FrightFest review – Frogman/Frogman Returns
In 2023, filmmaker Anthony Cousins put together a found footage film inspired by a) a cryptid supposedly found in the vicinity of Loveland, Ohio, b) the structure and style and themes of The Blair Witch Project and c) extradimensional amphibians and their cult followers as extrapolated from H.P. Lovecraft.
Frogman sticks fairly closely to the BWP template, though its obsessed filmmaker has a more complicated relationship with the legend he’s chasing. On vacation in Loveland, home also of an uninteresting bridge, ten-year old Dallas Kyle (Indiana Arnold) pointed a 1999-vintage cam-corder at a verge during a family argument and captured a few frames of footage which seems to show Frogman lurking. Over twenty years later, the grown-up Dallas (Nathan Tymoshuk) is so incensed by an internet debunking of his clip – which is the Frogman equivalent of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film – by obnoxious Jeremy J (Chris Canfield) that he determines to get follow-up footage. One of the things Jeremy sneers at is the home-made horror film teenage Dallas made with his pals – cameraman Scotty (Benny Barrett) and local actress Amy (Chelsey Grant). As well as clearing his name and getting a boost from Frogman, Dallas wants to recapture the good vibe he had as an amateur filmmaker (he also has a longstanding crush on Amy who hasn’t even invited him to her leaving-for-Los Angeles party). The road trip starts out whimsically, with Amy inventing a country and western persona (Norma Jean Wynette) for her part in the documentary – but Dallas soon gets fed up with his friends’ refusal to take the project (or him) seriously. In Loveland, they find a town which no longer needs to push its bridge as a tourist attraction – a whole store pushes Frogman merch and an official Frogman impersonator lurks in the woods so folk can claim authentic sightings.
Dallas is disgusted by this japery but things get darker after a visit to the guy (Jack Neveaux) who took the original Frogman still photo well before Dallas caught his footage – and it develops that there’s a very Lovecraftian cult worshipping the seldom-seen beast, who is telepathic, has a multipurpose zapping wand and has been interbreeding with mind-controlled women for years. The home stretch takes place in tunnels/caves, with the expected fleeing from horrors, but the personal story pans out unexpectedly … which is where Frogman Returns (2026) picks up. In the fictional universe, Dallas’s Frogman film proves that cryptids exist and the still-glum monster chaser fronts a TV show produced by a hyper-obnoxious hustler (Alexis Allotta) who didn’t bother to watch Frogman and so is insufficiently wary when Dallas pursues Amy – who still has Frogman in her head, and can’t get a call-back because of her appearance in the film – to Loveland, where she has plans of her own. The sequel has a little more money to play with and deviates a little from the BWP formula to draw on Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead pictures, especially in a trip to the plane from which the Frogman and other monsters like the Fresno Nightcrawler (which resembles a pair of pantaloons made out of worms) come. The sequel pays off a lot of strands from the first film – though Jeremy J is overdue for a comeuppance, possibly in Frogman III – and shows a little more of the monsters, who have a bit of a Dr Who look to go with their HPL aspects.
An issue with the series is that Tymoshuk’s Dallas is believably screwed up by his childhood experience and later disappointments, but that makes him a less engaging lead than, say, a non-real country and western chick. Secondary characters have to be peppier and more fun than the protagonist to prevent the saga from turning into a ‘poor me’ miseryfest.
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