I can remember going to the movies in 1999 by myself and seeing Lake Placid in theaters. I remember it being one of the shortest feature films I’ve ever seen. The film was only eighty two minutes long. It was short, but it was straight to the point and for the most part it was a fun killer giant animal movie to watch. The film also had some well known actors in it as well, and if I remember correctly, they caught the crocodile and sent him off to a zoo. Now the sci-fi channel along with Fox Home Entertainment have decided to unleash a sequel to the 1999 film, but its no where near as good as the original.
Lake Placid 2 has a very similar plot to the first film. Pretty much this film looks at the incident in the first movie as just legend. That is until people start to disappear and body parts are found throughout the lake. That’s when Sheriff Riley and his team begin to start searching for the croc. They are soon joined by a game hunter who is really eager to kill something. Meanwhile the Sheriff’s son is partying and camping lakeside and the people he is surrounding himself with get picked off one by one by the croc. Now the Sheriff and his crew must try to find the croc and rid it before it kills anyone else.
Honestly folks there is nothing this film has to offer other than the fact that it was made to just entertain and for people to just sit back and get a good laugh. It also seems like it was a film that the sci-fi channel just made to plug some airtime on the channel. The script is nothing great, the story is basic, yet tries to be more than it really is. the character development is dull and the dialogue is nothing great, though there a few lines that I found to be very funny.
The acting in the film is nothing special either. I really was not a big fan of the characters in the film as I felt they were more or less a rip-off of the original characters from the first movie, except they were not the same people. John Schneider who played Sheriff Riley smiled too much in the film for me to take his performance seriously and a lot of the actors in other supporting roles I didn’t see them as being the part they were hired to play. Some of the actors who played the teenagers were not that great in their roles at all, but one can probably say that not having a good script didn’t help that much.
The production value is pretty decent for a direct to television film. It didn’t have the great feel like many big blockbusters do, but the overall locations and sets helped with the overall feel of the movie. The special effects on the other hand are a whole other story. Many of the body parts didn’t really look that great and it was obvious in many scenes that they were just fake rubber legs or arms. The croc looked good when they used the floating puppet, that is unless they used a real croc. But the CGI croc looked very fake and was not believable at all.
Overall, Lake Placid 2 is just another cliché horror movie with bad CGI and a script that is similar to all the other killer animals films out there. It has a lot of pointless nudity and a lot of pointless killings and the likes. If your in the mood to watch a cheesy horror film then this one is right up your ally. But if you think your going to get a good a croc film, you won’t. I recommend the original.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
