Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

terrible... so disappointed.

One of my all time favorites.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

After a nuclear war has decimated the world creating mutants resembling frogs and left a large percentage of women and all but one man sterile, an organization known as "Med Tech" decides to capture that one specific man named "Sam Hell" (Roddy Piper) who is a criminal operating in the badlands. When they capture him they force him to sign a contract which requires him to travel to "Frogtown" and help rescue several fertile young women who have been taken hostage by the mutant leader known as "Commander Toty" (Brian Frank). Another part of his contract stipulates that once these females are rescued he is required to impregnate them. And to prevent his escape he has a device filled with plastic explosive attached to his groin area. Likewise, escorting him are two soldiers for Med Tech named "Spangle" (Sandahl Bergman) and "Centinella" (Cec Verrell). At any rate, rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that, even though this movie was built around a rather preposterous premise, if a person can make certain allowances then they might manage to obtain some enjoyment from it all the same. On that note I dare say that a person hasn't really lived until they have seen "the dance of the three snakes". Be that as it may I rate this movie as about average.

Hell comes to Frogtown is a film that follows one of the last virile men on Earth as he tries to impregnate as many women as he can in post-apocalyptic wastelands filled with dangerous characters, not least of which are the human sized frog-people that have evolved since the nuclear wars…• Hell comes to Frogtown is not a comic book. • Hell comes to Frogtown is not a cartoon. • Hell comes to Frogtown is not porn. • Hell comes to Frogtown is a real movie. Made in the 80s and starring a recently deceased professional wrestler of Canadian descent who wore a kilt in his fights.By now you are either in. Or so far out that your mouse is frantically moving toward the 'Back' button.Rowdy Roddy Piper is the only 'name' in this cast of non-actors, his Sam Hell is identified early as being an anomaly in this largely impotent future, where virile men are as rare as a Bruce Willis afro and child bearing women are as famous and revered as Oprah.Sam Hell is indeed that much coveted 'young, dumb and full of…' ideas about how to help humanity. So he and two female government operatives, one actually reasonably attractive and the other supposedly attractive head into the wasteland in a big bright pink car to get to impregnatin'.Couple of hitches: Hell can't just be spreading his seed willy-nilly (so to speak), so he has a large metal codpiece wired to give either an electric shock or a mini explosion to his nethers, triggered by the gals if he gets out of line. The other hitch is that apparently the maternal instinct of women has been sent into overdrive in a kind of 'want what you can't have' way, and everyone that meets Hell is ready for luvin'.Once the trio get to the titular Frogtown we learn that yes indeedy it is populated by real live giant frog-people who are ruled by the vile and corrupt Toady. The frog-people are just what you would expect from a low budget 80s movie named Hell comes to Frogtown, they have froggy heads and froggy hands with everything else human and the lips usually don't even nearly sync with the dialogue delivered.The sliminess is well captured though. Good job I guess…For a movie with fertilization as a central theme there isn't too much horizontal action going on, not even froggy style, and even when Hell finally saves his harem of delectable females all dressed in skimpy undergarments the nudity factor is kept pretty low, with the actresses playing the women all sporting the same 'I left Arizona to be a big Hollywood star for this!' look on their faces.Perhaps the funniest thing about a film called Hell comes to Frogtown is that despite all I have written above they play it all pretty straight. There is no winking at the camera, no gonzo sound effects and no sly nods to Mssr Piper's former wrestling career. This really is a film about a man who needs to save women from frog creatures so that he can bone them…Final Rating – 5 / 10. Sure this is just a '5' movie, but it's the only '1 man in a desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland trying to impregnate as many women as possible while surrounded by mutant frogs' film you'll see this week.Surely that counts for something?

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).

I was first introduced to this movie by my dad after watching They Live. He told me that Hell Comes to Frogtown was another good Piper movie. Boy was he right! This movie had magic to it. I mean, any dude would love to have the task of trying to impregnate fertile women in order to re-populate humankind right? Hot Rod was great in his role as Sam Hell. It was entertaining with good humor and when the fighting occurs, it pays things off nicely. Well written script makes for a fun b-movie. To quote Roddy Piper in what was his final Piper's Pit in 1987 (of course he'd be back in 89): "When I was well I was hell man." He sure did well as Sam Hell in this one!