Lake Placid: The Final Chapter
September. 29,2012Black Lake is now a crocodile sanctuary, surrounded by an electric fence. When the fence is left open, a high-school bus unknowingly enters the park. It's up to Reba and the Sheriff to save the kids from becoming crocodile food.
Similar titles
You May Also Like
Reviews
Powerful
Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
A tree hugger, fish and game representative, and a sheriff are all out on a cold northern lake looking for giant crocodiles... My criticism of the cold blooded nature of reptiles surviving in a cold climate has been addressed in this film with one word: mutation. Thank God as these films were starting to get silly.Reba (Yancy Butler) is a survivor from the previous film where this one picks up some time later. There is a huge "Jurassic Park" fence around the area. The sheriff (Elisabeth Röhm) encourages her daughter Chloe(Poppy Lee Friar- Seriously? This is her real name?) to go on a senior camping trip by that other lake without said crocodiles. Meanwhile Robert Englund leads a team of poaches in an attempt to get some DNA from the creature to sell. My goodness. How do get these far fetched subplots to collide?Chloe likes a cute boy who is going on the trip. He has a girlfriend (Slytherin's Pansy Parkinson) with "gator bait" practically written across her forehead. Not that these things are predictable. Reba has the best lines and attitude in this film, which it could have utilized better. Not as good as "Lake Placid 3." It is the "Piranha 3DD" to "Piranha 3D", billed higher but delivers less. The film boasts two memorable scenes, 2 more than most films in this genre. The girl whose foot gets snared in a trap. Then there is the cell phone inside the croc, reminiscent of the ticking clock in "Peter Pan." Thumbs up.
This movie is so badly done it should be listed in the top 10 B movie Hall of Fame. Everything from people not handling firearms or shooting them like they really work, to things like we are in a boat on the lake and now back on shore right where we took off from time arrangement screw ups left and right. Its really REALLY bad. I also like how they are in dire threat of getting eaten by the gators, yet from time to time just stop and decide to stand around and have a discussion. The harpoon boat scene is really funny also. You see a lot of boats readily available with a harpoon gun mounted to them. I guess when they shot the gator with it they pulled it like a water skier since they are going like 35 mph. It also looks like the director would have hired a firearms trainer to at least show Yancy Butler how to hold a gun and operate one like it was really firing. You also see Rohm shooting and there is amazingly no recoil, dang, I want one of those please!
It has long been my assertion that Betty White owes a lot to Lake Placid. When the horror film about a large crocodile terrorizing a small town was released in 1999, Betty White was far removed from her Golden Girls run and was bouncing around in various forgettable mid-season television pick-ups that went nowhere (anyone remember Maybe This Time? ). But then she took a role as the croc loving Delores Bickerman in the 1999's Lake Placid alongside Oliver Platt and Bridget Fonda and we were reminded just how fun, energetic and in-on-the-joke the aging actress could be.That was 14 years ago, and more unimportantly, three sequels ago as the fourth installment, Lake Placid: The Final Chapter was thrown out to DVD waters in 2013. Brought to us by the always high-standard revering Syfy Channel, Lake Placid: The Final Chapter was a TV Movie starring Yancy Butler (reprising her role from Lake Placid 3), Elisabeth Röhm, Poppy Lee Friar and Nightmare on Elm Street's Robert Englund in the continuing struggles of the Lake Placid area in keeping the crocodile deaths to a minimum.The plot for this latest endeavor is about as smart as a dung beetle. Picking up exactly -where the classic-should-have-been-nominated Lake Placid 3 left off, The Final Chapter has poacher Jim Bickerman (Englund) in rustler heaven when he arrives at the local lake that is seemingly populated by man-eating crocodiles.Complicating the dung beetles plot are a female sheriff (Röhm) and her wide-eyed daughter (Friar) who both find themselves in harm's way as the large aquatic tetrapods munch their CGI way through a body count that would have Jason Voorhees nod in appreciation.The Syfy Channel and their made-for-television films have a tendency to be McDonald's type meals. Quick and easy. And Lake Placid: The Final Chapter is both. It is barely 80 minutes long and it doesn't push any envelopes on its way to PG-13 glory.The kills are unimaginative and created with such bad CGI that your head might turn away from the screen not for the brutality, but for the saving grace of not having to watch ridiculously fake CGI blood splash so foolishly around edited body parts.It's hard to say that The Final Chapter is the worst Lake Placid of the series. But it is also hard to imagine that the idea has spawned three sequels. Lake Placid 4 is just as bad as Lake Placid 3 which was just barely worse that Lake Placid 2.If you have children on the cusp of appreciating more graphic and engrossing horror fare, Lake Placid: The Final Chapter might be a worthy babysitter that is not likely to do much damage to your child's sleep time. But for adults, this was a waste of 80 minutes where you wish the bullets fired on screen towards the crocodile's would be used against the producers who might suggest 'A New Chapter'.www.killerreviews.com
Having discovered the existence of the crocodiles living in the local lake, a former hunter joins forces with the town's sheriff to keep the crocodiles at bay when both a relentless poacher and a group of teens descend on their nesting grounds.This one was a really great entry that manages to get a lot right about it and doesn't have a whole lot of flaws. In fact, it's only got the true flaw of these Sci-Fi Channel entries in the atrocious and truly terrible CGI used for the crocodiles, which doesn't even come close to the real thing and used for scenes that really shouldn't have needed them. The shots of the crocs on land are certainly obviously done here and require it done, but the simple shots of it just floating on the lake surface really could've been done through other means than horribly pixelated CGI that looks horribly bad like the rest of the CGI here. Beyond this, though, there's a lot to like here including the fact that this one manages to feel as though it's a true continuation of the series, not only spouting off events that previously happened in the series but also continuing off on threads introduced there and presenting itself as a true follower of the previous entries, which is rarely seen. The big profession chance is a decent enough one, but to acknowledge previous entries in story-line terms and the need to have the fence built all make for a rather easy connection to the others. As well, this one has some outstanding action scenes throughout here featuring the hunters stalking the crocs both in the water or on land in the first half. As well, there's even more fun to be had throughout the film as the creatures chasing after the stranded teens in several really fun sequences starting with the early scenes taking them out stealthily before getting to the main ambush scene. Starting with the attack on the speed-boat to the croc storming through the campsite attacking everyone leading to some really bloody attacks as the chases provides some really exciting action attempting to get to safety which makes this highly fun and enjoyable as a centerpiece sequence. Other fun scenes include the confrontation in the abandoned camp where they get caught up in the traps set for the creatures as well as the creatures appearing in the pit trap set-up there that make for a fun time, while the encounter in the house is a lot of fun with the big surprise ambush from the kitchen leading into the battle to get away and eventual escape. With that leading directly into the finale where they battle the creatures out in the lake as they come out to save them in the last big rescue attempt while finally showcasing the other attack in the kids resulting in a rather fun showdown gunfight that finally puts them down. In addition, there's plenty of croc action which allows for some nice bits of gore and a couple nice stalking scenes throughout, which is always a lot of fun to have here and makes this one quite enjoyable. Plus, along with a frenetic pace and a ton of cheese, these here provide the last positive points for this one, perhaps making this the best entry in the series.Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.