DVD Review: Lake Placid 2 Unrated

February 14th, 2008

Why do I subject myself to watching movies like this? Lake Placid 2: Unrated, a direct-to-DVD horror movie release, was just asking to be bad, and guess what? It is bad. Really bad.

I have to admit that I sort of liked the original Lake Placid, starring Bill Pullman. It was cheesy and not the least bit realistic, but it was a funny little horror movie with a big crocodile. That doesn’t mean I wanted to see a sequel. This movie, starring John Schneider (”Smallville”) and several unrecognizable actors, is once again set at Lake Placid, making you wonder why anyone would go near the water ever again. Two groups find themselves stranded in the wilderness with a giant crocodile (or several giant crocodiles?), one a sheriff, his hot deputy and a few other pieces of fodder, the other the sheriff’s son, his love interest and some more pieces of fodder. As they get picked off one by one by the cheesy-looking monster, one questions whether the budget of the film was a million… pesos.

Lake Placid 2 is entertaining enough, I’ll admit, but has absolutely nothing worthwhile about it. The crocodiles were made on the cheap, and the special effects department clearly had very little to work with. The crocs are about as scary as a little girl in her church outfit, and regardless of the special effects, director David Flores does so little to make his movie exciting, it’s pretty pathetic. With exception to the cliche underwater sequence that every monster movie must have, the audience, and the characters, see and hear the crocodiles coming from a mile away, which removes any tension the film might have been able to muster. The creators of the movie clearly have never seen a crocodile in real life; otherwise, they could have made something a little better than this piece of crap.

The only highlights of Lake Placid 2 are a few shots of nude women, some ridiculously cheesy-looking blood and… well, that’s about it. At least my mother, who loves bad monster movies, will be happy to receive a new DVD for her collection.