Lake Placid 2 (2007)

 

During last year’s Countdown to Halloween, I watched the first Lake Placid film so I had a chance to see the sequel and figured I’d give it a go.  Yep, even if I didn’t like the first one, I’m going for the next one.  One of the things I remember from the original was it had a decent cast and a director who knew how to do horror.  A bit anyway, he was involved in both the Halloween and Friday the 13^th franchises.  The original was released in theaters where part two was made for the Sci-Fi Channel.  Directing here is David Flores who has made a career out of directing some Z movies like Boa vs. Python and SS Doomtrooper.  When it comes to stars, we have Bo Duke himself, John Schneider as Sheriff James Riley, the head lawman in a small Maine town.  After a researcher is killed while out on the lake, Riley calls Sarah LaFleur (Terminal Invasion and Shall We Dance?) who plays Emily, a wildlife expert.  The two of them take the remaining researcher to investigate.  Eventually they find a giant man-eating crocodile.

 

 

They go question local crazy woman Sadie Bickerman, played by the legendary Cloris Leachman (Young Frankenstein, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Phyllis), Sadie is the sister of Betty White’s character from the first film.  Nearly as cantankerous as Betty White was in the first one, Cloris is limited here due to it being a made for cable film so she’s not as foul mouthed as White was in the original.  Also starring is Sam McMurray (Raising Arizona and Drop Dead Gorgeous) as a poacher who is also hunting the beast.  Struthers, the poacher, also brings his assistant Ahmad, played by Joe Holt (Code of Silence and Confetti), along for the hunt.  As you can probably figure out the CGI is laughable (have you seen any of the Sharknado films?) but some of the makeup effects are still pretty good.  Half of the time McMurray has an Australian accent (I think, although it might be an Irish accent he's going for) and the half of his screen time he doesn’t.  I don’t know what to say about this one, I would suggest avoiding it unless you have a thing for giant crocodile films.  While I gave the original two stars, this isn’t even that quality.  I’ll go one and a half “after whiles” (think about it) out of five for this lackluster and probably unnecessary sequel.