#59: Hell Comes to Frogtown

Release Date: January 29th, 1988

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Randall Frakes and Donald G. Jackson

Directed by: Donald G. Jackson

3 Stars

D and I were sitting at The Fourth Horseman, sharing a beer and eating a couple slices, when a movie came on their TV screens. There was no audio (they had death metal playing) but the movie was definitely an ‘80s B-movie, definitely a Mad Max ripoff, and definitely had Rowdy Roddy Piper. I had never seen it, but I had to know.

Turns out it was Hell Comes to Frogtown.

We watched the first 30 minutes or so, and I finished it up on Tubi today. What a movie. It is indeed a Mad Max ripoff, with a little Star Wars and Terminator thievery as well. It’s a really fun movie because it knows exactly what it is and mostly achieves what it sets out to do. 

And what is Hell Comes to Frogtown? It’s a futuristic, post-apocalyptic tale in which humans are rendered sterile and a race of menacing frog people have risen to take over earth. The human government has a department dedicated to finding the few fertile men remaining on earth, and Rowdy Roddy Piper’s character, Sam Hell, is identified and apprehended to go on a mission to rescue and then impregnate a harem of women held captive in Frogtown, a city filled with mutant frog people. 

Sounds ridiculous? It is.

Escorting Hell across the desert to Frogtown are Nurse Spangle and Corporal Centinella. Their no-nonsense, professional demeanor lasts all of 15 minutes in the movie before they both get naked and try to sleep with Hell during the first night of their journey. The script at this point is teetering on the brink of ‘80s porn. Pretty fun, but it gets better. 

It’s in the second act that they get to Frogtown, and here the movie comes into its own. There is some incredible frog costuming, hilarious voice acting, campy erotic dancing, and hammy action sequences. Nurse Spangle and Corporal Centinella join Hell in the kicking of some frog ass, and for a movie about women (including a female frog mutant) trying to get into Rowdy Roddy Piper’s pants, it weirdly ends up being both a sex-positive and female-empowering movie.    

But subtext and moral messaging is not the point here. Hell Comes to Frogtown is a B-movie through and through. Grab a beer and some pizza and sit back to watch some froggies eat lead!