The movie Frogs was released on my birthday in 1972 when I was turning 10 years old. I didn’t see it during its original release. But I remember seeing commercials for it on TV and ads in the newspaper. All the ads for the movie featured a frog with a human hand hanging out of the mouth. This ad campaign has to be one of the all-time best for a movie. The movie isn’t as good as the advertising, but it is a fun nature-gone-wild movie. I probably saw it for the first time on TV on a channel that had a creature feature time slot. I liked it from the very first time I saw it, but I have come to love it over the years.
The movie was filmed in Florida and appears to be set around a mansion on the coast of a southern state. Sam Elliot is a wildlife photographer who encounters Ray Milland’s family, who lives in the mansion. Everyone has noticed more frogs than usual, and Ray Milland wants to get rid of them. Family members and employees of the family start getting killed, usually without anyone knowing that it has happened, at least with the first few deaths. One of the things that makes this movie fun is that most of the deaths are not caused by frogs even those the movie is called Frogs. Other reptiles and amphibians are the killers. Even birds and spiders get in on the action. There are always frogs around when the murders occur and there is constant croaking on the soundtrack.
Ray Milland’s character is a grumpy old man that you wish would die early on. He doesn’t get his just desserts until the end of the film, and it appears that his death might be the only one directly caused by frogs. Sam Elliot’s character escapes the mansion with his love interest, played by Joan Van Ark and a couple of kids. But the movie ends with the suggestion that frogs are taking over everywhere.
Some people criticize the ads for this film because if the human hand sticking out of the mouth of the frog suggesting the movie might have had giant frogs eating people. All the frogs in the film are normal sized and there is no suggestion that they are even biting humans. But after the closing credits, there is an animated frog that hops across the screen with a human hand in its mouth.
