October Movie Challenge Installment 3

Only got one movie watched yesterday because I was typing up stuff like this.  Probably won't get much watched tonight, either, but at least Sons of Anarchy is coming on, which you should go watch instead of reading this.

Frogs (C, 1972)  Eco-horror classic of the nature-in-revolt school.  Environmentalist journalist Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott, so young you can't recognize him) is out taking pictures of pollution when his canoe is swamped by rich brat Bradford Dillman, grandson of wheelchair-bound tycoon Ray Milland.  Milland's industrial pursuits have been raping the environment and the denizens of the swamp want revenge.  It's hard to make much of a "silent spring" case for this toxic swamp, though, because the frogs, snakes, and lizards are thriving and swarming everywhere.  And then they start attacking.  The drawback is most of the swamp creatures aren't actually all that dangerous so the killings are ludicrous;  in one, a guy's smothered in Spanish moss and tarantulas (which aren't even indigenous, much less venomous), and lizards learn how to mix chemicals to make poison gas in another!   And the frogs themselves don’t get to do much but spoil the 4th of July birthday cake.  Even the butterflies are killers, leading people to their doom.  Leeches, caymans, alligators, snakes, crabs, snapping turtles, and I guess fish (one guy’s attacked in a lake by something unseen) all do their best to make the humans miserable.  This is a pretty ridiculous movie but there’s something really lovable about it.  There’s plenty of atmosphere (lots of shots of the wildlife, and the animal sounds are constant), and no matter how ridiculous it gets it plays it straight.  The music score is weird and adds a lot.  Goofy as it is, I’ve probably seen it a dozen times.