Hell Comes to Frogtown is set in a future world which has been all but destroyed in the wake of a nuclear war, the earth is now a barren wasteland populated by a few humans & mutant Frog men. Lone wanderer Sam Hellman (Roddy Piper) is recruited by a company called MedTech, as one of the few fertile men left on Earth his potency is vital in order to repopulate the planet, unfortunately there are few fertile women left either & several such ladies have been kidnapped by mutant Frog man Commander Toty (Brian Frank) who intends to hold them to ransom. Sam finds himself forced to undertake a mission to rescue the women from the grasp of Commander Toty in Frogtown located right in the mutant reservation, MedTech places Sam in an explosive chastity belt then will blow up if he tries to remove it or stray a few hundred yards from MedTech employee Spangle (Sandhal Bergman) who is taking control of the mission, a dangerous mission vital to the continuation of the human species…
Directed by Donald G. Jackson & R.J. Kizer this desperately wants to be a cult film & almost makes it but just falls a little short, for a film with a title such as Hell Comes to Frogtown it isn’t nearly as schlocky or exploitative or funny enough. Personally I’d have liked to have seen something resembling a cross between Mad Max 2 (1981) with it’s amazing post apocalyptic set action scenes & the mutant creature aspect of Planet of the Apes (1968) but Hell Comes to Frogtown plays more like a silly sex comedy set at a desert & an old warehouse than anything else. Certainly the science fiction elements of the script are largely ignored beyond there are a few mutant Frogs running around & the action scenes are very low key & amount to little more than one explosion, a couple of brief shoot-outs & a couple of fist fights. Where Hell Comes to Frogtown really scores points is in it’s light hearted & likable approach, there are numerous amusing one-liners & the sheer outrageousness of it’s plot with exploding chastity belts, mutant Frog men, Frog strippers, Roddy Piper as one of the few fertile men on Earth, pink Morris Minor vans with machine guns on top of the roof & a great scene in which an evil mutant Frog man interrogates & tortures a tied up Roddy Piper with a chainsaw is worth at least the price of a rental all day long. At a shade over eighty minutes long you would think Hell Comes to Frogtwon would move like a rocket but alas that is not the case, while it’s not exactly boring or slow the pace is a little sluggish & the simplistic & repetitive plot doesn’t help, the gags about Roddy Piper & his sexual powers & fertility grow old & while amusing aren’t exactly laugh out loud hilarious. I maybe expected a bit more action, a little bit more exploitation, a little bit more gross out humour & horror & gore, a little bit more outrageousness to go with the camp title & pink battle van & a little bit more inventiveness with the whole situation & set-up but then again maybe I was hoping for too much. Sure Hell Comes to Frogtown has some unforgettable moments & is a fun ride while it lasts but it’s not as great as it could have been.
Surprisingly quite well shot & put together Hell Comes to Frogtown as good production values & it looks as if some money was spent on it. The Frog mutant special make-up effects are pretty good, despite the odd stiff movement the mask’s look great. Short on action & gore I wished the makers had upped the exploitation levels a bit but there’s nothing they can do about it now. There’s a little nudity, again not as much as maybe one might expect or hope for but it’s better than nothing. There’s a nice little homage to the twist ending of Planet of the Apes at the very start here which most sci-fi fans will pick up on straight away. Although Hell Comes to Frogtown went straight to video in the US it was intended for a wide theatrical release before production company New World Pictires went bankrupt.
Filmed in California this is a nice enough looking film. The acting is alright, Roddy Piper has a few amusing one-liners but is mostly quite flat while Sandhal Bergman does OK as the love interest who warms to Piper as the film progresses.
Hell Comes to Frogtown as a great title & is a well made, fun little post apocalyptic action film that somehow manages to just miss the mark, light on actual action & gore & nudity the silliness of it all keeps you watching but by the time the end credits rolled I felt a bit underwhelmed. Followed by three obscure sequels, Frogtown II (1992), Toad Warrior (1996) & Max Hell Frog Warrior (2002).
