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Millionaire patriarch Ray Milland and his extended family gather together at his private island mansion to celebrate the 4th of July and have much more to worry about than photographer and ecologist Sam Elliott snooping around getting material for a magazine layout on pollution. You see, Elliott isn't the only one who's fed up with Milland's environmental poisoning, as a horde of frogs wise up and lead their swampland buddies (alligators, snakes, lizards, turtles, birds, leeches, spiders and more) in a violent revolt.

Thanks to the piercing sounds of Les Baxter's score and sheer variety of creepy crawlers on display, you are likely to cringe somewhere along the line in this ridiculous and often awkwardly directed, but nonetheless entertaining effort.

Actually had good actors in it, but I think the directors of the early 1970's were just taking too many drugs.

So a decent ecology journalist scoring extra Politically Correct points is taking pictures in a swamp in Florida when he falls in with a family of rich industrialists browbeaten into obedience by a wheelchair bound Ray Milland.

A bunch of menacing frog direct reptiles to engage in a series of attacks requiring a lot of ineptitude by the character actors who are picked off. I don't think the frogs actually kill anyone, they just keep looking menacing... maybe they were co-ordinating the operation as the other reptiles did all the hard work.

Bonus point.. Joan van Ark in a tight-one piece showing a lot of leg.

Statistically, this movie was a hit. Made for $200k, it grossed over $2 mill in the US alone. This was the secret of success for American International Pictures. Keep the budgets low, and the base of horror fans will show up and you'll make a profit. 1972 was the year for horror. A large number of films catered to the horror fan, many were cheaply made. But they all made a profit. Frogs is an example of a movie poster created before the movie was filmed. Frogs don't kill anyone in the film, but they made a cool poster. So they were thrown into the mix of alligators, lizards, snapping turtles, snakes, spiders, etc. Since many of these creatures make people queazy, it must have seemed like a slam dunk to film- fearmakers. However, the animal performers are less than convincing. Especially the alligator, where producers sped up the film to make him look like he's moving quickly. The acting is as good as can be expected for this type of film. Joan Van Ark and Sam Elliot debut here (Van Ark had done a soap). Milland is good as the cranky old rich stereotype. If you're looking for a "tame" horror picture to keep the kids interested, this might be it. For adults, it's value is mainly nostalgic.

Ray Milland's career was tanking real fast when he agreed to do this one for American-International. The story behind Frogs is similar to the plot of the Elizabeth Taylor less than classic Elephant Walk. That's the one where Peter Finch's father built his mansion in Sri Lanka where the elephants used to trod. Eventually they trod there again.

In Frogs Ray Milland has a large old plantation estate on an island in the Everglades and he's been expanding it for years crowding out the swamp life. It's not just the frogs but all the swamp critters want their turf back.

And when do they pick to begin their war? On the 4th of July which coincidentally enough is Milland's birthday and he's thrown a party and he's got his kids and grandkids with him. And a stranger played by a young and beardless Sam Elliot.

The movie gets the title Frogs because they seem to be directing the battle. One by one Milland's family and help are picked off. Only a few manage to escape.

Frogs is done kind of tongue in cheek and Milland grumps and groans his way through the film like a man with a bad case of hemorrhoids. Maybe being confined to a wheelchair in the part gave him a case. He had to be wondering how his agent talked him into this.

The free-lance photographer Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott) is taking pictures of the pollution in a swamp in Florida for a magazine of ecology in his canoe. Out of the blue, he is hit by a motor boat piloted by Clint Crockett (Adam Roarke) and his sister Karen Crockett (Joan Van Ark) and capsizes.

Clint and Karen invite Pickett for the party in the private island of their grumpy grandfather Jason Crockett (Ray Milland), an old fashioned disabled patriarch that enjoys celebrating his birthday on the 4th July with his family.

Pickett realizes that the island is infested of frogs and reptiles and Jason has ordered his caretaker to poison his real estate to get rid of the amphibians and creepy crawlies. But soon Picket realizes that they are living the payback of nature against mankind.

The trash "Frogs" is probably one of the first movies to defend the ecology and absolutely ahead of the time. This is the first feature of Sam Elliot, who acts with the veteran Ray Milland. The story is funny and never scares but entertains. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Invasão das Rãs" ("The Frogs'Invasion")

The plot here is little more than: "Help! We're surrounded by hostile creatures!" Yet there's something about this movie that lodges in the memory and it's probably its heavy, humid atmosphere -- like a hot summer day where nothing's happening yet you know there must be a storm brewing just over the horizon. The eclectic cast is headed by Ray Milland but the star here is Sam Elliott who makes his first real impression in the movies. His let-me-strip-off-my-sweaty-shirt-and-display-my-hairy-chest scenes were SO impressive that they landed him the lead role in that piece of beefcake-nirvana called "Lifeguard."

(June 2009 update: Note how this movie finds echoes, seven years later, in another Sam Elliott movie: "The Legacy." In both movies Elliott plays a young man who, because of a transportation accident, winds up as a reluctant guest at a mansion located in an isolated spot in the country. The mansion is owned, in both cases, by a distinguished older gentleman who suffers from a physical disability. There are other guests at the mansion and during the course of Elliott's stay, these guests are killed off, one by one -- in a variety of bizarre fashions -- by a mysterious force. In both movies, Elliott performs "beefcake" scenes which have a gratuitous quality. In "Frogs," he appears twice without his shirt and in "The Legacy" he has a rear-view nude scene.)

I had thought "Frogs" would be one of those campy movies that is enjoyable in its badness... But no. I won't say it's the worst movie I've ever seen (that "honor" goes to "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"), but it's in the top 10 bad movies of all time. Or is that the "bottom 10?" The premise of nature rebelling against humanity's ecological indifference is a good start, but most of the characters are uninteresting, and idiots to boot. The dialogue is painfully bad, and the acting is worse than anything in a Roger Corman movie. At least in Corman's movies, you can tell the actors are having fun. In this fiasco, however, I get the feeling that the actors were blackmailed into doing this film, judging by the pained, or sometimes completely numb, expressions on their faces while they get themselves into moronic situations or deliver stilted, unrealistic lines.

I forced myself to sit through about 2/3 of this movie, hoping it would get better (or at least funny). Ultimately, however, I had to shut the damn thing off; I mean, I could feel brain cells committing suicide while I watched this travesty. I had to stop it before I wound up as intelligent as the characters in the movie.

I rated it "1" because there's no "0" or negative numbers available.

If this movie ultimately fails to be scary (and it does), it's not because the filmmakers didn't try; they did their darnedest to make those frogs look as menacing as possible. But it was all for naught, because frogs are fundamentally un-vicious creatures and, well, they cannot be trained to look mean. They don't care about us annoying humans! They just want to hop around! So this movie can't hold a candle to, say, "The Birds". That doesn't mean it's not enjoyable though - it is, in a schlocky way. It's colorful, it's beautifully photographed, and Sam Elliott is rather cool, as 70s leading men go. (**1/2)

Despite a seemingly hokey premise, Frogs is one of the more memorable and effective entries in the nature-revenge genre.

Family living in Florida's Okefenokee Swamp have been exterminating the local wild life, now it seems that the creatures are all out to kill them!

Frogs is a movie that never fails to be sweat-inducing, especially to those who don't like reptiles! All manner of swamp wild life is used for this film - snakes, spiders, gators, lizards, heck even a turtle! So with all these critters coming for our unsuspecting human characters there's plenty of tension to be had! Director McCowan makes good use of the boggy setting and gives it an atmospheric feeling of certain doom! The eerie score also helps as well.

The films cast is good. Veteran Ray Milland is perfect as the Crockett family's stubborn elder. Young, attractive Sam Elliot is decent as a nature photographer who happens on the scene. Joan Van Ark is good as Elliot's love interest and Adam Roarke as her no-account brother. The supporting cast is also on cue.

While Frogs may be a B thriller that's best taken tongue-in-cheek, it's solidly done and is sure to cause a few chills!

*** out of ****

While it's pretty obvious that this film was done on a low budget (i.e. the same shots are repeated over and over and over) this is a pretty effective horror movie and deserves a look. The death scenes are well executed (and the end is quite chilling), the music is appropriate (it's sounds almost like an "angry swamp"), and the locations are put to good use. It's definitely a b-movie and is not at all "great cinema", but it's still a minor classic and should have some kind of cult status.

Though mostly just silly, this flick does have one sequence very much worth watching: a woman, her foot stuck in all of *two inches* of mud, screams in horror as she is stalked by...a turtle.

We do not see the attack itself, of course, because that's far more suspenseful. Nah, I'm just kidding. We don't see the attack because it is patently impossible.

Now, the alligator snapper they show could inflict a very nasty bite on this woman's ankle, but there is no way that it could kill her; worse, it's extremely obvious that there's no way it could kill her. Watching the turtle veeeeeeery sloooooowly move toward the woman as she reacts with utterly inappropriate panic is a mind-bending experience.

The 1970s was the era of disco, blaxploitation, and eco-horror (aka nature's vengeance). George McCowan's "Frogs" is considered the first eco-horror flick. A young Sam Elliott (more recently known as the narrator in "The Big Lebowski") plays a photographer who visits a southern estate where the patriarch (Ray Milland) refuses to live in harmony with nature. The old man sprays chemicals all over the swamp with absolutely no regard for the plants or animals. So it only makes sense that the frogs -- in collaboration with the snakes, alligators, spiders, etc. -- are out to dispense some justice! On the plot's value alone, there's no reason to interpret "Frogs" as any kind of high-quality movie. We could interpret it as a warning about messing with the Earth (when you battle nature, you ALWAYS lose), or we could just view it as a plain old fun movie. Whatever the case, it's a pretty enjoyable flick, silly though it may be.

All in all, just be a little more respectful the next time that you meet any plant or animal, especially an amphibian of the order Anura.

I find it hard to understand how a horror movie could be equated with a bunch of frogs. Frogs aren't scary. They don't have teeth or claws. What's the worst they could do? Croak all night and hop around all over the place. How could this make for a good horror movie? I would say this director lacked any sense of horror. I could have made a better movie than this and I'm not even a director. Check out "Food of the Gods". Now THAT is scary. It's full of giant mosquitos, giant rats, giant worms and snakes, even a giant chicken,all of which could mangle a human being. But FROGS? A pitiful subject for a horror movie. (this line added simply to fill in enough space so my comments would post. When are they going to change this stupid requirement?)

A horror movie about killer frogs?? I had to check this out. Well, it was a waste of rental-film money. It committed two unforgivable horror-flick sins: 1 - it wasn't scary; 2 - it was downright boring.

Why was I not surprised the frogs weren't scary? Why did I think because Ray Milland was in it, it might be good? (Boy, it's sad to see a man of his "Lost Weekend" stature wind up in films like this in the '60s and '70s.)

It was interesting to see such a young Sam Ellliott, who I am used to viewing as a bearded, weathered--faced cowboy over the years. Elliott was in his '20s and had mainly done just TV work prior to this movie. He sure has come a long way from "Frogs!"

The worst part of this movie was the first 20 minutes in which absolutely nothing happened. Hello?? Nice to way to grab your audience, eh? Actually, this whole movie is just way too bland.

I've always thought frog legs were a delicacy and I like frogs in general but this movie is terrible. I am embarrassed for Milland, who I have always admired as an actor.

Revenge of the creatures who have been bombarded with pesticides. And, even worse, disrespected. That's the theme of this silly wannabe horror movie starring Ray Milland (the rest of the cast is so wooden they don't deserve mention).

Milland is a wheelchair-bound rich man living on his own island in Florida. He's got quite a mansion. Nothing seems more important to him than his birthday party which coincides with Independence Day. His lackluster family surrounds him, probably hoping he'll croak soon. A pair of black servants are the human touch, offsetting the offishness and selfishness of the adults.

Arriving unexpectedly is a nature photographer with the first name of "Pickett," rescued from the lake after Milland's drunk son almost runs him over. This guy, wise beyond his lenses, becomes the avatar of ecological wisdom and quick thinking.

"Frogs." They're the main revolutionaries allied with an army of snakes and alligators who slowly begin disrupting the old guy's birthday celebration. One by one the toll mounts as does the silliness. I found myself rooting on the homicidal creatures.

These frogs appear to have no general, no leader. But they're smart enough to be able to both read labels and understand chemistry. Most of the mischief, however, is caused by snakes and gators and if the snakes don't look like they're native to Florida - well, they ain't.

Milland is boringly supercilious and arrogant but this very fine actor does allow glimpses of his own doubt to emerge - doubt about why he took on this role.

"Frogs" is intended to scare viewers. But who, truly, can view those creatures as deadly? A heart-stopping battle cry of "Ribbet, Ribbet?" Nope.

3/10 - it deserves at least a "3" because I watched expecting SOMETHING slightly intelligent to happen. No such luck.

A group of hapless victims celebrate a birthday on an island estate crawling with evil frogs.

By no means should this be considered a good film, but it has a certain charm that is hard to replicate. American International made some gems, and this is one of them. Later it was picked up by MGM. And, I believe, a Blu-ray was released by Scream Factory. Though you can never have enough special features.

Ray Milland is a joy to watch, whether in his best work ("Lost Weekend") or some of his worst. Indeed, towards the end of his career, he seemed to appear in just about anything. We also get Sam Elliott, though he is almost unrecognizable without his trademark mustache.

Even though this movie was thirty minutes too long, had no plot and didn't make any sense, it wasn't really that bad. There is so much time where nothing is happening and yet they always forget to explain what is going on. But there are lots of good things about this movie too. They are on an island but the only time we see water, it appears to be a swamp. The island has a thousand species of snakes and every type of reptile. The ways the people die are silly. Some of the death scenes are too long with way too much screaming but a woman being killed by crabs makes up for that. Yes a woman is killed by crabs. A man is killed by an alligator with a band holding it's mouth shut. Great stuff. Milland plays the cranky grandfather who is extremely concerned about eating. That's the only story, he wants to eat all the time. I think he was supposed to be evil or something because that would explain the end. It seems like they edited out a lot of dialogue that would have helped the movie.

Frogs is one of the seventies ecology movies that has a group of people celebrating a holiday in florida with the patriarch played by a very grumpy Ray Milland. Sam Elliot is a freelance photographer who happens to be photographing the wildlife and pollution.paddling along with a canoe while he is photographing he is wiped out and capsized by a careless boater( Adam Roarke ) and his sister ( Joan Van Ark) and it's not only the frogs, it's lizards , gators, snakes, snapping turtles, and even birds attack the group . I originally seen this in 1972 at the theater with the co feature the incredible two headed transplant.when I was about 12 these movies scared me . The music is very creepy , and most of the animals in this movie are not native to florida.

Even though the film can never really top the brilliance of its own tagline ('Today the pond! Tomorrow the world!'), "Frogs" is a hugely entertaining and surprisingly well-made ecological horror film. These typical "creature features" were guaranteed hits back in the 70's and pretty much every animal species got turned into ravenous monsters enthusiast horror filmmakers, even the most unlikely ones like worms ("Squirm") and rabbits ("Night of the Lepus"). In this film, the frogs aren't just vicious killers but also strategic army generals that mobilize a whole island's ecosystem to commit nasty murders! The frogs are merely supervising whilst humans are being killed off by spiders, lizards, snakes, alligators and – oh yes – even a turtle! Pickett Smith is a freelance photographer who ends up at the private island home of obnoxious industrialist Jason Crockett during his annual 4th of July/birthday celebration. Also present are a dangerously increasing amount of frogs that no longer put up with the pollution and pesticides on the island and they plan a large-scaled attack on the Crockett family. "Ten Little Indians"-style, all the island's residents are imaginatively killed by ill-natured critters. The story naturally is silly and hardly ever scary, yet it's praiseworthy how director George McGowan attempts to build up an atmosphere of tension. Much like Hitchcock did in "The Birds" (only better), McGowan simply zooms in on the frogs and puts the emphasis on their eerie croaking. So, even though they're simple frogs they look a bit ominous! The best aspect of the film unquestionably is Mario Tosi's colorful camera-work that shows the beautiful environment from many creative viewpoints. The young Sam Elliot is quite good in his heroic role but the shows is obviously stolen by Ray Milland as the grumpy and bossy millionaire who thinks he can afford himself everything. The rest of the cast is quite wooden and their gruesome animal-inflicted deaths actually come as a relief. "Frogs" stands for great campy fun, not a single dull moment and a high body count! Damn, the 70's were cool.

Frogs (1972)

*** (out of 4)

Sam Elliott and Ray Milland star in this AIP cult-classic from the drive-in era where it was quite popular. The film starts off with Elliott taking pictures of the nature, which is being interrupted by people's pollution of the water and land. Soon Elliott finds himself staying with a family being led by the cranky Milland. Before the night is over one body is located and soon many more follow as the small creatures start to take their revenge. If you put too much thought into the subject matter then you're going to think yourself to death so turn the brain off, sit back and just enjoy. The killers in the movie aren't just frogs but we also have toads, lizards, alligators, birds, various snakes and spiders. Some of the death scenes aren't very believable but then there are those that are quite effective. Director McCowan does a very good job at building up the atmosphere of that deep Southern swamp nation. The entire look of the film is perfectly captured as there isn't a single frame where you don't feel as if you're right there in that swampy mess and action. The characters are pretty straight forward but the cast make them fun to watch with Elliott leading the way and delivering his ultra cool persona once again. The laid back style of the actor has always been fun to watch and it remains so here. Milland is over the top but in a fun way as the old man who refuses to spot the danger going on even as more bodies begin to pile up. FROGS isn't a masterpiece or something by Welles but it does throw on back to the drive-in era when this type of thing was being released.