FROGS

US, 1972, 88 minutes, Colour.
Ray Milland, Sam Elliot.
Directed by George Mc Cowan.

Frogs looks like American- International jumping onto the bandwagon of contemporary horror and its preoccupation with animals - Willard and Rats, Stanley, Night of the Lepus, etc. A.I.P. also pay tribute to their perception that ecological campaigners are admired and that conservation is important and right.

What emerges, however, is not just another horror picture where the tycoon polluters of the plant and animal world get their gory and just comeuppance from the creepy and crawly company of snails, eels, spiders, leeches, lizards, crabs, crocodiles and frogs, but a good little film of horror and ecology. It has the audience consistently laughing and shuddering. Set on July 4th - nature's Independence Day - it is a discussable horror film and enjoyable.

1. Did you enjoy this horror-science-fiction? Why?

2. Was the science-fiction aspect plausible enough or was it exaggerated and far-fetched? Did it help that the film did not employ trick photography or monsters, but rather used ordinary frogs and animals and skilful photography and close-ups etc.?

3. Was the pollution setting authentically presented or did it seem contrived for the horror aspects? How was the whole film a small parable or sermon on industrialism and pollution?

4. Were the family relationships well established or were the characters mere types? Did the hero fit authentically into this setting? What comment on America, arrogance, industry, did these people make? The film was set on the 4th July, what comment did this make?

5. Were the deaths well-filmed as horror, as revenge by nature on people - especially the death of the master by the frogs? Were the deaths too cruel?

6. How eerie was the ending, a kind of end of the world? What warning did this contain?

7. Do such horror films, with science-fiction background based on contemporary problems, have an impact on audiences? Why?