Halloween Marathon: Lake Placid (1999)

The first non main feature to hit the Halloween Marathon this year is of one of my favorite horror sub genres: Creature Features! I love them to bits and I’m pretty forgiving of them.   I’ve never seen Lake Placid although I’d heard about it before.  I’ve watched spiders and sharks and even octopuses but never giant crocodiles so this seems like it can be lots of fun.

Enough talking! Let’s go!

Lake Placid (1999)

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson, Betty White, David Lewis

A group attempts to destroy a giant, 30-foot-long man-eating crocodile, which terrorizes Black Lake, Maine.-IMDB

Its starting to feel like Maine is the center of a lot of horror movies or even places close to it.  Maybe its because Carrie was also based in somewhere in Maine that I say that.  It just feels that way.  Lake Placid is not really Lake Placid but rather they actually mention that where this went down, they wanted to call it Lake Placid but the name was somewhere else so its called Black Lake now. Lake Placid is a fun movie to watch just like most creature features are, unless they are just being way stupid or boring. The cast is fun and the dialogue is acceptable.  There are some silly moments but it does also create some genuinely tense moments and equally some comedic parts.  I’m not too harsh on it because I enjoyed the characters but it could also be because I’ve grown to be forgiving and expect characters to make stupid decisions and rather predictable deaths.  Is it a horrible creature feature? Not by a long shot.

Remember last year, I did the whole Friday the 13th series for Halloween.  Part 2 is one of my faves in that series and guess who the director is- the same guy as this one. I guess thats why I like the style of it.  There are some jump scares, some tense moments and in the Black Lake, its rather mysterious in some shots.  They try to make you think there’s something when there isn’t and the twist is pretty funny about the reason of why the 30 foot crocodile chooses to stay there.  And that ending was hilarious and so obvious that they wanted to bank on the possibility of having a sequel, which I’ve learned has 3 sequels? I’m not sure but at a quick glance at IMDB, its there.

One of the props does go out to the crocodile scenes being incredibly believable.  I mean, okay, eye to eye with the crocodile, maybe you won’t be so calm and there was a scene like that.  And that crocodile was pretty smart. And I had to do a little research to see if they actually used a real crocodile. Sounds stupid because it was in fact designed (which was expected) but it was fairly real.  Even the reactions and the movements.  While we never caught the crocodile close up until the end for longer moments, and the underwater scene seemed like those rehashed and repeated scenes as it went through the dark water, it still worked fairly well.

As for the cast and their characters, this was incredibly well for what it is.  I wonder about its budget.  Brendan Gleeson is a great actor along with a personal favorite of mine being Bill Pullman, especially in the 90s, he was in a lot of random movies. I don’t think I’ve seen Bridget Fonda anywhere before but she’s good. Alongside that, the best parts that led to some comedic moments was the bickering between Brendan Gleeson’s character versus the “crocodile specialist” of the group played by Oliver Platt.  The different views and beliefs about crocodiles and the desire for Bridget Fonda’s character to break out on this “adventure” while having some underwater expeditions and whatnot made this decent.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with Lake Placid and I think that for a creature feature, its really not too bad.  There are the expected bad or clunky dialogue and there are stupid decisions to be made.  Even so, the crocodile was done well and the sequences built to a point that I had a few thrills at the end despite the stupid decision they all had.  Then that final ending scene right before the credits was pretty hilarious even if it forced a possibility for a sequel. Its definitely worth more than the 30 something % that Rotten Tomatoes gave it.

Have you seen Lake Placid? What did you think of it?

Balto (1995)

It’s winter and man, was it extremely cold last week.  Also, I have plans to go see the international dog sled races in a few weeks. So what better time to pick to see this.

Director: Simon Wells

Voices: Kevin Bacon, Bridget Fonda, Bob Hoskins, Jim Cummings, Phil Collins

Based on the true story behind a American hero, as the box and posters for this animation says.  Its about the amazing story of Balto (Kevin Bacon), a half wolf who lives in Nome, Alaska in 1925.  In this animation, which my guess is loosely based since his companions are a goose who doesn’t fly south called Boris (Bob Hoskins) and two polar bears who can’t swim called Muk and Luk (both by Phil Collins).  When the children of Nome, Alaska start getting hit be an epidemic during a snow storm, they run out of medicine and the closest they could get the medicine delivered was to Nenana, Alaska.  With the brutal weather, the train could not bring it and the planes could not fly it out to them.  They only way was to send out their best dog sled team to go get the medicine.  In Nome, the best dog was pretentious Steele (Jim Cummings) who was the champion dog.  Steele, along with his pack of dogs tried every way possible to stop Balto from not only getting the girl dog, Jenna (Bridget Fonda) but also to stop him from overshadowing him.  When the team finally sets out, Steele gets the team lost coming back to Nome and after an accident, he ends up getting stranded in a lower landing.  Knowing this, Balto ignores the hatred from the other dogs and the humans in the town and goes to find the lost team in the storm in order to get back the medicine in time to save Rosy (who is the owner of Jenna) and the other sick children.

I saw this movie when I was younger and I even owned the VHS of it. This movie holds a lot of nostalgia for me.  When I upgraded it to DVD, this animation still held high up.  Its a very touching story filled with a lot of fun and funny dialogue.  Muk and Luk is the entertaining clowns of this show.  Boris being the responsible but sometimes hot-tempered role but also the one that looks out for Balto and sometimes acts as a mentor to remind him of the important things.  The voice work here is pretty above average.  They are all very vibrant and really fun throughout the whole animation.  The story may be loosely based on a true story but it does bring out how a dog can be loyal and faithful to the people and the place he belongs to.

This animation is a great one for some family fun.  Balto is a very meaningful story and for that, its worth a viewing.  He even has a statue in Central Park, which I did try to find last time I went in 2008, but unfortunately, we got lost so never found it.  Hopefully one day, I’ll eventually get there.

I know this is an older animation and I don’t hear people talking about it much.  I just wonder if a lot of people have seen it.

Have you seen it? Did you like it?