Frogman is a 2023 Found Footage Horror movie directed by Anthony Cousins.
When he was 10 years old, Dallas made a supposed real recording of the cryptid Loveland Frogman that became famous. Now an adult pushing 30 and living a dead end life, he decides to return to Loveland, trying to make one more movie about the topic to salvage his reputation.
The movie got distributed by Shudder.
Tropes
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Dallas confesses his love to Amy as they're trying to escape Frogman's lair after Scotty's transformation. Deconstructed, as she predictably doesn't respond well to it at all and after the whole nightmare is over she cuts off all contact with him, for more reason than one.
- Berserk Button: Any insinuation that Frogman or his childhood video isn't real irritates Dallas . Any failure to take his filming seriously angers him even worse.
- Bittersweet Ending: Dallas gets the proof he was looking for, at the cost of Scotty being turned into a monster, Amy being traumatized for life and cutting him out of her life, and George Hale and his granddaughter probably dying. The ending leaves it unclear whether it was really worth it to him.
- Body Horror: The Frogman's mutating of humans into man-frog things, with features such as malformed eyes and throats that bloat like a frogs. It sounds funny, but it's really not.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The tourist shop owner and the hotel manager. The former is behind the hoaxes. The latter is leader of the cult.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Frogman is actually a horrific and inexplicable Eldritch Abomination worshiped by a cult that sacrifices women to it in exchange for being altered into it's inhuman servants. In a lot of ways, the film is basically an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth but with frogs instead of fish.
- Cult: One dedicated to Frogman is mentioned a few times as a rumored part of the legend around him. Said cult is just as real as Frogman himself and is a small cadre of people who sacrifice women to Frogman as "brides" for the monster in exchange for his boons.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: The Frogman cult is led by a sweet old lady who runs a hotel in Loveland.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: Frogman uses the "brides" given to him by the cult as incubators for his young.
- Found Footage Films: The movie is framed as the footage compiled from Dallas, Scotty, and Amy's documentary filming.
- Frog Men: Obviously, the film features the famous Loveland Frogman. He is depicted as a humanoid frog who may or may not be more of an Eldritch Abomination taking the form of a frog man than anything and possesses some kind of psychic powers. It also carries the signature wand featured in the real life sightings.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Anyone "blessed" with Frogman's apparently mutagenic goo is slowly and gruesomely altered into something like a frog-human hybrid that serves as Frogman's mooks.
- Heel–Face Turn: George Hale is heavily implied to have been a member of the cult who grew disillusioned with feeding innocent women to the Frogman, especially after his beloved granddaughter was selected as the most recent sacrifice. He ends up interrupting the sacrifice and opening fire on the cultists with his shotgun, followed by helping the film crew escape.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Dallas kills Frogman with the monster's own wand.
- Humanoid Abomination: What Frogman is depicted as, a horrific eldritch monster that just happens to manifest as a froglike humanoid being and has some kind of terrifying psychic effect on humans, which it uses as incubators for it's young.
- In Memoriam: In-Universe, Dallas includes a "For Scotty" message at the end of his documentary following the latter's transformation into a frog-thing and disappearance. Considering Scotty's fate was a direct result of Dallas' actions, it comes off as being in astonishingly poor taste.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: A messy example. On one hand, Frogman is definitely real and very magic. On the other, there's also a scam being carried out by Loveland's residents to fake sightings for the sake of tourism, something totally unrelated to the real Frogman and his cult. Thus, how much of the strange happenings in Loveland are carried out by the hoaxers and some are real.
- Milking the Monster: What the people of Loveland tend to do with Frogman, to the point of faking sightings to draw in more tourists, though as far as most of them are aware he's just an urban legend. Unfortunately, this makes for a handy front for the Frogman cult to operate under.
- Missing Time: One of the first big supernatural events is when Amy experiences an episode where she simply stands in the forest staring off into the distance, being deeply confused when a worried Dallas and Scotty find her and tell her she's been there for an hour.
- Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: The film revolves around the Loveland Frogman, one of America's more notable cryptids.
- Psychic Powers: Frogman is rumored to possess them, which he uses to influence humans. He's specifically shown using them on women he intends to make his brides.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The ending. Dallas has what he needs to prove Frogman is real and gets revenge on the monster itself. But it costs him both of his best friends, leaving him utterly alone and clearly wondering if it was really worth all the trouble.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Some of the people in Loveland stage Frogman sightings by having people go out in the woods at night in costumes for the sake of feeding into what they presume to be a local urban legend that brings the town good tourist money. Unfortunately for everyone, there's also a very real Frogman, whose cult seems to be taking advantage of the hoax to further obfuscate their existence.
- "Stop Having Fun" Guy: How Dallas acts towards Scotty and Amy for much of the documentary filming, thinking their joking and fun-having is a sign they aren't taking the movie seriously.
- Uncertain Doom: George Hale and his granddaughter are never found, though given what was happening to them when we last see them, it doesn't look good.
