HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN

Publicity poster for Hell Comes To Frogtown (© Donald G. Jackson/R.J. Kizer/New World Pictures)

On 18 May 2020, I watched my newly-purchased DVD of a classic B-movie sci-fi romp entitled Hell Comes To Frogtown. Directed by Donald G. Jackson and R.J. Kizer, it was originally released in 1988, and what a wonderfully weird movie it proved to be!

As I soon discovered, the Hell in its title is not a place but a person, Sam Hell (played by professional wrestler and sometime actor 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper), who turns out to be a con wanted by the law for all manner of escapades, not least of which is his propensity for procreation on a grand scale - but that actually works in his favour.

This is because the movie is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth in which what remains of its human population is mostly sterile as a result of the massive omnipresent radiation pollution. Fertile women are few, but fertile men with high sperm counts are even fewer. So, what passes for a local government offers Hell a full pardon for all of his varied crimes as long as he will, and with the government's full blessing, become biblical, i.e. go forth and multiply – albeit under the close watch of two non-nonsense female agents, Spangle (a scientist) and Centinella (a military guard escort).

First of all, however, he and they must team up to rescue some fertile (and hence extremely valuable) ladies recently kidnapped by a gang of mutants and taken by them to their domicile, a shanty dubbed Frogtown, because that's what its inhabitants are – radiation-induced humanoid frogs. And that's just the beginning – things soon get a whole lot stranger, and sexier (the Dance of the Three Snakes readily comes to mind – but please don't ask what the Three Snakes are!), hence this movie's salacious reputation.

Yet in my opinion its reputation actually far surpassed its reality, because this movie proved to be surprisingly tame overall, despite having been given a 15 Certificate. Put another way – if its makers truly considered it to be extremely saucy and close to the edge, they had clearly never seen any of Britain's Carry On films or, especially, its Confessions films, that's all I can say! Robin Askwith would certainly have more than risen to the task of showing how a Sam Hell-type character should be portrayed, that's for sure!

Nevertheless, Hell Comes To Frogtown is undeniably an amusing, lighthearted sci-fi parody, reminiscent of the Flesh Gordon take-offs of the original Flash Gordon franchise. It's certainly a fun, undemanding way to pass 83 minutes of movie-watching time, not to mention all of the extras contained on the Special Edition DVD version that I watched (and which may be what raised its overall rating certificate from 15 to 18).

If you have never watched Hell Comes To Frogtown and are wondering what you may have missed, click here to watch a very refined, understated little trailer for it on YouTube, and you'll soon find out!

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

Front cover artwork from my official Hell Comes To Frogtown DVD (© Donald G. Jackson/R.J. Kizer/New World Pictures)