Horror Movie Review: Lake Placid 2 (2007)

Written by Todd Hurvitz and Howie Miller, and directed by David Flores, Lake Placid 2 is an improvement over the 1999 original because it knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to do anything but deliver cheesy b-movie horror.

It’s amazing that Lake Placid even got a sequel, let alone one that came out 8 years after the original, yet here we are. The crocs are back and this time, they want a lot more screen time.

It’s all been quiet in Black Lake, Maine, since the events of the first movie… until now. Sheriff James Riley (John Schneider) and wildlife officer Emily Warner (Sarah Lafleur) go to investigate a killing on the lake and quickly establish it’s the work of a croc. Yes, Lake Placid 2 doesn’t want to hang about and is all the better for it.

Even more so, it’s happy enough to introduce a ton of pointless extra characters for the crocodiles to eat. Just like a b-movie should, boobs and all. Seriously, a group of female characters are literally introduced, take their tops off, and are croc food a minute later. Stupid and unnecessary? Totally. Entertaining? Of course!

Of course, to flesh out the story and borrow from the original, a poacher named Jack Struthers joins the hunt and Sadie Bickerman, the sister-in-law of Betty White’s character, seems to have carried on the family business of feeding the crocs. Then there is the sub-plot of the Sheriff’s son, who doesn’t like his father, and ends up in the fight to survive too. All padding, all irrelevant, but appreciated as it shows more effort to tell a story was at least attempted.

It’s all about the crocodiles though and they sure get a lot more screen time. However, this is a TV-movie and one with not much of a budget, so it’s all CGI here. When it’s bad, it’s really bad, but when it’s fine, it looks just as decent as the CGI from the original movie. It just so happens that it looks bad more times than it looks good.

If you have low expectations, and you should, Lake Placid 2 is well worth a watch. Considering the original movie was not a particularly good movie, this sequel really only needed to put the crocs front and centre and it would be an improvement. Which it does.