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?

2012 (2009)

There isn’t much to say about why I chose to see 2012 last night out of all the other nights but I guess I needed a bit of excitement since I’m still on cold meds and its making my brain rather dull.  I’m not sure how many people like to watch apocalypse movies but I like them a lot.  I’ll explain more after a little synopsis.  Plus, what makes this one more appealing is John Cusack doing this sort of movie? Interesting, no?

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Liam James, Morgan Lily

In 2009, Dr. Satnam in India urgently asks Dr. Adrian Helmsly (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to go see what he has discovered: that the Earth is heating up internally and that within a certain amount of years, it will cause the interior of Earth to melt and eventually displace the Earth’s surface causing the world to end. In 2012, word has broken out the end of the world is near as predicted by the Mayans.  The world’s end is approaching.  a divorced writer, Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), takes his children Noah (Liam James) and Lily (Morgan Lily) out for a camping trip at Yellowstone National Park to realize that something is going on and US Army is patrolling the area.  At the same time, giant crevices are developing back home in California and his ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and her boyfriend are part of that.  Through coincidence, he meets Charlie (Woody Harrelson), an apocalypse radio broadcaster (who seems a little crazy) and as events start matching up to Charlie’s words, Jackson fights against the elements to get his family away safely.

Such a long synopsis for such a simple idea. I’m still getting back into the review world.  I’ve been taking it really easy in this area.  There is no doubt that most of you would agree that when it comes to world apocalypse flicks, its pretty formulaic.  You get the huge effects of mass world destruction usually on an uncontrollable environmental issue.  The grandiosity of it could be one of the reasons that its enjoyable to watch.  Usually, it comes with some cheesy dialogue and a lot of fancy terms explaining the scientific phenomenon thats happening.  All that happens in 2012.  It also points out that California will be its first target.  2012 was released in 2009 and around that same time, we all learned about the rising rumors of how December 27th (I think), 2012 would mark the end of the world.  Some people believed it, some had their doubts and some just laughed at it.  Personally, it didn’t affect me that much.  I lived my life as I would, did the things I normally would because I already learned that making the most of everyday and being grateful was important.  However, I get it.  Its a scary concept to witness the end of the world.

 

Roland Emmerich is known (at least I know him that way) for all his big action and explosions and world apocalypse style movies.  I mean, Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow and now 2012.  All focus around some form of world ending, from aliens to environment.  The man is good at what he does.  I haven’t seen both of those other movies in a long time so I won’t be comparing it in this review.

Visually, this movie offers some over the top CGI and although a bit exaggerated, it does match up to the grandeur that this movie demands.  Everything that happens is pretty captivating to watch.  I can’t imagine the world crumbling like that.  Its a bit crazy because things really turn south quickly.  However, with a lot of these movies, the plot does lean on the thin part.  I’m not saying that there are plot holes but things in these movies all end up with close to death but the most improbably situations always occur and most of the time, you can expect certain turn of events a mile away. Despite that fact, as it winded near the end, I felt like they had built it up to a good level of intensity.  There was a sequence where it was pretty convincing.

2012 has a pretty impressive cast.  For one, we have in the lead, John Cusack who is the guy on the run, figuring out what is going on with the world while trying to save his family and survive this crazy end of the world mess.  As his ex-wife is Amanda Peet who I know I’ve seen somewhere but I can’t pinpoint where.  The kids are not too bad actually.  Sure, they both do some dumb things that movies like this like to lead the children to do but sometimes, it turned out to be intense but helpful, maybe leaning into the unrealistically brave. Plus, I just realize the son, Liam James, is the young Shawn from Psych (which I am currently binge watching) and the little girl was in one of my favorite movies, Flipped.  So yeah, that really helped that I really liked the cast here also.

When we turn the table around and look at the political and government side, we have the leading scientist/environmentalist Chiwetel Ejiofor, the US President is by Danny Glover and we have the First Daughter with Thandie Newton, all of them are very good in their roles.  Although, Thandie Newton had a very limited appearance in the movie, somehow she has a lasting image in my mind.  However, I think one of the better roles was for Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Adrian Helmsly.  He challenged the authority and fought for saving the world in the a more morally correct way.  He was very human, just as the US President was portrayed as well.  Its usually roles like this that shine through in movies like this.

There really isn’t much else to say about 2012.  I have this feeling that I might have enjoyed The Day After Tomorrow a tad more but this one was done very well also.  My expectations are never high for these because the premise is very simple even with all the fancy scientific terms. I enjoyed seeing the cast on screen carrying out their roles and as the movie builds up to the great finale and finding salvation for all humankind, it builds on the intensity and delivers a decent ending.  Thats all I really ask for in a movie like this: to be entertained and to be swept into the whirlwind of crazy and intensity of over the top CGI.  Its had all that. If you’re into this sort of thing, I’d say its worth the watch 🙂

 Are you into these end of the world flicks? Which is your favorite? What do you think of Roland Emmerich?