Lake Placid (film)

Lake Placid
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steve Miner
Written by	David E. Kelley
Produced by	David E. Kelley Michael Pressman Peter Bogart
Starring	Bill Pullman Bridget Fonda Oliver Platt Brendan Gleeson
Cinematography	Daryn Okada
Edited by	Paul Hirsch Marshall Harvey
Music by	John Ottman
Production companies	Fox 2000 Pictures Phoenix Pictures
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	July 16, 1999 (1999-07-16)
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$27–35 million
Box office	$56.9 million

Lake Placid is a 1999 American comedy horror film that tells the story of a crocodile traveling thousands of miles out of its known territory and terrorizing the fictional town of Black Lake, Maine. A group of unlikely heroes assembles to take down the killer beast, while simultaneously discovering the complexities of human nature and exploring the animal kill vs. capture quandary.

Lake Placid was directed by Steve Miner, best known for the Friday the 13th Horror Series and Day of The Dead. The film, written by David E. Kelley, best known for Ally McBeal and Big Little Lies, is the first installment in the Lake Placid film series. The movie stars Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Platt, Betty White, Meredith Salenger, and Mariska Hargitay.

Lake Placid was produced by Fox 2000 Pictures and Stan Winston Studios, best known for special effects in the Alien and the Terminator film series, and principal photography was shot in British Columbia, Canada, home of well-known films like the Twilight Films series and The Neverending Story. Three different lakes in British Columbia stood in for the fictional "Black Lake": Shawnigan Lake, Buntzen Lake and Hayward Lake.The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox and released in theatres in the United States on July 16, 1999, and in the United Kingdom on March 31, 2000. It grossed $56.9 million worldwide and was followed by five low-budget made-for-television sequels, starting with Lake Placid 2 in 2007.

Plot

Set Up

In Aroostook County, Maine, Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife officer Walt Lawson (David Lewis) is scuba diving with Sheriff Hank Keough (Gleeson) in Black Lake. During the dive, Keough hints at the primary conflict of the film, the nature of man vs. beast, postulating on the importance of allowing animals to have their anonymity in the wild but stops short of sacrificing man for this cause. Underwater, Lawson is shown swimming through the lake and seemingly disrupting the nest of the yet to be seen crocodile. Suddenly Lawson resurfaces bitten in half by something in the lake.

Introductions and Impressions

The following day, United States Fish and Wildlife Service officer Jack Wells (Pullman), American Museum of Natural History paleontologist Kelly Scott (Fonda), and Sheriff Keough investigate the incident. Upon their first meeting, tensions arise between high-strung Scott and local Wells living in rural Maine. In this interaction, Scott hints at the lack of intelligence within the town's officials. Scott yells " Are we all museum bigots in Maine?" when met with resistance while requesting to see the site of the incident after identifying the tooth discovered in the body to be reptilian.

Facing the Crocodile

Upon arriving at the lake, Scott, Wells, and Sherriff Keough are met by Hector Cyr (Platt), a wealthy mythology professor and crocodile enthusiast who forces the team to question the prehistoric creature's presence in their town. Cyr, who suspects the culprit is a crocodile joins the team to prove the existence of the crocodiles in Maine. He explains that crocodiles do have the power to survive in the winter months, depending on their nostrils integrity and that the site of the inciting incident occurred just a mile from the ocean, lending credibility to his belief that the attack was committed by a crocodile.

After Kelly and Hank's canoe is flipped over, they discover a severed human toe and moose head. Sheriff Keough's deputy, Burke (Jed Rees), head is bitten off, which confirms Hector's suspicions of the attacker being a crocodile. After the attack, Keough vehemently denies any accident taking place, quietly siding with Cyr. The following day, as Keough and Cyr get into an altercation over, a large grizzly bear attacks them, but a gigantic 32 ft (9.8 m) long saltwater crocodile emerges from the lake and drags the bear into the water. Later, the group discovers that local resident Delores Bickerman (played by White), an elderly widow living near the lake, is feeding the crocodile after they observe her leading a blindfolded dairy cow to the water. She reveals that she had been feeding it for years after the crocodile ate her husband.

Eventually, some of the group (Keough and Wells) decide to kill the croc while Scott and Cyr insist the creature is a freak of nature and should be captured for study. Wells reluctantly accepts the proposal, and they use one of Bickerman's cattle, dangled from the helicopter, as bait. When the Crocodile appears and lunges, Cyr pulls up the helicopter and Wells fires a tranquilizer dart into its neck. Cyr loses control of the helicopter, crashes into the lake and the crocodile comes on land to pursue the group. Scott is knocked into the lake by the crocodile's tail and forced to swim to the helicopter. As she enters the downed helicopter, the crocodile attacks but becomes trapped. As the tranquilizer kicks in and the crocodile appears to be pacified, Wells, Cyr, and Keough argue about whether or not to kill the animal. Wells eventually grabs Keough's gun and shoots it- with a tranquilizer.

As Cyr emerges from the water, another crocodile attacks and bites him, but Keough destroys it with a grenade launcher. Soon after, Florida wildlife officers arrive, they load the neutralized crocodile onto a truck and take it to Portland, Maine as they determine what to do next. One week later, Bickerman feeds breadcrumbs to many baby crocodiles, revealing the two adults were actually a mating pair. The surviving adult crocodile is seen tied to the back of a flatbed trailer travelling down the highway.  

Underlying Themes

Man Vs. Animal

Throughout the course of the film, the argument of man vs animal arises multiple times. Animals are often killed due to the rising need of food sources throughout a population and Lake Placid delves into the idea of killing an animal to protect humans in the surrounding area who have either been attacked or killed by the beast. The character of Cyr points out multiple reasons for not killing the animal including its prehistoric nature, that crocodiles were once viewed as deities by cultures and their special ability to survive in harsh climates. Crocodiles were first present in the Triassic period, and in some corners of the world, including Egypt, India and Madagascar, crocodiles are worshipped as Gods. Cyr makes an argument for preserving the freak of nature for science and research purposes while the characters of officer Wells and Sheriff Keough rebuff these claims as their plan is to destroy the creature. As the movie concludes, both sides are triumphant; the initial murderous crocodile is captured and the second, unknown crocodile is destroyed by Sheriff Keough's "big" gun.

The inclination to protect oneself is a biological human trait, and the propensity to save endangered species with hopes of learning from the animals DNA in hopes to cure human diseases is vital to the continuation of the human species. Although fictional, the film presents the argument in a way that both viewpoints have the potential to be socially acceptable.

City vs. Rural

The differences of urban vs. rural dwellers is a reoccurring theme sprinkled throughout Lake Placid. Scott represents a typical "city girl", who is more comfortable within the confines of a major city and all of the amenities that life includes. She is uncomfortable in the wilderness of Maine and voices her concerns and uneasiness quite often in the film. This discomfort is met with taunts from officer Wells and Sheriff Keough. As countrymen, they are more at ease in the wilderness and imply that those from the city have no place in their town. This debate between urban and rural inhabitants is rooted in the disbursement of resources and land available for the general public. As evidenced in the film, these debates can stem from ignorance, prejudice and fear of the unknown or unfamiliar.

Lake Placid presents this disagreement of ideals in a way that allows the viewer, depending on their perspective, to identify and understand with each side of the argument. In the film, Scott expresses distress over learning the investigative party will be camping in the woods near the lake. Officer Wells retorts " You know you don't have to tell anyone you are from New York?", highlighting the paleontologist's "fish out of water", uncomfortable situation and just how different city and "country" folk are.

Officer Wells and Sheriff Keough have the objective of protecting their town and its citizens from danger and this informs most of their interaction with Scott throughout the film. They view her as an impediment or distraction to the investigation into the protecting their town. Their own preconceived notions of those who live in the city, combined with their desire to quell the danger threatening the citizens challenges Scott, who views officer Wells and Sheriff Keough as dumb and incompetent due to residing in such a small rural town. These misconceptions and preconceived notions collide throughout the film and eventually fade as the main goal of stopping the killer beast becomes priority.  

Cast

• Bill Pullman as Jack Wells
• Bridget Fonda as Kelly Scott
• Brendan Gleeson as Sheriff Hank Keough
• Oliver Platt as Hector Cyr
• Betty White as Mrs. Delores Bickerman
• Meredith Salenger as Deputy Sharon Gare
• David Lewis as Walt Lawson
• Tim Dixon as Stephen Daniels
• Natassia Malthe as Janine
• Mariska Hargitay as Myra Okubo
• Jed Rees as Deputy Burke
• Richard Leacock as Deputy Stevens
• Jake T. Roberts as Officer Coulson
• Ty Olsson as State Trooper
• Adam Arkin as Kevin (uncredited)
• Steve Miner as Airplane Pilot

Soundtrack

Lake Placid
Film score by John Ottman
Released	July 27, 1999
Genre	Soundtracks Film scores
Length	47:00
Label	Varèse Sarabande

The soundtrack for the film was composed and conducted by John Ottman, and released by Varèse Sarabande.

Track listing

1. Main Title (2:25)
2. Hector's Here (1:11)
3. Close Call (3:59)
4. Udder Preparations (4:02)
5. Love Games (2:25)
6. Reluctant Passengers (1:46)
7. Morgue / Scary Beaver (4:11)
8. Scouting (2:22)
9. Here He Comes! (4:57)
10. Making a Move /Jack (2:11)
11. Swimming With Croc (3:36)
12. Hector's Mind (2:48)
13. Weird Things / Dinner Time (2:51)
14. Ground Rules (1:43)
15. Trapping Croc / Resolution (5:30)
16. The Lake / Hitching a Ride (1:03)

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 47% based on 95 reviews, with an average rating of 5.10/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Betty White's delightful supporting turn may be worth the price of admission alone, but Lake Placid is swamped by a smarmy script and inability to deliver on the creature feature mayhem".

On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 34 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one out of four stars, describing it as "completely wrong-headed from beginning to end". He put it on his list of the 10 Worst Films of the Year. Andrew Collins of Empire gave the film four out of five stars, writing that "you can enjoy Placid as a straightforward camping-holiday nightmare, or as a sly, ironic take on the same. It works deliciously as both".

See also

• List of killer crocodile films
• Deinosuchus
• Dread Central
• The Urban and Rural Divide
• Prehistoric Crocodiles

External links

• Official website
• Lake Placid at IMDb
• Lake Placid at Rotten Tomatoes