Do you know, I don’t think I’m ever going to understand the SyFy Channel’s obsession with churning out endless, cheap, killer animal movies for as long as I live. Now, let me assure you, I’m not coming at this not-so-hot take from the point of view of someone who is snobbish about Z-list movies concerning nature’s greatest predators going postal, but instead my confusion is from someone who cut his teeth on the glory days of Jaws-adjacent classics such as Piranha and Alligator. You can be goofy as hell or serious as a heart attack when unleashing whatever skull cracking, gut munching juggernaut, but the only situation I really have is that you at least try and keep the quality up – something that Lake Placid’s second direct to television sequel lacks in spades.
I’m not entirely sure what the viewing figures were for the truly God-awful Lake Pacid 2, but somehow they were healthy enough for the channel to spawn another one – but not even an increase of B-list star power and a ton of gratuitous nudity could help the franchise sink to the bottom of the nearest lake to get nibbled on by fishes.
It’s been a year since the events of Lake Placid 2 traumatised both the residents of Aroostock County, Maine and any viewer foolhardy enough to tune in to watch it and the relatives of deceased old biddy, Sadie Bickerman, are planning to sell her house. Sadie, lest we forget, was responsible for the feeding of a bunch of giant crocodiles in Black Lake and was even guilty of feeding the odd, nosey person to her reptilian brood before getting scoffed herself in a scaley case of poetic justice.
However, while Nathan and his wife Susan are busy with their respective jobs, their lonely son, Connor, starts the whole cycle all over again when he starts feeding a bunch of baby crocs he finds swimming on the property. Two years pass and while the crocs have grown to full size, Connor hasn’t told anyone that he’s been secretly keeping a trio of fucking maneaters off the radar of everyone, including his parents and the super-confident Sheriff Willinger who is very vocal about keeping the area free of giant predators.
However, noe that the crocs have grown to full size, Connor’s had to take up shoplifting to feed the voracious bastards, but when he’s caught, his aquatic charges decide to head off and find meat of their own and immediately start targeting the frequently nude, teenage back packers who seemingly flock to the area like migrating salmon.
Soon, the carnage has started all over again as the cluster of crocs target three different groups of people: Nathan, Sarah and Connor are one, the aforementioned idiot campers are another, but the third group may prove to be the toughest prey to bring down as it’s a hunting trip run by the grizzled Reba, a woman tougher than week-old steak whose bite and bark could rival that of the monstrous reptiles stalking her.
So, to start, Lake Placid 3 is an improvement over its predecessor, but to be honest, that’s kind of like finding puke on your bed sheets and being relieved it wasn’t feces. To lay it out in plainer terms, while the acting is still at the level of a Mexican telenovela from the 90’s and the CGI is still choke-on-your-snacks bad, at least Lake Placid 3 attempts to try and add a few interesting wrinkles to its painfully bland running time. Firstly, while I’ll freely admit gratuitous nudity is hardly the most up-scale of practices, some of the naked people seen here stand out a little more than most as I couldn’t help but notice British soap opera actress and disgraced Celebrity Big Brother participant, Roxanne Pallett, indulging in some admittedly impressive, full-frontal nudity (in the unrated DVD release only) before getting dragged screaming into a lake by voracious baby snappers before the film is even fifteen minutes old. The fact that she’s there proves to be one of the most interesting parts of the movies as you wonder what depressing tale of Hollywood woe led her from going from the relative safety of Emmerdale to getting her norks and nunny out for a cheapjack, TV sequel.
Still, despite the fact that this would make a far more interesting story than Lake Placid 3 ever will, regrettably we have to stay with the plot at hand and for the most part, it’s once again a bunch of myopic flesh bags getting clumsily mauled by incredibly pixelated crocs and rest assured, it gets pretty old, super fast. The A-plot, which concerns super wet, game warden Nathan Bickerman and his equally pointless wife as their ineffectual parenting leads their son to accidently rear a batch of murder-lizards that subsequently go off to perform a massacre. However, thanks to the movie desperately failing to match the original movie’s genuinely witty tone, the fact that Connor inadvertently causes the deaths of multiple people barely carries the weight of a half-hearted PSA.
Elsewhere, there’s a subplot concerning a gaggle of typically disposable teens who debate whether to get nude despite one of their number being an obvious pervert (spoiler: they do) while one of their boyfriends races to their location in order to stop some gaslight chad putting the moves on his girl and it’s about a gripping as you’d expect. In fact, you’d almost be euphoric at the thought of them getting eaten if it wasn’t for the fact that the kill scenes are noticably shit too. I don’t know who signed off on the finalized shots of an amorphous, CGI blob that’s vaguely in the shape of a crocodile, barely looking like it’s making contact with the humans around it, even if they’re hanging out of its damn mouth, but I hope they got paid adequately for their services – preferably in gift vouchers.
The only glimmer of light in these murky waters are the appearance of cult legend Michael Ironside as the sheriff and a game Yancy Butler who seems to be genuinely relishing playing against the killer animal trope by switching the crusty, grizzled hunter character as a woman despite being given jokes by the insipid script the sink faster than a chewed up corpse.
However, to give the dopey devil it’s due, there’s the odd moment that shows that someone on set wanted to make a good movie as the sight of a croc dragging an entire car into the water shows a bit of chutzpah and the rain lashed, town-based climax makes a nice change from the endless samey scenes of woods. Of course, these are ultimately creature comforts of negligible quality as the movie simply assumes we’re willing to cheer for cardboard cutout characters and scream at digital crocodiles that – for some reason – can hop like frogs. Leaping lizards, indeed.
Frankly, it’s amazing that these crocs manage to kill anyone, because after watching this film, it’s obvious that these bastards are severely lacking in bite.
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