Lake Placid (film)

Infobox Film
name = Lake Placid


caption = "Lake Placid" film poster
writer = David E. Kelley
producer = Michael Pressman
David E. Kelley
starring = Bill Pullman
Bridget Fonda
Oliver Platt
Brendan Gleeson
Betty White
director = Steve Miner
editing = Marshall Harvey
Paul Hirsch
distributor = 20th Century Fox
released = July 16, 1999
runtime = 82 minutes
language = English
music =
awards =
budget = $27,000,000
followed_by = "Lake Placid 2"
imdb_id = 0139414

"Lake Placid" is a 1999 comedy horror film. It was directed by Steve Miner and was released in the United States on July 16, 1999. The music was composed by John Ottman.

Plot

A scientist researching beaver populations is scuba diving in Lake Placid, Maine when he is savagely attacked and bitten in half by something unseen in the water. A tooth found in the remains is sent to a natural history museum for analysis. Paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda) gets the job, mainly because her boss, with whom she has had an office affair, wants her out of his way. Fish and Game officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman) and sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), who witnessed the fatal attack, notice that the tooth resembles that of a crocodile.

Later that afternoon, a helicopter arrives at the camp where we are introduced to Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), a multi-millionaire crocodile expert who believes, despite the sheriff's intense skepticism, that the creature doing the attacks is indeed a crocodile. While the four are out exploring the lake, the creature is shown settling under Kelly and Hank's canoe. Hector's radar begins to pulsate as Kelly and Hank are thrown off their canoe and into the water.

That night, due to his antagonistic nature and free spirit, Hector angers Hank and the two get into a fight. After the two are broken up, Kelly tells Jack and Hank that Hector believes crocodiles are godly creatures. They also meet Delores Bickerman (Betty White), one of few people living on the lake, who claims to have killed her husband.

The next day Jack and Hector go diving in the lake to find the creature. The creature is shown sneaking up on them. It pulls the boat anchor, but Hank order his deputy to cut the anchor cable and the boat escapes. Kelly falls overboard, but is saved just in time as the croc was preparing to attack. Jack and Hector come back up but, in helping Hector aboard, Hank's deputy is attacked by the creature and his head is bitten off.

Hank mourns the deputy and blames himself for his death. Hector's attempts to console him backfire and anger him, and they get into another fight. During the brawl, Hank chases Hector to the lakeside and as the others follow, a grizzly bear appears. Jack pulls Kelly out of the way, but the bear looms over them. Suddenly a giant crocodile leaps out of the water and drags the bear back into the lake.

Kelly and Jack share a moment of awkward intimacy as Kelly dresses Jack's cut. Jack, Kelly, and Hank visit Delores again. They find her feeding the crocodile by bringing a blindfolded cow to the edge of the lake. She is placed under house arrest for not telling the police what she knew when they visited her before.

Hector has shared a relationship with one of Hank's deputies and decides to take her on a trip in the helicopter. Hector lands the helicopter in the cove where the crocodile lives. While he is diving it attacks him but he escapes by throwing an inflatable raft which it chases while they escape in the helicopter.

On their return, Jack berates Hector for foolishly risking the life of the deputy. Hector sulks in his tent, where Kelly consoles him and he regains his confidence. Jack and Hank plan to allow Florida Fish and Game to kill the crocodile when they arrive, but Hector stops suggests instead that he lure it out of the water and drug it. Jack reluctantly accepts the proposal and they use one of Delores' cows, dangled from the helicopter, as bait.

After a few hours of trying this without success, when they are about to give up the crocodile turns up and lunges at the cow. Hector pulls up, loses the cow, and craches the helicopter into the lake. The crocodile then comes on land and attacks Jack and Kelly, and Kelly is knocked into the lake by its tail, but after some struggling she makes it to the helicopter.

The croc then jumps into the cockpit and gets wedged in, and Hector and Kelly dive into the water and swim to the shore. Despite Hector and Kelly's cries to let the animal live, Jack grabs a gun from a deputy and shoots it, but the gun is revealed to be a tranquilizer rifle. As Hector comes out of the water, a second crocodile attacks him, but Hank kills it with a grenade launcher. Florida Fish and Game arrive seconds later. They load the crocodile on a truck and take it to Portland until they can figure out what to do with it. Kelly and Jack also appear to start a relationship. Jack warmly tells Kelly, "I already miss the crocodile".

The last scene shows Mrs. Bickerman feeding bread crumbs to what appears to be many baby crocodiles implying the two adults were a mating pair.

Cast

*Bill Pullman as Jack Wells
*Bridget Fonda as Kelly Scott
*Oliver Platt as Hector Cyr
*Brendan Gleeson as Sheriff Hank Keough
*Betty White as Mrs. Delores Bickerman
*David Lewis as Walt Lawson
*Tim Dixon as Stephen Daniels
*Natassia Malthe as Janine
*Mariska Hargitay as Myra Okubo
*Meredith Salenger as Deputy Sharon Gare
*Jed Rees as Deputy Burke
*Richard Leacock as Deputy Stevens
*Jake T. Roberts as Officer Coulson
*Warren Takeuchi as Paramedic
*Ty Olsson as State Trooper

Production

Despite the name, the movie has nothing to do with Lake Placid, New York, and one scene was filmed in the town of Shawnigan Lake, BC, Canada with the rest in Buntzen Lake, Anmore, British Columbia, Canada. The convert|30|ft|m|sing=on long crocodile was created by [http://www.swfx.com/ Stan Winston Studios] .

"Lake Placid 2" is a sequel to this film, made by a different studio and starring none of the original cast. It was released to DVD on January 29, 2008.

Reception

"Lake Placid" is a combination of suspense, outright horror and comedy. Most of the humour stems from the "fish out of water" quality of Scott and the bickering between Hector and local Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson). The movie was generally received poorly by audiences and critics—a common complaint was that the horror and comedy elements did not sit well together, making the movie fail on both counts. The [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lake_placid/ Rotten Tomatoes] website gave the movie a 37% rating, whilst Roger Ebert described it as "completely wrong-headed from beginning to end". [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990716/REVIEWS/907160303/1023 :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Lake Placid (xhtml) ] ]

References

External links

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