It’s rainin’ frogs, hallelujah it’s rainin’ frogs.
Amen!
I have to say, when it comes to throwing me a curveball, this one fits the bill. I did not expect to see a found footage movie about a froggy man cryptid.
The film fits in with similar films of someone obsessed by something they want to prove and needing evidence to prove it to the world.
It’s interesting that so many found footage movies take this tact, because it speaks volumes of the world today. A world where we can’t trust what we hear or see and demand as much evidence as possible before we believe in something. There is also the need for wider validity. Not just for some people to believe you but for everyone to believe you.
Interesting.
What we have here though, cryptid aside, is another run through the woods affair with some very strong BLAIR WITCH vibes in how the film plays out – interviews that lead to investigation. Still and all, the film garnered some buzz and a lot of fans so let’s take a peek.
The story begins with footage of a family on a trip as the two children capture what appears to be a frog creature in the nearby forest. The boy who was using the videocamera at the time the footage was captured has been obsessed with the footage ever since and now, fully grown, he wants to prove to people that what he saw was real. He has become a laughing stock due to people not believing what he captured and his intention is to take the original camera and a friend to the town where the frogman has been seen and to prove he exists. The two friends are joined by a third, an actress they know, and they head to the town to discover the truth. What they find is that the frogman has become a local icon and tourist draw but doesn’t seem to be real. As the man insists that what he saw was real he takes his friends out to follow one last hunch, one that may be their last.
As I said earlier, there’s a distinct BLAIR WITCH look and feel to things, though this film is lighter and breezier. The interviews with locals are often funny and there’s Do They/Don’t They energy between the man making the frogman documentary and the actress as we learn about their personal history. The chemistry is good between the leads and they all do a nice job in the film.
The camerawork gets into shaky-cam a bit and leans heavily into the nostalgia with the look of an old VHS camcorder. The movie is filmed well enough but, as you can expect, the big reveals are often blurry or low lit.
The big problem I have with the film is that the last act is a HUGE dump of information that comes without explanation or even any sort of hint that this was where things were going. I admit that I took a guess as to where the story would go but they really pull this out of thin air. It almost feels like two films that were stuck together.
The creature is really well done and works great. I really wish the fella had a better story around him though. Things get confusing at the climax and there’s so much information being pumped into things that I was left wondering who some of the people I was seeing were.
It’s entertaining, and definitely different, but I can’t say I’d re-visit it. Froggy seems like a nice enough bloke but he just doesn’t have much to say.
2 out of 5
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 