When I started watching Frogs (1972) I sincerely hoped that moment from the poster actually happened in the movie. It does, but it’s a cartoon frog in a weird post-credit coda. Which, naturally, is a huge disappointment. Alas, most of Frogs is a huge disappointment. An American International release, Frogs tells the story of a rich, Southern patriarch (played by Ray Milland, who, lest we forget, won an Oscar in 1945 for his performance as a tortured alcoholic in Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend). Anyways, Milland has been polluting the environment, as documented by a visiting photographer played by Sam Elliott, and over the course of the 4th of July weekend, NATURE DECIDES TO FIGHT BACK!

Cue the Frogs!

Except the frogs don’t do anything. There are (fairly boring) kills carried out by lizards, alligators, snakes, spiders and even leeches get in on the action. But the lazy frogs just sit around  watching. Are they in charge? Or just don’t care? Maybe Frogs is about the frogs’ impotence & resentful observance of the other animals’ agency and vitality. Is it an allegory? Or just shit?

At any rate it should not be called Frogs. It should be called (Every Animal Except) Frogs (Apart From a Little Bit at the End). When the frogs finally do attack and kill Milland it is mostly off-screen, but at least that saves us from pondering the ethics of what looks like someone off-camera just lobbing frogs on to a couch.

After Oscar winner Ray Milland is killed the film cuts to an exterior shot of house and we see all the lights being switched off. I don’t know how the frogs learned to switch lights off but it makes sense that in a film about nature taking revenge the frogs would be energy conscious enough to switch the lights off when they were done.

Everything in this movie is a missed opportunity. For example, no-one ever says that a victim has ‘croaked’ or calls the lizards ‘cold-blooded killers’. Not do we see the animals working together, as implied. They could have had a scene with all the creatures laying out their plan or maybe have an alligator carrying a bunch of spiders and snakes saying “there is no I in T. E. A. M.!” More importantly they don’t show the frogs killing anyone which would be gross and awesome. Or have a giant frog who leads them. Which would be even better. Mostly, sadly, the film is just boring, and not even Ray Milland shooting a snake or saying “The frogs are thinking now. The snails are planning strategy”, can save it.

I’m not sure it was the director’s intent, but watching Frogs really made me question what I’m doing with my life. And in that respect it’s a powerful work of art.