Lake Placid **** (1999, Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleason, Betty White) – Classic Movie Review 266

Intense, suspenseful, witty and often hilarious, director Steve Miner’s and writer David E Kelley’s tongue-in-cheek 1999 monster movie Lake Placid is a great fun scare ride. It is one of the best of its popular but difficult-to-do-well horror-comedy kind since Tremors in 1990.

Bridget Fonda stars as a jilted big-city palaeontologist who joins local sheriff Brendan Gleason, amiable Bill Pullman and rich Oliver Platt on the hunt for a man-eating, killer 30ft prehistoric crocodile loose in the New England lake of the title.

At the start of the movie, he’s unfortunately just chewed off one half of Gleason’s deputy. Our quarrelling heroes set out to get the monster. They are armed with state-of-the-art weaponry and biting sarcasm. But soon that doesn’t seem quite enough…

The four main stars are ideal, giving quirky, highly amusing performances. Betty White enjoys herself enormously as lakeside loony Mrs Bickerman, who has been feeding the creature for six years on live cattle and watched as it saw off her husband.

Kelley’s screenplay is wry, drily funny and rich with throwaway offhand casual wit. And Miner rattles the movie along at a fast pace, enlivening it with some excellent effects by Stan Winston.

And, just when Lake Placid is going really well, it stops suddenly after around 80 minutes and about half an hour before it should actually finish, leaving you begging for more. It was a hit, so why couldn’t they have got everyone together again for an immediate sequel? They finally obliged with disappointing, belated sequels in 2007, 2010 and The Final Chapter in 2012, but with different casts.

You might also complain that the monster seems to change size and is never properly explained, but that just adds to the authentic B-movie atmosphere.

But all in all, this is a hugely entertaining popcorn movie, profiting from being made on a surprisingly big budget of $27 million despite cheaper Canadian filming. It was shot at Buntzen Lake, Anmore, British Columbia, in Canada.

Kelley is a prolific TV veteran of LA Law, Ally McBeal and Boston Legal.

Mrs Bickerman is told that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) would be interested to learn of her alleged mistreatment of her cows. Actress Betty White is a media spokesperson for PETA.

2015 brings Lake Placid vs. Anaconda.

Betty White celebrated her 98th birthday on 17 January 2020.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 266

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