FROGMAN (2023)

Studio:   Rotting Press
Director: Anthony Cousins
Writer:   John Karsko, Anthony Cousins
Producer: Anthony Cousins, John Karsko, Rebecca Daugherty
Stars:    Nathan Tymoshuk, Chelsey Grant, Benny Barrett, Toussaint Morrison, Ali Daniels, Chris Canfield, Brandon Santiago, Arden Michalec

Review Score:

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Summary:

Three filmmaking friends discover a small town's dark secret when they set out to capture footage of a mythical creature.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

While recording video of a family vacation to Loveland, Ohio, in 1999, 10-year-old Dallas Kyle briefly captures footage of "Frogman," an elusive cryptid rumored to possess telekinetic powers. The video clip cements Loveland as an urban legend hotspot and brings Dallas some notoriety that he has difficulty coping with as an adult 22 years later.

After an online personality makes fun of him and his brother-in-law Ben tells him he has to finally move out of his sister's guest room, Dallas decides to return to Loveland to regain his reputation by proving Frogman is real. Dallas convinces his filmmaking friends Scotty Fontaine and Amy Matheson, whom Dallas has had feelings for ever since a one-night stand, to join him.

Following a day of interviewing Loveland locals about various Frogman rumors, the trio has a woodland encounter with what turns out to be a man in a frog suit. Upset upon learning that townspeople stage such stunts to attract tourism, Dallas angrily confronts Gretel, the woman who runs the bed and breakfast where they are staying, for the truth about the real Frogman. Gretel responds by warning Dallas, Scotty, and Amy to leave town.

While driving to see George Hale, another man with a proven Frogman encounter, Dallas is pulled over by Sheriff Rhodes. The sheriff echoes Gretel's warning with another veiled threat.

Dallas tries asking George Hale about the rumors of a cult that worships Frogman, but George refuses to go into details. However, George does give Dallas a map that will supposedly lead him to Frogman.

While setting up a campsite in the woods from George's map, Scotty encourages Dallas to finally reveal his romantic feelings for Amy. Meanwhile, Amy disappears while gathering firewood.

Dallas and Scotty find flipper footprints as well as slime on their tent. They also find Amy, who had been missing for an hour, and snap her out of a strange trance. All three of them then have a frightening encounter with Frogman during which Scotty gets splashed with slime.

Elated that he actually captured new footage of Frogman, Dallas escapes back to the bed and breakfast with Scotty and Amy. Hearing chanting beneath them, the trio follows the noise into an underground tunnel where they find townspeople, including Gretel, dressed in robes while preparing a human sacrifice for Frogman. Frogman emerges, but the cult scatters when George Hale infiltrates the ceremony and starts firing a gun.

Dallas, Scotty, and Amy rescue George's granddaughter from a colony of cocoons containing people. George's granddaughter suddenly gives birth to a humanoid creature. Scotty undergoes a grotesque mutation from Frogman's slime and vanishes in the ensuing commotion.

Dallas and Amy flee. Dallas finally proclaims his love for Amy, but Amy is overcome by the pain of Frogman communicating with her in her head. George helps Dallas and Amy escape the tunnel, but George goes back in by himself to rescue his granddaughter.

Dallas turns his footage into a successful film. Epilogue text from that film reveals Scotty became a missing person, George and his granddaughter were never seen again, and Amy moved to L.A. and hasn't spoken to Dallas in a year. Backstage at the movie's premiere, Dallas stares contemplatively at Frogman's magic wand, which is now in his possession.

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Review:

Even three decades later, "found footage" horror films are still regularly compared to "The Blair Witch Project" for one reason or another. "Frogman" really earns this comparison though, because it seems structured to play out exactly like "The Blair Witch Project," practically beat for beat, yet without any distinctive eeriness of its own.

Besides putting itself in a position where the film has to fill the biggest shoes possible, "Frogman" has more work cut out for it thanks to a sad sack protagonist who isn't nearly as endearing as Heather, Josh, or Mike. That holds true even if you didn't find the Blair Witch trio likable at all.

Following a prologue, "Frogman" opens on an obnoxious online personality roasting Dallas Kyle, who infamously captured brief footage of the fabled Frogman while on a family vacation in 1999, as a fraud. Dallas doesn't take the insult sitting down. Actually, he does. In the next scene, Dallas sullenly munches breakfast cereal while his brother-in-law asks Dallas about a recent break-up before reminding him that he's lived in his sister's guest room for two years, and it's time to move out.

What's attractive about any of that? It's really hard for a viewer to cheer in someone's corner when that person is presented as a pouty, freeloading loser desperately clinging to the faded fame of some blurry footage shot when they were ten years old. This isn't a good look for Dallas, which starts "Frogman" out on the wrong flipper.

At least the two friends accompanying Dallas on his renewed mission to conclusively prove Frogman's existence provide small pops of personality. Aspiring actress Amy and coffee shop cameraman Scotty have an idea to "make this sh*t watchable," as Scotty puts it. Amy creates a country gal character named Norma Jean Wynette and Scotty frames her as a folksy hayseed investigating local legends about the elusive cryptid. Meanwhile, Dallas throws a wet blanket on their fun with his ongoing moping that no one takes the rumors of a telekinetic frog creature wielding a magic wand as seriously as he does.

Dallas, Scotty, and Amy subsequently follow an identical itinerary to Heather, Josh, and Mike, except they trade Burkittsville, Maryland, for Loveland, Ohio. They talk to locals. They tour the town. There's even a scene where the three of them blow off steam by drinking in their hotel room, just like their predecessors did.

During all of this, a subplot develops where we learn Dallas has harbored romantic feelings for Amy ever since a one-night stand she thinks was a mistake. With Dallas being a bore to begin with, this secret crush couldn't possibly be less interesting, or less necessary, to a tale involving a cult forming to worship a potentially alien creature with an ability to control minds.

The Blair Witch formula followed here becomes so blatantly obvious, part of me wonders if "Frogman" was intended to be a comedy with an inside joke of purposely never acknowledging out loud that it is a comedy. Maybe director Anthony Cousins came up with a kooky concept for a wonky frog monster and instructed everyone to play it completely straight just to see what would happen. I can't think of a better reason why Dallas would open his heart to Amy while they're in the midst of interrupting a human sacrifice, witnessing a captive woman giving birth to an amphibious humanoid, and watching their friend Scotty mutate, other than to laugh at how ridiculously ill-timed that moment is. Had "Frogman" opted for a fully humorous route, I might have expressed amusement at the absurdity instead of adding it to the list of quizzical inclusions making the movie messy.

Leaning into its inherent silliness might have allowed "Frogman" to come up out of the B-movie basement it belongs in. In portraying Loveland residents as quirky goofs instead of furtively threatening, and in making the titular beastie more cartoonish than frightening, the film never develops an aura of creeping dread like "The Blair Witch Project" did. It feels like an ordinary home movie where everyone onscreen is safe, not like there's evil lurking just out of frame. "Frogman" gets vaguely Lovecraftian down a home stretch that includes an underground occult ceremony with surprise "guests," but the vibe of the last 30 minutes is desperately needed in the nonchalantly paced, uneventful first hour preceding it.

Dallas has the dumb idea to record fresh Frogman footage on the same handheld camcorder he used as a kid in 1999. So "Frogman" not only epitomizes the motion sickness-inducing shakiness of haphazard "found footage," its picture quality is also about as low as it gets, too. Looking at a list that now includes poor production value alongside a milquetoast anchor character, uninteresting asides, an underseen main attraction, and a near total lack of suspense, "Frogman" is a film for "found footage" diehards only. Everyone else will see it as a lesser Blair Witch clone that's a quarter-century late to piggybacking on the "supernatural spooks in the woods" trend.

Review Score: 40

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