Director: Steve Miner
Cast: Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson, Betty White
Screenplay: David E. Kelley
82 mins. Rated R for violent creature attacks and related gore, and for language.

The late 1990s were an odd time for the return of the real creature feature, animal attack subgenre, but considering the modest success of films like Anaconda, it seemed like audiences were interested in the potential reality of killer snakes and crocs, much like the reinvention of slashers with Scream seemed to aim for a certain amount of realism. It’s the only understanding I can have on the whole subject. The Lake Placid franchise, like Anaconda, has lumbered along in the years since, dropping a new installment (and crossing over with the aforementioned giant snake) every few seasons. Today, we’ll look back on the original, a movie weirder than its success.

When a Fish and Game officer is bitten in half by an unknown creature in Black Lake, Maine Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin) sends out for help, and he is aided by Officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman, Lost Highway) and paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda, Jackie Brown) to figure out exactly what is under the surface of the lake. They soon discover that Black Lake is home to a 30 foot long saltwater crocodile, and they’ll need to put a stop to its reign of terror.

I haven’t watched Lake Placid since the 1990s, so this revisit was a bit of a headtrip, mostly because I don’t remember the film being so cheesy. I suppose that makes sense considering that I saw it in my single-digits, so I was likely to just be focused on the carnage, which the film certainly has. This rewatch for the season, though, made me realize how much fun Lake Placid was and is. It’s classic Steve Miner (Friday the 13th Part II), a director that’s frequently able to harness the inherent fun of a concept. His Friday the 13th and Halloween sequels harnessed the fun, and his horror-comedy House is easily one of he best of its kind. That’s noted here as well, with most of the cast understanding the exact film they are living in. I was primarily taken with an excellent performance from Brendan Gleeson as the Sheriff. Gleeson’s always able to dabble in tone with such ease here as with other tonally unusual films like In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin, and he’s bringing a similar kind of tonal gymnastics here.

The other element that surprised me this time around was the creature effects, courtesy of Stan Winston’s team. So much of the 1990s visual effects work has aged poorly, but the combination of real animatronic work and the early stages of 90s CGI even each other out nicely, creating a realistic (enough) creature to maintain a solid amount of tension.

It’s a shame that the screenplay, for all its entertaining goofiness, under-develops Kelly (Fonda) as a character so much that she practically disappears beneath the other male characters. It isn’t that screenwriter David E. Kelley (TV’s The Practice) can’t write women (I’ve seen work of his to suggest he can). No, it’s just that he seems to run out of things for her to do. At the beginning of the film, she’s our focal character, the one representing the audience as we collectively try to uncover what is beneath the surface of Black Lake. As the narrative progresses, however, she becomes less and less interesting, and by the end, she’s merely a romantic counter to one of the other male leads, which disservices the character quite a bit.

Lake Placid was more fun than I’d remembered, a fitting creature feature for 1999 and a solid display of Steve Miner’s ability to have fun with his characters while also putting them through all kinds of hell. The schlock level is high and a good amount of it seems to work quite successfully. While I would’ve liked to see more for Fonda to do and a bit more of Betty White (Toy Story 4) as the batshit Mrs. Bicherman would’ve been welcome, but for what’s on screen, I mostly enjoyed myself and would be happy to revisit, hopefully sooner than 20 more years.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th Part II, click here.
For my review of Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th Part 3, click here.
For my review of Steve Miner’s House, click here.
For my review of Steve Miner’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, click here.