faerie Tale Theatre I used to watch when I was a kid. Half-human-half-frog creatures tended to have a similar look back in the 70s and 80s.