Review of Lake Placid (1999) by Rebecca H — 06 Nov 2009

A giant crocodile has found its way to Maine and only a local sheriff, a fish and game guy (whatever that is), a palaeontologist (for some reason) and a crocodile expert (how did he even hear about it?) can find and catch it, if they can stop bitching for long enough.

I have seen this a fair few times now, and it has stopped being as disappointing as it was originally, because now I know not to expect much from it. I used to think that the crocodile had eaten the middle of the script and no one had noticed until they came to editing it together and realised they had only made a set up and a finale, with no actual plot or characters. Now I just see a very short film that doesn't have much to say, with interesting scenes cutting away before anything exciting can happen. It would certainly work better as a television programme, and certainly feels as if that is what it is going for, especially with the balmy notion that four leads is a good idea.

It opens with the standard monster movie scene as we watch the first victim, waiting for the strike and putting up with the inevitable bluffs until the gruesome feat is achieved. However, in a startling choice for a monster movie, only two people are killed in the entire film, and one bear and one cow and most of what is eaten is later spat out, begging the question of how this bulimic croc has grown so big. Obviously, being opposed to murder, this suits me fine, but it is a very weird choice for this genre of film, and it does make the whole thing far too, well, placid.

I do like the main character Hank the Sheriff (Brendan Gleeson, bafflingly fourth billed) and the running joke of everyone he meets being rude does please, although it is the only running theme that is actively funny and I didn't just 'mistake' for poor writing (is it really that tongue in cheek?). But it is lame that the Sheriff has to share the screen with three other characters, especially as at least one of them feels added at a later date (probably Jack (Bill Pullman, who just seems to be there because he is more attractive than Gleeson), although we could probably lose all three. It does look like some executive had a look at the cast and the plot and the monster and said, "Jeez, there is nothing here for women." So they added a woman. "No, no, no, men like women, we need something for women to like," so they added a tedious romantic plot as lifeless as that decapitated moose, only made worse by sentimental music and cliched dialogue that make you want to be sick far more than that bit where that man is bitten in half. Meanwhile, Hector (Oliver Platt) is so annoying and dislikeable that the most satisfying moment of the film comes when the Sheriff punches him in the face, but it is still a shame that Hector and that psycho old woman whose fault all of this is aren't tied up together and thrown into the lake for feeding time. How come they don't even arrest her?

Still, there has to be a problem with the character development if I spend the entire finale worrying about that poor cow. Where is it? Is it all right? Oh, I hope it lives. (Good news, it does).

And yet, as usual, despite my firm belief in the protection of animals, it only takes one horror film for me to be wholeheartedly and hatefully rooting for the murder of this endangered species and bafflement as they point out this is wrong. Crocodiles, sharks, birds, spiders; they're all bastards.

If you want to fill an hour with an inoffensive horror flick, then go ahead and watch this, just don't expect to be particularly entertained.