Pânico no Lago 3

"Lake Placid 3" is basically identical to "Lake Placid 2", with as only exceptions that instead of a crazy old hag feeding the crocodiles as if they were cute pets, it's now a dimwit child, and that the almighty cult-actor Michael Ironside dropped by for a shooting day or two and pick up a quick paycheck. This also means, of course, that it's a bad but tremendously entertaining horror flick IF you are in the right mood. Lots of lousy CGI crocodiles and even lousier gore effects, characters that compensate with testosterone/estrogen what they lack in intelligence, and about as much atmosphere and suspense as in an episode of "Sesame Street". I do wish to excessively thank and praise Roxanne Pallett, Kacey Clarke, and Angelica Penn. If it weren't for their gracious bodies and willingness to show gratuitous nudity, I probably wouldn't even remember I ever watched it.

I really enjoyed the first Lake Placcid. It wasn't the best film I've seen, but it had a good atmosphere, had good acting and a witty script. I hated the second film though mainly because of the waste of Cloris Leachman. So considering it was SyFy, I was expecting to hate this one more. But surprisingly, while nowhere near as good as the original, it does improve, if not by much, on the second. The two main improvements were the acting and story. Neither are great here, the story is formulaic and doesn't have that many scares and the acting is amateurish from the lesser-known names. However, at least unlike the second, which was like a vastly inferior carbon copy, there is an attempt to be more original, and in terms of acting while not on the levels of Brendan Gleeson and the like from the original there is a good performance from Michael Ironside, whereas the two big names of the second film(Leachman and John Schneider) were literally wasted. There is some good scenery also. However, the crocodile effects are the worst of the three, among the cheapest of any group of special effects I've seen in a while. And to make things worse, the crocs aren't well-utilised, their scenes are lacking in suspense and they are not menacing in the slightest. The script is hilariously cheesy, the editing is choppy and you'd be hard pressed to find a likable character in this movie. All in all, pretty bad but not awful like the second. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Brazenly ridiculous. It has little to do with the self-satirical original Lake Placid, other than the name. For whatever reason, somebody thought the bargain-basement LP2 warranted a sequel, or a remake, or whatever. So there's yet another generation of these hungry chomping monsters.

Except for Michael Ironside as the quintessential skeptic hick sheriff, and the guy from Eureka poking fun at his Eureka character, the acting is laughably amateurish. The teen actors fare worst; when the girls scream, the shrill noise they emit sounds like an old Talking Tina doll with a broken speech mechanism. The laughable teen soap opera plot doesn't help the paper-thin throw-away characters, either. The knife-wielding nut wasn't bad, considering the outlandish cliché she got stuck with. Don't get me started on that latchkey kid and his weird problems. Throw-away characters have "gator meal" stamped on their heads at all times.

Could the director explain why the gators always grab people's shoes, and drag them for 20 minutes before they decide whether to kill them or not? Do they like to nibble on shoes?

Go in with a "laugh at dumb it is" MST3K attitude, and there'll be a few moments that will not disappoint.

I saw a write up about Roxanne Pallet (Girl at the start) being in the film and she is a babe so thought hey give it a go. From the moment she was stupid enough to go back into the water after seeing two crocs take her boyfriend i knew it would be downhill. It has to be one of the worst films this year, certain films shouldn't have sequels, Jaws was passable at number two but no more and Lake Placid should have stayed at just the one. Its difficult due to the all round poor plot, acting and dialogue to pin point certain scenes but if you get this DVD in your stocking or unwrap it as a present then i would consider what you have done to offend the giver.

'LAKE PLACID 3': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Second sequel to the cult classic 1999 horror / comedy film 'LAKE PLACID'. Having been a fan of the original film it is pretty disappointing to see it take the sequel rout that so many seem doomed to (like 'LOST BOYS', 'TREMORS' and 'STARSHIP TROOPERS' for example, the 'FROM DUSK TILL DAWN' direct to video sequels were actually pretty good compared to others). These sequels (this one and it's 2007 predecessor) were actually released as original made for television Syfy network movies first and then as 'unrated' video releases quickly after. They have a great deal of nudity as well as graphic gore and it appears as though the films were filmed with two versions planned, to capitalize on both markets (Syfy network television and 'unrated' DVD).

This third film stars Colin Ferguson (from TV's 'EUREKA'), Yancy Butler (an old favorite of mine and she still looks hot, and is hilarious as well) and none other than Michael Ironside. Ferguson plays Nathan Bickerman a game warden who relocates his family to Lake Placid and into the house of his late aunt Sadie (played by Cloris Leachman in the second film, who was the sister of Betty White's Delores Bickerman character from the original film). She was killed by a crocodile in the end of the second film but Sheriff Tony Willinger (Ironside) assures the Bickermans that all the killer crocs are gone from the area. Unfortunately Nathan's son Connor (Jordan Grehs) discovers some baby crocs near by and secretly feeds them until they grow into deadly crocs as well and start terrorizing the locals once again. Butler plays a tough and foul mouthed hunting guide hired by a college student (Mark Evans) to find his girlfriend (Kacey Barnfield) who went hiking in the area with another guy.

The film is quite a bit better than the last chapter, especially the acting. Some of the supporting actors are still pretty bad but Butler, Ironside and Ferguson all give better performances than the material has to offer them. The directing and writing is about what you'd expect from this type of film but it does have it's quirky funny moments. The film's main problem (as with the last one and all Syfy network films) is the horrible special effects. The CGI is so bad and painful to watch that it ruins the whole film. This is especially disappointing with this film considering it had potential in other areas. The last chapter was just an all around bad film (although Leachman and John Schneider were entertaining in it). These films really should go back to the 'old school' plastic critter effects, they'd be a lot cooler if they did so. I know they don't have a lot of money to spend but no effects would be better than the CGI were subjected to.

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