cult film freak: FORGOTTEN RIBBITING CULT OF 'HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN'

Cec Verrell in HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN Year: 1988 Rating: ****

Insanely gorgeous Cec Verrell doing a RAT PATROL imitation with a mounted gun on a desert-roaming vehicle in a picture obviously made to be a cult film, which in itself goes against the term of something that gains a following later: But HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN has all the right elements taking its own post-apocalyptic future very seriously, including the titular town filmed in a giant steel mill where most of the story takes place...

By that time Verrell's gunner-moll Centinella is off-screen and it's all up to Roddy Piper, who made THEY LIVE under John Carpenter the very same year, and CONAN THE BARBARIAN starlet Sandahl Bergman, ultimately forced to do "the dance of the three snakes," perfectly befitting an actress who started out a dancer...

Roddy Piper Hell Comes to Frogtown with Cec Verrell, Danelle Hand and Sandahl Bergman

And although not as visually stunning as Verrell or even Danelle Hand as one of several "Passives" kidnapped by a reptilian overlord within the villainous cantina/warehouse, Bergman steals the show with a sympathetic aura, falling in love with Piper's semi-title character Sam Hell, who, kind of like Don Johnson a decade earlier in A BOY AND HIS DOG, is geared-up to impregnate women in order to multiply more humans that aren't formidable froggies... or "Greenies" as they're called...

The problem relies on who the good guys are fighting as most of these frogs aren't completely bad, compared at one point to Native Americans, and Frogtown is basically their reservation, so big bad human William Smith as a border patrol agent almost fits that bill more, while most of the film relies on the male fantasy aspect of being able to have sex with gorgeous babes without responsibility or complications...

William Smith in HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN

In that, Piper does a surprisingly deep and thoughtful job of acting in this futuristic Western of sorts (veteran cowboy Rory Calhoun plays his maverick mentor), seeming put off by this particular gig, especially having to submit to commanding females, and, unlike his Nada character in THEY LIVE, he's not much of an ass kicker other than an 11th hour bravado-filled "Eat led, Froggies" that's obviously no match to the famous "out of bubblegum" line in the Carpenter classic, which made FROGTOWN pretty much forgotten in the late Roddy Piper's cinematic legacy...

But one thing's for certain: The special effects/animatronics of the creatures is downright awesome, obviously inspired by the original PLANET OF THE APES. Making this sparse, simple and completely entertaining howler an experience worth watching, and loving, warts and all.