Lake Placid - Final Thoughts
January 19th 2008 02:10
To View Past Lake Placid Posts, Click The Following Links:
Part 1 – A Comedy-Horror For All Ages.
Part 2 – Crocodile Edu-mah-cation.
Part 3 – Professor Hector Cyr: Teaching Crocodiles, Booze & Sex 101.
Part 5 – Kelly Scott, Queen of the Annoying.
It’s that time of the week when I take this week’s bad movie on display and put it to rest for good back from the bucket that it fell out of. So let’s cut straight to the chase and cap off a week that was Lake Placid.
The Loathes:
Let’s start off with the way this movie was designed to be a comedy-horror. No do not get yourself confused with a horror spoof which is a comedy movie that is a take-off of horror movies such as Scary Movie. This was intended to be a comedy with horror elements, or a horror movie that was meant to be funny. I don’t know what it tried to pass itself off as but it confused me and most likely the majority of people who watched it. Whatever the director was trying to achieve with this movie it failed, badly.
I do not like the way they decided to change basic characteristics of crocodiles, like making the statement that all crocodiles don’t attack under water. It’s stupid. Yeah it’s a movie I know but if you’re going to deny certain knowledge about things that is a well known fact at least make it seem realistic. I hate it when a movie contradicts its own bullshit information by doing exactly what they said isn’t true. It makes the movie look bad.
Don’t get me started on Kelly Scott and Hector Cyr. I dedicated two posts towards them and it is clear enough that I hate them both. The first is a mega annoying bitch who hates everything about nature and threatens to sue people who call her ma’am. Not only that, she is a damn museum worker who is investigating a murder at a lake for crying out loud. The second is an overly horny fat ‘expert’ on crocodiles who doesn’t even know what the hell he is talking about. He is most likely bisexual and has a habit of calling other people ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ when he should really look at himself.
Not many people died in a horror movie. I only counted two deaths in the movie. The first was the guy who gets ripped in half at the start and the second is a random person who gets his head bitten completely off. They had four, maybe five or six characters that were reoccurring in that movie and not one of them died. If they wanted to make it a horror movie they should have had a few of the main characters killed off but no, they decided to stay true to the Hollywood ideology of a horror movie and let everyone live. What a load of crap.
The Likes:
I have said it once and I will say it again, thank God that Betty White was in the movie or else this was have completely sucked. Her lines were great and for an old timer she can deliver them very well. It was freakin’ awesome hearing an old lady call someone ‘f***-meat’ and then cheer the crocodile on when everyone tries to capture it. She is really something to look out for in the movie if you plan on watching this.
The Script / Plot:
A dinosaur expert is sent to investigate the brutal murder of a lake diver. She will team up with a park ranger, a sheriff and a crocodile expert to capture a gigantic crocodile before it kills again this is comedy-horror.
The plot sucked. The dialogue between characters was very childish. There was nothing funny about this movie besides the lines that came out of Mrs. Bickerman’s mouth and there was nothing horrifying about this horror. If you label a movie as a comedy I expect there to be more than one time when I will laugh. If you label a movie as a horror I expect there to be a lot of blood and suspense with some sick killing scenes. I watched this movie, laughed once and that was it. There was NOTHING funny about this comedy and there was NOTHING I found that I would call ‘horror’. Yeah I saw half a body and someone get their head bit off but that were done so poorly it wasn’t believable even for horror movie standards.
There were many plot holes, like showing a crocodile attack someone under the water when we were told that they don’t, and I really hated their deus ex machina ending. Pretty much, deus ex machine is a term in movies where the ending is completely spontaneous and something happens to solve an outcome in five seconds. In this movie we end with a second giant crocodile popping out only to have it blown away within two seconds. Odd when it took them ten minutes to capture the first big one and they had the option of killing it from the start.
Before the credit role we see Mrs. Bickerman feeding a bunch of baby crocodiles which implies there might be a second movie. Unfortunately there is a Lake Placid 2 and from what I have heard it was pathetic. Look forward to that review another day.
The Actors:
It was average and that was about it. By average I mean Betty White and Bill Pullman done a good job while everyone else sucked. Pullman, in my eyes, done well only for the fact he was expressing what everyone watching this movie was thinking. It was like they knew this movie was going to suck in advance so Pullman’s role was to react how the audience would be reacting to this crap. All the other actors were extremely annoying at their role and overacted a lot.
The Changes:
This movie had a lot of potential to go far if it was executed right. Firstly I would get rid of this crap comedy-horror thing and have it a straight up horror. I wouldn’t set it on a lake but rather in/along a long river somewhere. That way it gives the feeling that the crocodile could be anywhere instead of being confound in a small lake.
I’d get rid of the annoying bitch from the museum and change the crocodile expert to be a bit more helpful before killing him off. I would also add in one of those old school Tarzan vs. Crocodile style fights where he wrestles one underwater with a knife in his mouth. That would be a kick ass fight to see. Start it off with our hero shooting at the crocodile to no effect, he gets knocked into the water and the two fight it out to the death!
Final Thoughts:
Honestly this movie was pretty bad however there were a few things that saved it from going under completely, mainly Betty White’s character. I really believe if that bad mouth granny wasn’t in the movie this could have been a lot worse. This movie proved why comedy-horror type movies do not work very well. I am pretty sure that there are some good comedy-horror movies out there that have pulled this off but you’ll find most are spoofs and aren’t intended on being a serious horror movie with comedy elements in it.
They could have done a lot more to make this movie a whole lot better. Surprisingly though this film did pretty well at cinemas on it’s release but none-the-less it was slammed by critics for its poor attempt to create a movie that stepped into the comedy-horror genre. I think if they had planned this movie to be more serious and darker they could have pulled off something pretty good but alas, they failed.
If you are a fan of crocodiles or crocodile-killer movies I would suggest that you watch this if you’re into that stuff but at the same time I would probably discourage you from watching this. If you want to see a good killer croc movie I have heard many good things about Rogue, which is set in the outback of Australia.
There is another movie called Primeval which is based slightly on a true story of a science team attempting to track down a legendary crocodile called Gustave, who reportedly had killed over 300 humans, in the war torn country of Burundi. There are many stories about the crocodile, one of them being that the country’s warlord had fed him human remains. I haven’t seen either but I will be checking them out. If they are Bucket worthy than expect to see them both up on this website.
Lake Placid, a comedy-horror that was far from its ‘intended’ genre. It was a pathetic attempt to try and mix two different film types together which lead to bad results. The cast were annoying and the script was pretty poor. The only thing worth seeing in this is Betty White which is sad since the main focus is meant to be on the crocodile who doesn’t kill any of the main characters but a few random idiots that you won’t care about. I’m done and it’s time to throw this piece of crap back into the Bucket.
Next week we’re going to step back to the wondrous time of the 80’s. It was a time where weird hairdos and fashion ruled. It was a time of great one-hit-wonders and a bunch of movies that were well… interesting. Some were pretty damn good, and some were pretty damn bad. You can look forward to my review on the 1980’s movie, Roadhouse. Until then take care of yourself and enjoy the weekend. Peace!
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