[Film Review] God of Frogs (2026)

When it comes to storytelling mechanics, there is a specific set of skills required to pull off an anthology horror film. Not only do you have to make the film itself work as a whole (meaning as a finished product), but you also need to make every segment of your anthology work on its own while ultimately pulling these separate strings together into the overarching plot without compromising on the horror.

It’s a tricky balance to maintain. But Canadian horror God of Frogs, a psychedelic blend of creature feature, folk and body horror manages this feat remarkably well. Each segment has a different director, but all four follow the same monster, which returns to feed every 25 years. In the first segment, directed by Ali Chappell, it is 1969 and Lillith, a member of a riverside cult (played by Chappell herself) is impregnated by the monster, the titular God of Frogs. This results in a nightmarish birth, Lillith’s death, and the start of a recurring haunting for her young daughter, Eve (Izzy Shiffman).

The second segment, directed by Natalie Metcalfe, sees Eve as an adult (played by Ilana Haley) set out to the woods to make a film to accompany her PhD thesis about frogs. After a bizarre parking lot encounter with a naked man (Foad H.P.) chanting about the god of the bog, Eve and her crew head into the woods, accompanied by a highly suspect and quite gross guide (Rodrigo Fernandez – Stoll) named Brett (or Brettt with three t’s as the credits have him, something I will in fact be ignoring). However, not everyone will make it out alive…

In the third segment, directed by Adrian Bobb, a politician meets a grizzly end during a natural disaster in 2019. And in the final segment, directed by Richard Lee, a young woman named Lily (Sabryn Rock) sets out to destroy the powerful corporation she works for from within. At the heart of God of Frogs lies belief… and hunger: for power, for lust, for knowledge. It drives all four segments, making them compelling, with some beautifully shot moments of body horror (Lillith’s monstrous pregnancy in the first segment deserving a particular shout-out) weaving seamlessly into a grounded, human core.

Using the character of Eve (who returns in the final two segments, played by Kate Vernon) as the connective tissue throughout is a clever tactic, as this is the character most connected to the woodlands where the God of Frogs resides. While the film could have done with continuing to flesh her out in the last two segments, as we do lose a bit of context for her motives, she’s compelling to spend time with, shaped by the loss of her mother at such a delicate age to forces she can’t even begin to understand.

The film also works with its limited budget to bring you some genuinely spectacular psychedelic lighting work (like, rave levels of lighting), and a titular monster which looks both fantastic, and like it could kill you. Stuntman Tyler Williams’s height and form gives the God of Frogs an imposingly muscular physicality, one that he uses to great effect in sex scenes (yes, this film is horny) with Lillith, and with Cass (Erica Prevost) in the second segment.

While God of Frogs does lack some development of its most central character, losing a little narrative steam in the process (especially near the end), it is overall a very visually impressive film with some truly terrifying and gross moments which may well leave you with a phobia of frogs for the foreseeable.    

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