A man out diving is bit in half by a creature in a lake in Maine, and the local sheriff teams up with the local game warden to find the killer beast. Also joining them is a paleontologist from New York, and Hector Cyr, a rich and eccentric crocodile lover. Will they be able to figure out what's in the lake and stop it before it kills more people?
The first time I saw Lake Placid I was really disappointed since I thought they would be dealing with some kind of prehistoric monster and not a crocodile. So yeah, the crododile is unusually big, but nevertheless it's still just a crocodile. It was the cover that fooled me, and if you look at it you see that there's a huge beast and a small Bridget Fonda on it. If you compare their sizes, the beast is just enormous and unfortunately it doesn't look like that in the actual movie. But when I watched Lake Placid now a few years later I was aware of the cover and the actual size of the beast, so let's just take it from there.
So a man gets bit in half in the beginning of the movie and is dragged back into the boat by the local sheriff who's with him. That's a really cool scene since you get to see him laying there in the boat with everything from his waist down completely gone. There's one other scene later on which is kinda just as cool but that's about it. That's the type of stuff you wanna see in a movie like this so it's a shame it didn't have more of that gory stuff.
Naturally they have to figure out what's in the lake and stop it before it kills again, and the sheriff teams up with local game warden (Pullman) to investigate further. Since they found a tooth in the dead divers body that proved to be prehistorical, a New York palaeontologist (Fonda) is sent to Maine to find out more about the tooth and where it came from. She's a sarcastic little broad and is quite annoying to watch, it's supposed to be fun at times but her comical timing is just non-existant. Also joining them is a rich crocodile lover (Platt), a special and odd kind of character who has a lot on his mind and who's not afraid to say whatever's on it.
Together they go out to "hunt" this beast which they soon figure out is a 30 foot Asian crocodile, and a lot happen on the way. It mixes comedy and horror but the horror is not very strong. There's actually a lot of comical situations and remarks throughout the movie, and while some being really amusing, some is not. It's a bad creature feature, but since the makers seem to be totally aware of the fact that it is, it never tries to be anything else which is a really good thing.
Lake Placid is fast-paced and has some funny and cool moments, but is so predictable it's ridiculous. It's a B-movie and is probably just supposed to be entertaining, but it's so easy to tell what's gonna happen next all the time, even in the end and that brings it down a little. There's no tension, but some of the crocodile scenes are pretty cool to watch, like when it eats a cow or drags a whole bear into the lake.
The acting is ok, Pullman is not the least memorable and the rest are somewhat annoying at times even though Platt's character says some funny stuff at times. I actually found the local sheriff (Brendan Gleeson) to be most likable, and even if it's nothing outstanding, he's still giving a good performance. The score is crap and the "romantic" stuff in the end was just completely terrible.
It's not a great creature flick, but it's an ok B-movie that has some funny stuff in it. It's entertaining and is at least not boring. Don't expect too much and you'll probably have a good time watching it.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 1999
DIRECTOR: Steve Miner
WRITING CREDITS: David E. Kelley
GENRE: Horror, Action, Comedy
CAST: Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt
COUNTRY: Canada, USA
RUNTIME: 82 min
RATING: 5/10
Lake Placid Website/IMDB Click here
Lake Placid Trailer Click here
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