Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: January 11, 2000
• Run Time: 82 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (243 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000035P84
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #697,134 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Lake Placid is total trash--and, as a result, fairly entertaining. Yet another entry in the horror subgenre of giant animals running amok, Lake Placid features a giant crocodile that has somehow found its way to an isolated lake in Maine. The absurdity of crocodiles in Maine sets the tone for the entire movie, which has no ambitions beyond mixing a little fright with a little humor. Bridget Fonda (Point of No Return, Jackie Brown) plays a paleontologist sent to investigate a large tooth; Bill Pullman (Independence Day, Lost Highway) is a fish and game warden just trying to keep the peace; Oliver Platt (Funny Bones, Flatliners) plays a loose-cannon mythology professor who swims with crocodiles for sport; and Brendan Gleeson (an excellent but little-known actor, most noted for The General) is a local sheriff with a short temper and a big gun. Add a few gruesome dismemberments, Betty White as a cantankerous old broad who may have murdered her husband, and a cow hanging from a helicopter, and there you have it: Lake Placid. (Curiously, this concoction was put together by David E. Kelley, better known as the creator of TV's Ally McBeal and The Practice.) --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker

Economy seems to be sneaking back into vogue, which is good news; Steve Miner's new movie comes in well under the ninety-minute mark, leaving no room for bombast or overkill. Admittedly, it's a slender tale: a natural historian with no grasp of nature (Bridget Fonda) travels up to Maine to inspect a tooth. It was found in the body, or the half-body, of a local diver, and our heroine thinks it came from a crocodile. So she teams up with a game warden (Bill Pullman), a lawman (Brendan Gleeson), and a hairy crocophile (Oliver Platt) to find the beast and slay it-or rather, this being part of the eco-friendly horror genre, to trap it alive in the interests of science and ogling. It's one of those pictures in which the actors seem to be having slightly too good a time; relaxed ensemble work is one thing, but Fonda in particular ambles around as if no one has explained to her what she's meant to be doing there. Thank goodness for the monster of the deep, who rolls up his sleeves and gets down to business; this may be no more than a squib of a B movie, and it remains about as frightening as a fish tank, but, if you have any poetry in your soul, you will surely thrill to a film that ends with a crocodile sticking its head in a helicopter. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comic horror which undeservedly bombed in theaters, February 17, 2000

By 

Craig Larson (Maple Grove, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lake Placid (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

Written by David E. Kelley, the mastermind behind television's Ally McBeal and The Practice (both of which won Emmys in the "best of" categories last year), _Lake Placid_ is a comic horror film about the search for a giant crocodile, inexplicably living in a landlocked lake in upstate New York.

When a diver is eaten alive in the opening moments, by some unknown creature, the local game warden (Pullman) teams up with a paleontologist (Fonda) from New York to find the beast. Add to this mix an eccentric millionaire philanthropist with a penchant for swimming with "crocs" (Platt), and the local sheriff (Brendan Gleeson), who thinks the man is nuts, and you've got the recipe for one of the more underrated of last summer's films.

This is a horror film and it can, at times, get quite messy (see the opening attack sequence, for example). The special effects work is about what you'd expect in such a film, although with the advent of computer graphics, it's a lot easier to bring a realistic giant crocodile to life. Surprisingly, though, there are few deaths in the film.

The emphasis is more on suspenseful moments of the Jaws variety, in which we wonder whether unlucky swimmers are about to become lunch. And, there are even a couple of gross, but funny moments in the film, as when an eccentric old lady (played by Betty White) offers random farm animals as sacrifices to the croc.

But the real emphasis in the film is on the humor and there are some great conversations and arguments among the film's characters, particularly Platt's whacko croc-swimmer and Brendan Gleeson's sheriff (in one of the more unusual bits of casting, as the Irish Gleeson is forced to adopt an American accent, which tends to slip in some of the more heated moments). And White's character is also played for laughs (you'll be surprised at some of the inventive curses she comes up with).

The film wasn't particularly well-received when first released last summer, but luckily, with its release on video, this can be remedied. This is not a film for everyone's tastes, but if, like me, you occasionally hunger for a "giant-animal-runs-amuck" film, _Lake Placid_ more than fills the bill.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better The Second Time Around, June 13, 2005

By 

K. Fontenot "Prairie Cajun Lives!" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lake Placid (Full-Screen Edition) (DVD)

I hated this movie when I first saw it. I always felt that it tried too hard to be funny. However, it's been a few years since I've seen it, and I was bored one night so I gave it another chance. I'm glad I did. While it isn't as good as "Anaconda," it does have some good qualities about it. The cast does very well with the campy dialogue they are given. The interactions between Oliver Platt and Brendan Gleeson are downright funny, and their relationship really steals the show. Everyone talks about Betty White's character in this flick, and it is pretty funny to watch her spew out curse word after curse word, but my favorite line of hers is how she delivers the word "Sherlock!" to Gleeson's character.

The crocodile looks pretty good. In a couple of scenes it is obvious that he's an animatronic croc, but thank heavens that the entire thing isn't CG-created. It's nice to see that puppeteers can still find work in Hollywood. Though the puppets are great, the CGI isn't too shabby either. The croc really is impressive to see on the screen. He's definitely done on a higher level than the aforementioned "Anaconda."

I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys giant creature features with a hefty dose of macabre humor. Though it may be subpar when compared to other films of the genre, it is definitely better than the SciFi channel offerings such as "Dinocroc" and "Frankenfish." SciFi channel seems to be the last domain for larger-than-life creature flicks. Though I commend them for attempting to keep the genre above water, I wish that more camp-fests like "Lake Placid" could find their way to the big-screen.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Betty White Rocks!, May 4, 2004

By 

Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lake Placid (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

A Fish and Game worker is doing a survey of beavers in a placid lake with the local sherrif when he suddenly becomes half the man he was and dies. Local law enforcement, Fish and Game, and a New York museum worker set out to discover what happened. They are soon joined by an eccentric millionaire who loves crocodiles.

Is there a crocodile in the lake? At first few believe that such a thing could be until hard evidence shows up. The Crocodile is not an ordinary one, it is thirty feet in length. The camp is quickly split between those who want to kill it and those who want to save it. To learn it's fate you will have to watch the film.

This is a very well-done piece of work. The characters are interesting and there is just enough sarcastic humor to really lighten the mood. Betty White plays a foul-mouthed local resident and her delivery of her "I'm rooting for the crocodile" line is an instant classic. This is a fun film and far from typical. It is not just a giant-lizard-eating-people film. Check it out.