Tue 8 May 2012
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN (1988).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , SF & Fantasy films[4] Comments
HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN. New World Pictures, 1988. Julius LeFlore, RCB, Roddy Piper, William Smith, Sandahl Bergman, Kristi Somers, Rory Calhoun, Cliff Bemis. Directors: Donald G. Jackson & R. J. Kizer.
[After watching those early Rory Calhoun action westerns], small wonder that I broke down and shelled out the $10 necessary to own my own copy of Donald G. Jackson’s 1988 cult classic Hell Comes to Frogtown.
The World really needed a post-apocalypse movie with a sense of humor and this is it, a clever, relentlessly trivial thing about the end of Life as We Know It and What Happens Next.
Writer/Director Jackson manages to avoid most of the cliches inherent in the concept of a Future Society Ruled by Women, gets surprisingly not-awful performances from Sandahl Bergman and pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, and even manages to evoke a lot of sympathy for a washed-up amphibian chanteuse played, I think, by Shirley Maclaine in heavy makeup and an unbilled cameo.
Rory Calhoun, needless to say, is just fine as a garrulous old prospector named “Looney” Tunes, and one of the fight scenes between Piper and a six-foot talking toad brought down the House (such as it was) when Piper called his warty opponent a “horny bastard.” Priceless.
Editorial Comments: The trailer for this film can be seen here on YouTube. For a scene entitled “The Dance of the Three Snakes,” go here.
May 8th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Roddy Piper got some nice reviews for his acting, especially for John Carpenter’s THEY LIVE. It is a surprise when someone in a profession as reality based as pro wrestling can actually act.
May 9th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Sometimes a trailer can tell you all you need to know about a movie, and I thought that was the case for this one. Until, that is, I watched that other clip from the film.
I don’t know if I’d pay $10 for the DVD, as Dan, you did, but if it showed up at a library sale, for example, for something less than that, I’d grab it in an instant.
May 9th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
PS
Dan, you may have been mistaken about Shirley MacLaine being in this movie. Either that, or you have discovered something IMDB doesn’t know about. (Could be!)
Shirley MacLaine, by the way, is remarkable. She is 78 and according to that same IMDB page of hers, she has seven projects either being filmed, in production or pre-production, or rumored.
May 9th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Mystery goes Mickey Mouse .
The Doc