[yasr_overall_rating]
A single mother and her shy son move in with her estranged hermit father in the backwoods of a small town. Soon, they learn of deadly mutations that threaten to spread from animals to humans.
Come for the frogs, stay for the horror. The synopsis doesn’t do much to sell this movie. A small town, deformed frogs, a young mother returning home, a corrupt chemical company. All disparate elements stitched together in a mish-mash fabric that is “Strange Nature.” While the movie takes some time to ramp up, when it finally hits its stride, you forget it’s intending to be both educationally informative and similarly disgusting.
The first half of the movie serves a purpose to set up what really pays off so well in its latter half. Lisa Sheridan plays the mother of young Brody (Jonah Beres) as they move home to Duluth, Minnesota, to take care of their ailing father in his backwoods home. Initially, the first thirty minutes play like the introduction of a low-quality family drama set in the backwoods of America. We’re greeted with images of Duluth’s greenery over an alt-rock band we’ve never heard of rocking out. It’s small-town America. Luckily, James Ojala (writer and director) uses the elements of a small town to draw his story to an exciting conclusion. There’s always an outcast family, a mean redneck family (or two), some murders building on the outskirts of town, add in some ecological intrigue, shake, and watch the town explode. As far as plotting goes there is intentionality in this film which does build after the beginning and quickly picks up. You see where the movie is going, but that doesn’t stop it from building some sense of tension.
The movie’s top qualities are its grotesqueries. Let me start by saying: frogs are only the beginning. What feels like a lot of wasted time on deformed frogs pays off when deformities begin to form everywhere. Somehow, director James Ojala snuck a gross-out horror movie into an “ecological thriller.” In the last half of the movie, we’re rewarded with a deformed puppy, an evil two-headed wolf, and a malformed baby. Puss oozes, lungs wheeze, and skin sloughs off arms and legs as the town slowly goes mad. In order to appreciate the terror, you have to sit through the early setup.
While shot in a rich background of actual Duluth, the production design fails to stand out. I imagine the first half of the film is resultant from a budget crisis and the latter half is where they spent their money. Make-up effects shine in sequences of gross murder. Lisa Sheridan carries the film with Jonah Beres as they delve deeper into this mystery. A surprise cameo from Stephen Tobolowsky elevates the acting in some scenes where Sheridan has someone to really play with. The two bring out the best in each other.
By the technical definition, this movie falls along ‘cult classic’ standards. One relatively known actor used as a selling point for a movie with relatively no known actors. A budget spent so unevenly in the early parts of the movie have to suffer for it, but once you get to the shock and awe section, you’re rewarded for your patience. I imagine this will make it to Netflix without so much as a whisper and yet someone will discover it. I recommend fans of cult movies (with slow burns up to an ‘explosive’ finale) check this one out. You’ll learn about the life cycle of invasive parasites while simultaneously watching a crazed redneck try to murder a mutated baby.
Now playing in select theaters
