Phrogging Meaning and Definition In "I See You" Movie

Phrogging meaning in I See You is a practice of secretly living in someone else's home without their knowledge. A person who engages in the act is sometimes called a phrog.

The term is derived from the word "frog," as the phrogging essentially describes leaping into someone's living space. The person engaged in the act may jump from place to place (like a frog) to avoid being caught.

Moreover, the term is similar to squatting except that phrogging requires living in an occupied property.

The person living in another's house is often a stranger and goes to extended lengths to go unnoticed by homeowners. And while the act might seem like a myth, the secret practice is all too common.

The word has been used this way since at least 2014 when an independent short film used it as its title. Use of the term increased in social platforms soon after the release of I See You.

I See You features an intruder engaged in phrogging and wearing a frog mask. The term became more familiar in 2022 after the release of the true-crime series Phrogging: Hider in My House.

Hider in My House depicts real-life reports of the practice. The series explores the phenomenon of phrogging and profiles the story of survivors who share the most skin-crawling and truly terrifying real stories.

However, real-life instances of the act are rare. Tom Lane, a retired Massachusetts, talked to A&E True Crime about a 1986 case, long before the term was coined.

 The case involved a 17-year-old teen Daniel LaPlate, who was obsessed with fellow Tina Bowen. He managed to sneak into her home and found a hiding place in a wall next to the bathroom.

One day, Daniel took Tina, her father, her sister, and a friend hostage with a hatchet. Later, the police caught him and two months later, he got bailed.

I See You shows the Harper family, made of husband Greg, a policeman, wife Jackie, a doctor, and son Connor, a student.

The family resides in an area where a child kidnapper operates. He has never been caught though he murdered several kids years before, and now the abductor is apparently back.

During the first half, we see strange things happening at the family's house -photographs and objects disappearing, the tv switching on by itself, and the window repairing man saying their daughter let him in (but they don't have a daughter).

One night, Jackie's old lover, Todd, visits her at her house. She leaves him in the basement and takes her son to school. When she returns she finds him deceased on the floor.

Greg also returns and helps his wife bury the body in the woods. When they are back, they discover Connor tied up in the bathtub. He then sees the green pocket knife in the bathroom -the same one used by the killer.

At this point, we feel that the kidnapper is attacking the family and Connor is his victim. But there is a plot twist with two new characters entering the movie.

Two homeless teenagers, Mindy and Alec, dedicated to phrogging are now introduced. Mindy intends to live at Harper's house for a few days and move again.

Now, we see the inexplicable events of the film from their point of view. It was them, especially Alec, pranking them. In another, plot twist, we see it was Greg who killed Todd by hitting on his head.

And while the Harper couple is out to bury his body, Mindy and Alec have a violent confrontation. Alec hits her head and after she loses consciousness, he hides her in Greg's car.

After Greg and Jackie return home they find Connor in the bathtub then the green pocket knife. Jackie brings her son to the hospital with Greg taking his car into the woods, where the last victim is attacked.

Mindy exits the car and finds a van where children are held as hostages. At this point, Greg attacks her. This is how the movie explains the child kidnapper was Greg.

He had previously known the kids were phrogging into his home through Mindy's camera. After killing her, he looks for Alec, who seems ready and has already called the cops.

He attacks him and manages to kill him, When the cops arrive, they find enough evidence to prove Greg is the child abductor.
In the last scene, we see a flashback from Alec's view. He was the child missing years before. 

He immediately recognized Greg when he entered their home from the pictures and planned revenge on him.