2023’s Frogman is about a young man returning to the hometown he left behind in order to confront the amphibious nightmare that haunts the local landscape. It’s fitting, then, that the sequel lets the big-eyed beast that drew him home take a stab at returning as well.
Frogman Returns – see, it’s right there in the title! – is a hop up from its predecessor in nearly every way as it treads initially familiar ground before jumping into something significantly weirder.
Dallas’ (Nathan Tymoshuk) documentary struck a chord with folks who believe it proves the existence of monsters in general and Frogman in particular, but the notoriety wears off quickly and leaves him with a hosting gig on a second-rate “monster hunter” show called Chasing Cryptids. His concern for an old friend sees him take a detour from their current episode to revisit Loveland, Ohio – this time with better cameras and a professional producer – and he soon finds himself digging even deeper into the perverse legend that is Frogman. Last time he discovered a cult of frog fuckers. This time he finds something even more mind-blowing.
Micro-budgeted horror films don’t often get sequels, and when they do, they’re typically more of the same. Director/co-writer Anthony Cousins wisely avoids that default by delivering a bigger, better, weirder follow-up with Frogman Returns. It’s still genre fare on a tiny budget, but the drama, thrills, and world-building are all turned up a few notches to deliver a fun ride into and beyond the world of found footage cryptid horrors.
The first film ended with the core trio – Dallas, Amy (Chelsea Grant), and Scotty (Benny Barrett) – disbanded through trauma. Poor Scotty was last seen having been turned into a Temu frogman, Amy left for a hopeful acting career in Los Angeles, and Dallas is left riding the coat tails of both low-key fame and overwhelming guilt over Scotty’s fate.
The follow-up ratchets up the character drama as Amy’s anger towards Dallas bristles up against newcomer Lucy’s (Natalie Tran) affection and curiosity for Dallas’ world. Add in the producer, Bridget (Alexis Allotta), who couldn’t care less about any of this beyond the ratings it can provide, and it’s clear that Cousins has developed a much stronger character element this time around.
The cast does good work with the script, once again co-written by Cousins and John Karsko) and sells the goopy horrors of it all, too. Well, aside from the running: people in found footage films are all slow, awkward, terrible runners! Tymoshuk delivers an effective dramatic beat late in the film when he’s reunited with Scotty, and while it’s minor compared to more traditional dramas, it’s still good to see.
Even better, and arguably even more important, the creature side of things gets a major upgrade, too. We’re introduced early on to the Fresno Nightcrawlers, creatures that look like walking pants (a good reminder to go watch Elza Kephart’s Slaxx!) that haunt a local golf course, and references are made to cryptids as diverse as Squonk and Raatma along the way. We get some icky, mutated children of Frogman here and there, and then the film’s final ten minutes go wild with the beasts as all manner of lo-fi creatures make appearances in both practical and digital form.
That mix of approaches to the special effects is especially appealing here. There’s a raw, homemade feel to some of it while other aspects are legitimately impressive, and all of it works to make it feel like you’re right there in the dark with these dedicated weirdos as they hunt for creatures that shouldn’t exist and sicko humans that most assuredly do. From puppets to CG to the always reliable man-in-a-suit that is Frogman – Tom Ringberg is in the suit, but he’s voiced by Sinister screenwriter C. Robert Cargill – it’s a fun peek into cryptid mythologies.
Folks prone to disliking found footage won’t become converts here as the format’s numerous issues are still on display. There’s jerky camerawork on occasion, you’re sometimes left suspicious of what camera is actually capturing certain moments, and you’ll want to slap some of these idiots for filming each other when there’s a goddamn monster just out of frame.
That said, Cousins has upped the visual quality in obvious ways, meaning most of the film looks clear, detailed, and feels much more like a “real” movie. There’s even a brief retreat from found footage at the end, something I will always cheer for (that also reminded me I’m overdue for a rewatch of Zachary Donohue’s under-appreciated horror gem, The Den).
Frogman Returns is a fun ride with a thankfully short running time of under 80 minutes. It’s like a Scooby-Doo episode, but instead of pulling masks off greedy land developers at the end, we’re dropped into a world of amphibious diddlers and inter-dimensional rifts. That alone makes it worth a watch, but that third act turns things up to eleven in unexpected ways. We get a look into something far bigger, and with it comes the tease/promise/cliffhanger for a third film I truly hope we live to see.
Frogman Returns screened at the 2026 Toronto After Dark Film Festival.
