Apocalisse a Frogtown - La città delle rane

Just saw this one last night. Very goofy. After nuclear war, most people are either dead or sterile. Roddy Piper (Sam Hell) is Shanghai'd by the new govt to go around impregnating those women who are still fertile. They slap a male chastity belt on him and tell him "it's government equipment now." There's also some psycho army guy who's really cheesed that women are in charge of so many things now. (This was made in 1987. I checked, because this guy seemed to belong in 1887.) The army women drive around in cars painted Mary Kay pink.

Then they have to go rescue a bunch of fertile women who are being held prisoner in Frogtown. By frogs. Seriously. A bunch of people in frog masks/gloves run the place. Apparently, frogmen arose instantly as a result of radiation. (May I remind you... 1987. Hello???!?!) Anyway, the head frog is called Toady. Really.

There's bad acting and cheesy sets galore. I have no idea why this is rated R. (Oh, 1987.) They talk about impregnating women/sex a lot, but we see a total of 2 breasts for about 2 seconds. There are also a few scantily-clad, but completely-covered bimbo scenes. I get the feeling that they originally intended this to be a late-night-cine max kind of thing, then just went for campy comedy instead. As a female, this decision is not disappointing to me, but male viewers may feel cheated. :)

According to Netflix, this film "spawned two sequels." Why?? Did this actually make money???? Well, it looks like it was shot in Agua Dulce for about $10,000 so maybe it did. Was this a straight to video, or did it have a theatrical run? Anyone know?

I rented this video many years ago, and enjoyed it enough to spend several years hunting down another copy I could buy for my own collection. The video is a great sendup of all the post-apocalyptic Road-Warrior-ripoff movies of the 70s and 80s. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but is written, directed, and acted well enough to be thoroughly enjoyable. Some of the scenes are hilarious. The interplay between Roddy Piper and Sandahl Bergman is worth watching as well. If you like B-movies, this one is a keeper.

I love bad films. This film is horrible. Fiendishly so. You get drawn in. It sucks up your will to stop watching. You sit there absolutely positive that you won't get more horrified. But heck it's got Rowdy Roddy Piper in it as the main star. That has to tell you something, though for the life of me I can't tell what. Please avert your eyes as our hero, Sam Hell(Rowdy), gets, for lack of a better word, seduced by every female in the post-apocalyptic world including a mutant frog woman. It's scary...I screamed in terror. And don't even get me started on the dance of the three snakes...I'll never look at a frog the same way again.

"Hell Comes to Frogtown" is an irresistible serving of 1980s cheese, a deliberately goofy send-up of the whole post-nuke action genre. It's engagingly silly from start to finish, with some choice bits of dialogue and fun performances. It offers more entertainment than a lot of mega buck Hollywood movies, beginning with its casting of wrestling star "Rowdy" Roddy Piper in his first starring role.

Piper stars as Sam Hell, a scavenger & drifter in a future wasteland who is discovered to be an incredible stud. This makes him extremely valuable because the world is in very short supply of fertile males, so the government lays claim to him, and sends him on a mission to rescue and impregnate a group of fertile females that have been kidnapped by humanoid frogs otherwise known as "Greeners". He does this in the company of uptight but sexy Spangle (Sandahl Bergman) and gung ho soldier Centinella (Cec Verrell), and does battle with villains such as Commander Toty (Brian Frank) and Bull (Nicholas Worth).

The filmmakers have a good time with their casting choices, including the legendary William Smith (one of Bergmans' fellow cast members in "Conan the Barbarian") as the thuggish Captain Devlin, the highly amusing Rory Calhoun as grizzled old miner Looney Tunes, and Kristi Somers as helpful Greener Arabella. Roddy is charismatic and terrific as our jovial hero, and has some decent odd-couple chemistry with Bergman. Verrell regularly steals her scenes.

Effective lighting, by Enrico Picard and co-story author / producer / co-director Donald G. Jackson, and good production design by Dins Danielsen help to create just the right futuristic look. Verrell supplies some eye candy by removing her top. The frog masks designed by Steve Wang are most impressive. And there are enough laughs to make this pleasant viewing.

Followed by the sequel "Frogtown II" (with Robert Z'Dar as Sam Hell).

Seven out of 10.

"Hell Comes to Frogtown" seems to have many of the necessary ingredients to become a genuine cult classic, but the execution is uninspired and the film is not NEARLY as much schlocky fun as it could have been. The main problem is the pacing, which is, in a word, deadening: there are long stretches of nothing happening. In a movie like this, the No 1 thing you want to see is "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Sandahl Bergman kick a lot of mutant frog butt. They do, but to a much lesser degree than you might expect (even after Piper enters a room holding two shotguns and yells "Eat lead, froggies!"). It doesn't help that large portions of the film seem to have been filmed in a small, dusty warehouse. But Piper is likable enough, Sandahl Bergman and Cec Verrell are 2 strong & sexy women, and the "frog effects" are acceptable, so I'm giving this a higher rating than it probably deserves: ** out of 4 stars.