"Lake
Placid" had been a moderately successful and somewhat entertaining
horror/black comedy, but wasn't exactly a runaway success at the box office.
So I was more than a little bit surprised when they decided to make a sequel to it,
some 8 years later.
For this outing, the local Sheriff (played by Bo Duke himself John Schneider) is investigating the disappearance of an environmental researcher, who fell off his boat and appeared to have been dragged underwater by something rather large.
He's joined by a young officer from the Department of fish and wildlife named Emily (Sarah Lafleur), who's main purpose is to provide the film with some eye candy for the male viewers. But it doesn't take too long for them to realise that there's another giant croc on the rampage. As body parts pop-up left right and centre and we're treated to scenes of semi-naked teens getting eaten by a not-very-convincing CGI animation.
It seems that the sister of the old lady from the first film has been feeding meat pumped full of growth steroids to the crocs in the lake and they've grown to gigantic proportions, meaning the Sheriff is going to need some serious firepower to stop these things. Fortunately, they're joined by some hunter named Struthers (Sam McMurray) who's not a very good shot, but has brought along enough firepower to start World War 3, as he wants the croc's head for his mantelpiece. And so the group set out to stop the crocs, before they can chomp down on any more nubile teenagers.
Originally made for the Sci-Fi channel on TV, the film is not very original, but does prove to be fairly entertaining, even though it's not as good as the first and the CGI croc looks decidedly ropey. The film actually works much better as a campy comedy than a straight horror film, so if you like low budget cheese-fests, then you will probably enjoy this.
