Horror Extreme Movie Catalog - Editorial Reviews

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."

Lake Placid is total trash--and, as a result, fairly entertaining. Yet another entry in the horror subgenre of giant animals running amok, Lake Placid features a giant crocodile that has somehow found its way to an isolated lake in Maine. The absurdity of crocodiles in Maine sets the tone for the entire movie, which has no ambitions beyond mixing a little fright with a little humor. Bridget Fonda (Point of No Return, Jackie Brown) plays a paleontologist sent to investigate a large tooth; Bill Pullman (Independence Day, Lost Highway) is a fish and game warden just trying to keep the peace; Oliver Platt (Funny Bones, Flatliners) plays a loose-cannon mythology professor who swims with crocodiles for sport; and Brendan Gleeson (an excellent but little-known actor, most noted for The General) is a local sheriff with a short temper and a big gun. Add a few gruesome dismemberments, Betty White as a cantankerous old broad who may have murdered her husband, and a cow hanging from a helicopter, and there you have it: Lake Placid. (Curiously, this concoction was put together by David E.?Kelley, better known as the creator of TV's Ally McBeal and The Practice.) --Bret Fetzer