Lake Placid Reviews

Best monster crocodile movie, with Betty White, set in the state of New York I've EVER seen!
Say goodbye to the careers of Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda...

"I'm rooting for the crocodile. I hope he swallows your friends whole."

Lake Placid is a stupid, jokey, abjectly forgettable member of the creature feature horror subgenre. Directed by Steve Miner (Halloween H20) and written by David E. Kelly (TV's Ally McBeal), the film was apparently intended to be a horror-comedy since the filmmakers constructed it with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. However, the intentional camp is frequently ineffective, and the emphasis on comedy hopelessly hinders what had the potential to be a decent crocodile flick. With little humour to laugh at and even littler horror to scare genre fans (or anyone else), Lake Placid is not so bad that it's good; it's just so bad that it's really, really bad.

In terms of plot, here's the deal: while swimming in a Maine lake, a scuba diver is torn in half and a reptilian tooth is discovered embedded in his corpse. Following the incident, New York palaeontologist Kelly Scott (Fonda) is dispatched to Maine to examine the tooth. Upon arrival, she meets with local game warden Jack Wells (Pullman) and the town sheriff Hank Keough (Gleeson), along with an entourage of deputies. When they head to the lake (which is not even called Lake Placid, by the way), the team are unexpectedly joined by mythology professor Hector Cyr (Platt). Soon, it's ascertained that a giant, 30-foot-long Asian crocodile (which leaked in from the ocean) has taken up residence in the lake. While Hank and Jack set out to eliminate the croc, Kelly and Hector are inclined to capture it alive.

Thus, the stage is set for a showdown between beast and man. Mayhem ensues, and a few major stars (who, contractually, cannot be eaten) are placed in danger. And this denotes the primary flaw of Lake Placid: it's unable to scare us because literally no characters can be eaten (except for faceless supporting characters played by unknown actors). With the exception of the first victim, nobody is willing to enter the lake's dank, black waters. Thus, the characters can only be in peril if they do something stupid - and they end up doing stupid things on a regular basis. Since the screenwriter only used character stupidity to bring about croc attack scenes (rather than conceiving of anything creative), it's not long before the only viable option is to root for the crocodile. After all, people this dumb should not be allowed access to the world's oxygen supply. To top things off, not only were the characters given below normal intelligence, but so was the crocodile - in one scene, it stares at its potential food for a great length of time, but only attempts to attack once the person is safe.

It's fortunate that Lake Placid runs a mere 80 minutes. Both the dialogue and the characters spouting said dialogue are equally stupid, and dead spots abound. Even worse, the movie attempts to get sentimental about the man-eating beast. As a direct result of this ill-advised sentimentality, it appears that the only villains in the movie are the protagonists hunting this giant crocodile which is simply trying to live its life and maintain a diet of moose, cows and grizzly bears. Former Golden Girl Betty White even points out in one scene that nobody lives on the lake, so it's not much of a threat. Meanwhile, director Steve Miner's execution of the script is terrible - Lake Placid is unmistakably cheap-looking. Admittedly, the animatronic crocodile (courtesy of Stan Winston's team) is highly realistic, but the computer-generated images of the crocodile are beyond cheesy. Once the croc clambers out of the water in all its CGI glory, what's revealed is not the type of monster to strike fear into the heart of a movie-goer.

Despite its flaws, there are at least a few laughs to be hard, intentional or otherwise. For instance, one scene depicts the crocodile attacking a large helicopter. Not only is the concept preposterous, but the character reactions are hilarious. There's also a decapitation that's fairly amusing due to the hopelessly incompetent filmmaking. In the cast, meanwhile, Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Platt are an amusing coupling whose rivalry generates a few notable instances of laughter. Yet, these strong points constitute barely 10 minutes of the film's runtime. Watching clips on YouTube is a better option than enduring this mostly banal creature feature in its entirety. As a horror-thriller, Lake Placid is unable to generate even a slim moment of tension. It's dull and plodding, with nary a decent scare. The only genuinely horrific thing about Lake Placid is that the cast and crew might have believed that they were making a good movie. Also terrifying is that the Sci-Fi Channel produced a few sequels, starting with Lake Placid 2 in 2007.

3.2/10