 Tagline: Part Mystery Part Thriller Parts Missing. "You'll Spend As Much Time Laughing As You Do Screaming." - David Poland, TNT Roughcut.com Bill Pullman (Independence Day), Bridget Fonda (A Simple Plan) and Oliver Platt (Bulworth) share an appetite for sheer adventure when a tranquil New England lakefront erupts into an action-packed den of destruction in this "monster of a hit!" (Wireless Magazine) An investigative team, armed with state-of-the-art equipment, high powered weaponry and a biting sense of sarcasm, must work together to defeat Black Lake's most ferocious resident: a 30-foot prehistoric crocodile! Betty White co-stars as the cantankerous Mrs. Bickerman - a role you've got to hear to believe - in this terrifying tale of survival that "combines humor and thrills with remarkable deftness." (New York Post) Storyline: What happens when a man-eating crocodile begins picking off tourists in beautiful Lake Placid? What if the crocodile wants to make it his home? Written by Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, July 5, 2014 It's been said that the reactions of fear and laughter are linked more closely than one might initially think, and there's probably no better example than the tendency to want to giggle for a bit after a good scare. It's a bit strange therefore that there haven't been more outright horror comedies, at least films that aren't parodies like the Scary Movie franchise. One reason may be the difficulty in maintaining a proper tone which delivers both laughs and chills in more or less equal measure, not to mention being able to deliver a cogent entertainment cobbled together out of seemingly disparate though perhaps psychologically linked elements. A salient example in this regard is the raucous 1999 film Lake Placid, an entry which offers some undeniably funny moments and at least a couple of decent scares along the way, but which feels a bit ragtag in its development and ultimately doesn't quite hit the mark as either a comedy or a horror film. It's an interesting hybrid, though, and one which offers a chance for the almost criminally underrated Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Platt to spar in two entertaining supporting roles. The film would arguably have been more effective had a bit more time been devoted to developing these characters, not to mention those played by the stars of the picture, Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda. But Lake Placid is to be commended for cutting to the chase from almost the first moment, setting up the premise that a mammoth crocodile has somehow migrated to the chilly waters of an isolated body of water in Maine that has been ironically nicknamed Lake Placid. When a Forest Service worker is bisected while attempting to tag some beaver in the lake, a coterie of local investigators is sent to look into the mishap. A distant paleontologist is also called to the site to examine an almost primordial tooth found in the corpse, one which is initially assumed to be that of a bear, but which is soon identified as belonging to an impossibly large crocodile. The rest of the film is simply the interplay between this motley crew as they attempt to ferret out the crocodile, with an emphasis both on the simmering romance between the Pullman and Fonda characters as well as the comedic rivalry between the Gleeson and Platt characters. In some ways, the opening sequence of Lake Placid is the most traditional thing in the picture. We meet Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), who does not take kindly to what he perceives as the uppity sarcastic tone of most of the Fish and Game workers with whom he comes in contact, including the one currently in a boat with Keough, out to tag some beaver. In a scene that deftly plays on viewers' memories of Jaws, the camera swoops up from below this tagger as he swims, and there's even a playful riff that is more than a bit reminiscent of John Williams' famous half step motive that propelled his score for the Spielberg picture. When Sheriff Keough finally becomes aware that the Fish and Game guy is in trouble, it's too late, and though the sheriff heroically tries to help the guy, the results are one of the more spectacularly gory incidents in the film. From there, Lake Placid repeatedly veers off into odd little tangents, something that gives the film its unique flavor but which may simultaneously annoy some horror purist sensibilities. One of these is the way in which a major character, paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda) is introduced. Instead of giving us a no nonsense look at her professional life, we're instead subject to the tail end of what was evidently an unsuccessful affair with her boss (Adam Arkin in a cameo), one which has ended with the revelation that he's taken up with her best friend (Mariska Hargitay in another cameo). Her boss wants her to go to Maine to inspect the tooth that has been found in the Fish and Game worker's corpse, but Kelly feels it's all a gambit just to get her out of the way so that this new relationship might blossom. The film jump cuts here in what is probably meant to be a funny moment setting Kelly on the way to Lake Placid, but which really feels like something salient was left on the cutting room floor. Once the film segues to Maine, the rest of the crew is quickly assembled, as Kelly almost immediately meets (and begins bantering with) Fish and Game Warden Jack Wells (Bill Pullman). Once they get to the site of the mishap, the appearance of a helicopter signals the arrival of mythology expert and crocodile aficionado Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), with whom Kelly has some sort of unexplained (and unfortunately unexplored) history. The film here veers off into to more traditional comedic territory, with running gags like Keough repeatedly becoming encumbered in various snares that Cyr sets around the camp to catch the crocodile should it come onto dry land to forage for a few "snacks". Oddly, there isn't a lot of suspense for the rest of Lake Placid. There's absolutely no dispute in the film that the culprit is a mammoth crocodile, and director Steve Miner (working from a script by David E. Kelley of all people) reveals at least some of the beast fairly early in the proceedings. Perhaps even more troublingly, at least for those who want a jolt of adrenaline now and again in their horror films, there's really only two set pieces from here on out, one which involves Kelly getting temporarily stranded in the water, with her cohorts of course unable to get the motorboat cranked up to rescue her, and the other which serves as the film's climax, when an attempt to capture (rather than kill) the crocodile plays out in a patently goofy sequence that has Cyr hoisting a cow above the water (with his helicopter) as "bait" for the crocodile. While the horror element is somewhat hit or miss in Lake Placid, the genial humor aspect is at least relatively more consistent, with a fun supporting role for Betty White as the sole resident of the lakeside (and one with a few secrets up her doilied sleeve). The banter between Jack and Kelly is fairly rote but engaging, but there is some actual comedic energy in the interplay between Hector and Keough, and in fact it's probably this relationship that provides most of the interest in the film, despite the obvious attempts to gin up some romantic chemistry between Pullman and Fonda. Lake Placid never completely gels as a cohesive whole, but it's a fun little picture that has a couple of decent scares and at least as many laugh out loud moments. What might be the most successful thing about the film is something that's drenched in a bit of irony. Lake Placid ultimately serves as proof positive of how hard it is to craft a film that's equal parts horror and comedy. Lake Placid could have been an outright comedy horror masterpiece if just a little bit more time had been spent establishing and then developing the characters. As it stands, though, the film is a lot of fun almost all of the time. It's neither that scary nor that funny, but it does manage to tweak a few moments out of each genre with a fair degree of panache. While Pullman and Fonda are the putative stars here, it's Gleeson and Platt that really light up the screen, aided by a spectacularly foul mouthed Betty White. This Blu-ray offers generally great looking video and nice sounding audio, and in typical Scream Factory fashion, comes with some good supplements. Recommended. [CSW] - Remarkable dialogue. Reduced to a plot outline it's pretty unimpressive, but the verbal barbs that fly back and forth between the characters are what make the show. It's an "action/horror" movie I could watch with my eyes shut and still enjoy. One of the best-written movies I've ever seen. Cast Notes: Bill Pullman (Jack Wells), Bridget Fonda (Kelly Scott), Oliver Platt (Hector Cyr), Brendan Gleeson (Sheriff Hank Keough), Betty White [I] (Mrs. Delores Bickerman), David Lewis [IV] (Walt Lawson), Tim Dixon (Stephen Daniels), Natassia Maltke (Janine), Mariska Hargitay (Myra Okubo), Meredith Salenger (Deputy Sharon Gare), Jed Rees (Deputy Burke), Richard Leacock [II] (Deputy Stevens), Jake T. Roberts (Officer Coulson), Warren Takeuchi (Paramedic), Ty Olsson (State Trooper). IMDb Rating (05/08/16): 5.6/10 from 41,891 users
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
