As the purported intellectual leaders of this planet, humans are responsible for maintaining its health and general well being. Like it or not, we're not doing a very good job. We pollute the air, contaminate the water, and spread poisons across the land to kill anything regarded as a pest. Needless to say, we've gone too far, and nature's primed to mount an assault to take back what's theirs. It all begins in a small lake, where thousands of irate frogs are out for blood.

Meet the Crocketts. An American family made filthy rich through the successes, and excesses of industry. Once a year they gather at grandfather's (Ray Milland) private island to spend a week celebrating birthdays and the 4th of July. However, this year things aren't going as planned. After being nearly run over by Clint Crockett's (Adam Roarke) speedboat, a young nature photographer named Pickett Smith (western icon Sam Elliot) decides to regroup at the mansion. Soon the elder Crockett sends Smith out to find his missing worker Grover. Unsurprisingly, Pickett finds him face down in a puddle, dead and covered with snakes. It soon becomes clear that animals all over the island are acting strangely. One by one the Crocketts get singled out.

By now you're probably wondering how a frog manages to kill someone. Actually, they don't. It seems they're the brains of the operation. It's the snakes, lizards, spiders, and every other alleged scary creature they could borrow from the local zoo that does the dirty work. Like generals commanding their troops, the frogs are always keeping an eye on the humans and making sure the attackers are positioned and ready.

Yes, I know it's still a bit difficult to understand how some of these creatures can hunt down a human, but they take full advantage of any opportunity. For example, a rather clever group of lizards exact their revenge by knocking over jars, comically labeled "poison," and creating a toxic cloud. Even more outlandish is that another family member accidentally shoots himself, with a shotgun, right under a tree full of angry web-throwing spiders. Now that was convenient.

That setup, and the spider attack that follows, are classic moments in schlock cinema. Just don't expect an arachnid killing to rival Fulci's brutality in The Beyond. The film's PG rating keeps the amount of gore to a minimum. As a result, the violence in Frogs is quite subdued and tends to be rather abstract. That said, there are some bloody moments, in particular a scene involving leeches, but that's the exception rather than the norm.

Director George McCowan uses every trick he can muster in a failed attempt to build tension. The most obvious of which are the excessive close-ups of animals doing absolutely nothing. You'll see so many shots of various uninterested creatures that you'll start to wonder if you're watching Animal Planet. We also have a few scenes of ridiculously obvious foreshadowing, like kids coloring pictures of frogs, or long shots of frog statues outside. A scene where a bunch of frogs jump onto an American flag cake is symbolism at it's most poetic. Okay, maybe not. But it's sure worth a good laugh.

A young Sam Elliot plays it straight and delivers an admirable performance considering the lacking script he's working with. The rest of the cast doesn't exactly rise to the challenge. Academy Award winner Ray Milland (Best Actor, The Lost Weekend, 1945) is clearly in cruise control, with a particularly wooden portrayal of the wheelchair bound Jason Crockett. Joan Van Ark (Days of Our Lives), playing Karen Crockett in her film debut, manages to look pretty but her soap opera acting style fails to inspire. Still, in a movie like this, the bad acting just amplifies the fun.

This MGM DVD is a pretty bare bones presentation, with the only real extra being the fantastic theatrical trailer. Sound, in both English and Spanish, is mono. Also included are French and Spanish subtitles. The picture is presented in both Widescreen and Fullscreen formats, on a double sided disc. The image is mostly clear, sharp, and free of artifacts. There are a couple of scenes that looked particularly washed out, but it's not common enough to be a problem.

Frogs falls right in line with the hordes of other "nature strikes back" horror films. Even at their most ridiculous, I find many of these movies endlessly entertaining. Watching grown people act terrified when face to face with a creature that simply isn't scary, never ceases to be fun. That alone makes Frogs recommended viewing.