Customer Reviews
Love this film - By: Sarah J. Marquis, 16 Jan 2008 
For a B movie feature, & let's be a little bit honest here, that is exactly what it is, it has a sharp script, great cast, a very big croc & beautiful scenery. The whole thing rattles along at a good pace, there's a whiff of danger, a couple of whiffs of romance & a lot of snappy dialogue. Four completely different folk get together to catch a crocodile (some of whom won't even admit it is a crocodile for almost half the film!). It isn't great literature, it doesn't have dramatic pauses between each sentence in an attempt to lend the words more profundity than they possess. It's a creature feature. Pure & simple. As a creature feature I give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Snap - By: DangermouseZilla, 14 Nov 2007 
Sometimes you can play comedy & horror off of each other to create something witty & creepy, but sometimes it doesn't work & you get this.
The film tries to be clever by constantly entwining darker aspects of the film with light hearted humour, but instead of complementing each other or giving the film a unique stylistic feel - it just feels a bit naff.
Presumably the budget required to get visuals on the crocodile were considerable, which would explain why it gets so little screentime. Jaws managed to use the smalll amount of actual shark visuals to build tension, but that doesn't happen here.
I never felt much for the characters & found myself cheering for the crocodile, the film makers wanted to get some stunts involving the crocodile & they got them into the film, they look impressive but they just add to the implausibility of the feature overalll.
This was released at a similar time to Deep Blue Sea, neither were fantastic, but Lake Placid failed at the box office, & failed with the critics as it seemed too clumsy, if you want to watch a good comedy horror film then you're best off sticking with `Tremors' or `Critters'! The funniest aspect to this film is the tagline: "Part Mystery. Part Thriller. Parts Missing." which is actuallly pretty funny, as far as taglines go - it's genius.
GIVE IT A CHANCE, YOU MIGHT LIKE IT - By: stuart, 04 Nov 2007 
In an isolated lake in Maine, a series of accidents has plagued the local police & garnered the interest of the NY Museum, who sends Paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda) to the lake on the pretense of an ancient tooth found there. Unknown to Kelly, the police have also callled in wildlife expert Jack Wells (Bill Pullman), who is immediately attracted to her. Meeting with Sheriff Hank Keough, (Brendan Glesson) the three of them, as well as several of Hank's deputy's, go out into the mysterious lake, but one of the deputy's dies in a freak accident, as no one can figure out what happened. This series of events has sparked the interest of Hector Cyr, (Oliver Platt) an eccentric tycoon who believes that what they are dealing with is a crocodile. Because he believes that crocodiles are sacred animals that need to be preserved, he buts heads with everyone on the expedition, but since he proves handy with traps, he is alllowed to stay. They prove that it is a crocodile in the lake, & that a local living in the area (Betty White) has been feeding it for several years. With Hector now convinced that the croc has to be destroyed, he teams up with the rest to hunt down the croc.
The Good News: I just want to get this point across before I do anything else: those of you who are worried that the croc may not be lifelike need not to fear. The croc in here is so lifelike that many times through the film I wondered if they were able to get a live croc to do those stunts. I know they can't, but the croc looked so realistic you wonder that yourself. It's nothing like in 'Crocodile' or the sequel 'Crocodile 2,' where the monster is so fake that it turns you off. On the contrary, 'Lake Placid' uses the CGI & what I can hope is an animatronic so seamlessly it looks like one monster throughout, without the annoyance of knowing when it's fake or not. For me, what reallly turned me on to this film was its humor. I like a movie to do that, be serious when it needs to be & funny when seriousness has run its course. The film has several reallly good one-liners, which is a part of another reason why I like this film. The banter between everyone is finallly a part of a movie & brought out, instead of being glossed over & forgotten. Everyone has a few good put-downs on every else a trait that I felt showed real tension between everyone. This is something that has been reallly missed in this kind of film, as the characters have their own individual quirks & habits, & when in close contact with others who have a different method of doing things, the personalities come out & bickering ensues. This was a great & relatively refreshing thing to see in a horror film of recent years, as the situations could've demanded that could happen, but instead the characters try to be PC in how they deal with everyone. I reallly hope that disappears soon, since they are some people who do need to be insulted every now & then. I also reallly like that they never skimped on the gore here, as it is pretty ample. We see one person decapitated, another ripped in half with his lower half missing & the guts spilling from his exposed ribcage, & we see a bleeding, severed finger. That was the body count in the film, so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunities, but they did deliver, as those few deaths left me satisfied more than happily in the gore department.
The Bad News: As I mentioned above, there were hardly any deaths in the film, so there wasn't any real chance to spill on the gore, as in other creature films. That could be the result of the time it was made, right around the Columbine shooting, so it could've been watered down. They could at least still have more deaths in the film. I also want to clarify something here: Yes, there is a scene of an animal being feed to the crocodile & another of the croc attacking an animal, but the attacks are nothing more shocking than footage that could be seen on Animal Planet. It is not that bad, but I felt that statement would be effective here. I don't have a problem with the scenes, but I put it here because those animal-friendly people should be warned about the scene.
The Final Verdict: Put in a few more kills & ignore the fact that the croc does kill something other than people (twice), this is a good move nonetheless. Despite those two grievances, this is a smart, funny & entertaining killer monster film. You could do a lot worse than this film.
A fantastic black comedy - By: Dazman, 05 Jun 2007 I love this film it isn't an out & out comedy, but does have some very funny (sarcastic) comedy moments. It's probably not got the best storyline ever, but has some great turns from some very fine actors.
It may shock you at time's with some of the death scene's so beware those who don't like the sight of blood, heads/hands with no bodies, there is a good level of suspense, the film doesn't take itself too seriously & is an enjoyable romp that most people should enjoy.
Very entertaining - By: S J Buck, 12 Apr 2007 This is a fabulous monster movie. It has some moderate horror moments but also contains a number of laugh out-loud moments, making it the best horror-comedy since "An American Werewolf in London" 18 years earlier. The story is pretty obvious from the DVD cover so I won't discuss that. Acting honours go to Betty White as Mrs Bickerman, but mostly to Brendan Gleeson who is marvellous as the local Sheriff.
Interestingly the director is Steve Minor a veteran director of many slasher horror films (Friday 13th Part II etc). He also worked on the notorious "Last House on the Left" in the early 1970's. It just goes to show how age can mellow you.
I think it holds up to repeated viewings, & having already seen it a couple of times, I've now bought the DVD. Its only 82 minutes long so it doesn't overstay its welcome, unlike the Crocodile....
