the plot: Nature photographer Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott) is on assignment in Florida, shooting a feature on how pollution is affecting local wildlife. While canoeing through a placid lake, Smith meets up with Clint Crockett (Roarke) and his sister, Karen (Van Ark). The siblings invite Smith back to their family’s nearby island estate for lunch, where cranky family patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland) asks for Smith’s advice about the sudden, inexplicable boom in the island’s frog population. Smith agrees to investigate and, during a walk around the island, discovers the family’s groundskeeper dead in a swamp, covered with amphibians. Meanwhile, Clint, his wife and the rest of the family drink and argue incessantly, all while Jason Crockett glowers from his wheelchair. As the number of frogs, snakes, gila monsters, alligators, turtles and other lizards and amphibians begin to appear en masse throughout the estate, Smith becomes convinced that industrial pollution is the cause of the invasion. But that knowledge comes too late, as various family members begin to disappear one by one, all seemingly victims of the amphibian invasion. Karen, Smith and Clint come up with a plan to get off the island, but Jason stubbornly remains, pledging that nothing—not even killer frogs—will ruin his Fourth of July celebration. Even getting off the island proves difficult, though, as frogs, alligators and all the rest converge on the remaining family members, hungry for blood.

why it’s good: Frogs aren’t very threatening in real life, and, consequently, they’re not very threatening in “Frogs,” either. Don’t let the poster—which features a giant frog with a severed hand hanging out of its mouth—fool you. Frogs are not responsible for any of the highly ridiculous deaths in “Frogs” and do little more than hop around and croak in a vaguely menacing manner. Instead, spiders, snakes, alligators, lizards and, yes, even some moss, are responsible for all the bloodshed. But I guess “Killer Swamp Ecosystem” is not a very suspenseful title. Inaccurate title aside, “Frogs” is a fairly fun entry into the nature-strikes-back genre of 1970s B-movies. It’s better than, say, “Night of the Lepus” (about giant killer rabbits), though still not very good. The cast is fairly uninteresting, although Sam Elliott is suitably heroic as ecologically-minded photographer Smith, and Ray Milland (a veteran of other AIP productions, including “Panic in Year Zero” and “X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes”) is watchable as the curmudgeonly Jason Crockett. George McCowan isn’t a bad director, either, and for all its faults, “Frogs” has some good nature shots and an occasional element of suspense. But man, frogs—even slightly-bigger-than-average frogs—aren’t even remotely scary, and if the hapless humans in the film weren’t dispatched in increasingly ridiculous ways, “Frogs” would be downright painful to watch. Instead, it’s pretty funny. In one scene, a rogue lizard manages to kill someone by strategically knocking down helpfully labeled bottles of poison. Later on, some moss, a few vines and some tarantulas team up to take down another victim, probably the most compelling evidence presented in a horror movie of the interconnected nature of ecosystems. The science may be shoddy, but at least “Frogs” has the planet’s best interests at heart.

why you should own it: “Frogs” is definitely a renter, and a generous helping of alcohol will only add to your enjoyment of the movie. MGM’s DVD doesn’t have any extras, but make sure you sit through the closing credits—an animated frog slurping on a severed hand makes a cameo appearance.