When we reviewed Anthony Cousins’ feature debut, Frogman, in 2023, we wrote, “Frogman isn’t afraid to acknowledge how silly its premise is, while also crafting some gnarly body horror that’ll leave your jaw on the floor.” With a title like Frogman, the movie was never going to be found footage in the vein of Noroi: The Curse or The Blair Witch Project. Cousins was attuned to his conceit’s innate silliness, and he’s leaned in hard with his sequel, Frogman Returns. This second trip to a cryptid’s paradise is wonderfully, goofily better than the first. Frogman returns, and he absolutely slays.
I’m never one to critique a movie on what I wish it were. That’s unfair and anti-art. Still, there was a little tadpole inside me beaming that Cousins took this franchise in the direction he did. While the early beats suggest Frogman 2.0, more shaky-cam found footage shenanigans, Cousins injects a wildly energetic meta-twist. In the Frogman universe, the original Frogman exists. Thus, it’s confirmed to the world that cryptids do, in fact, exist, and it’s thrown everyone into a tizzy.
Alexis Allotta’s Bridget Sauer has returning cast member Dallas Kyle (Nathan Tymoshuk) on the payroll for a new show about cryptids across the country. He’s game, but still obviously reeling from his previous encounter with the magic wand-wielding Frogman. He hasn’t heard from Amy (Chelsey Grant) since the events of the first movie, and he’s innately conflicted over the burgeoning cyrtid zeitgeist when the titular one turned his best friend into a, well… frog.
Of course, it’s not long before Dallas and a skeleton crew are en route to Loveland, Ohio, to find Amy and encounter the Frogman once again. It’s time to finish what the Frogman started and all that lily-frog jazz. And it’s fantastic. While the original film was plenty silly, it still culled considerable tension from its limited POV and foggy Ohioan bogs. The sequel, conversely, is as outrageous as possible. There’s plenty of gore (luckily, all practical), though I’m wary to share just how insane the movie becomes. In lesser hands, the out-of-pocket shift to dimensional horror (all I’ll say) would fall flat, but Cousins and company are so supremely in-tune with the material, I never stopped smiling.
It doesn’t hurt that the movie, despite its gore quotient, is really cute. In a year of Project Hail Mary and The Barn: Part III (another Panic Fest premiere), I’m confident this is the year of the genre lil’ guy. Frogman Returns has so many lil’ guys, it’s like Viva Piñata for cryptids. I wanted to take them all (and if anyone has a lead on the Fresno Nightcrawler, call me).
I’m confident Anthony Cousins really met Frogman and stole his wand. That’s the only way to explain just how remarkable Frogman Returns is. Magic. Or, just a profoundly confident filmmaker with the technical know-how and a game cast of players who made magic on their own. Yeah, you know what– I’m going to go with that. You’ll love being back in Loveland, and you’ll love Frogman Returns.
Frogman Returns premiered at this year’s Panic Fest Film Festival.
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