What if there was a seven-foot frog man with mystical powers who emerged every twenty-five years to feed and, at the same time, to generally make the world a worse place?
That’s the bonkers premise of God of Frogs, a four-part semi-anthology movie that takes place in four time periods including, a bit like Hellraiser: Bloodline, stories of the past, (rough) present, and future: 1969, 1994, 2019 and 2044. The ’69 segment, the least interesting of the bunch, gives us the background we need for this offbeat tale, with a fairly loose narrative about an ill-fated Manson Family-like hippy cult – the choice of year to set this story in is not coincidental. Then, after our first 25-year time jump, we’re in 1994 for a Blair Witch-ian adventure as a group of student filmmakers fuck around in the backwoods and backwaters of Florida and slowly lose their minds.
We then pick up in 2019 with a plot to use a frog-derived compound to brainwash the populace into voting against their own interests – as if the billionaires of the world need to use chemical warfare to achieve that purpose! This segment, despite its fairly well-executed satire, doesn’t entirely land, and its story of a father trying, too late, to reconcile with his son, never really gels. But! It’s a fairly short, pacy film, and it has four stories to get through, so soon enough we’re dropped off in the future, a world in which the same everyday sham and drudgery exists, but technology now allows for USB braids to interface directly with technology – yes, just like Avatar. Evidently the budget didn’t allow for us to see more of this dystopian future than a distinctly ordinary mobile home and the grungy inside of a factory, just like you’d see in any SyFy original.
However, the film is – somewhat surprisingly – not shy at all about showing off the titular God of Frogs, which is an old-school practical effect – usually, actor Tyler Williams in a classic movie-monster rubber suit. It never looks convincing, per se, but it has the charm of those pre-CGI horrors, movies like Predator, Alien, Rawhead Rex, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
And this goes for the film itself, which won’t change your life or even, probably, stick in your head after a month goes by, but it’s surprisingly earnest and refreshingly weird.