Lake Placid: L'héritage

Found myself really liking the original 'Lake Placid'. Have found the follow-ups nowhere near as good and have not cared for most, the exception being the surprisingly above average 'Lake Placid: The Final Chapter'. Saw 'Lake Placid: Legacy' as means of seeing all the films, but with it being from SyFy part of me was apprehensive.

Have made no secret in the past of intensely disliking, and even outright hating a lot, a vast majority of SyFy's (near-universally maligned for good reason) output, though there is curiosity as to whether they are capable of making something good and compulsive about their output's badness. Admittedly, SyFy do have a small group of watchable films and the occasional (big emphasis on that word) above average one, unfortunately outweighed by the lacklustre at best and often dreadful films they churn out.

'Lake Placid: Legacy' is not one of their worst. That is not an endorsement, seeing as it is still very bad and often awful with pretty much all the same flaws that can be found in their other outings. As far as the 'Lake Placid' films go, it is the worst.

There is some semi-decent scenery and Tim Rozon tries his best, but that is pretty much it with the pros.

Scenery aside, 'Lake Placid: Legacy' looks cheap. As drab as the photography and how disorganised the editing was, it was the special effects that came off worst. Less than special is being far too complimentary, much of it is unspeakably atrocious. Can remember nothing about the music and the direction has no distinction or inspiration, it can't even be described as competent.

Rozon aside, the acting is the usual over-compensating and looking disengaged, and there is a real charisma problem frequently. Couldn't find myself interested or caring for any of the characters, characters that had no development to them (the few attempts were sketchy) and actually grate on the nerves.

Don't expect the antagonist to save it. It's criminally under-utilised and when seen it looks diabolical with inconsistent sizing, artificial design and stiff movement and has no personality let alone menace, not even unintentional goofiness. The attacks and atmosphere have no tension or suspense, instead being predictable, awkwardly and anaemically staged and above all ridiculous, the cheesiness and goofiness going too far. Not even gratuitous gore and screaming that is actually creepier than the effects and attacks can do much to make things a little better.

None of the story is engaging, wouldn't have minded the complete lack of originality if it wasn't so dull and colourless as a result of over-stretching a far too slight narrative and then having a lot of contrivance and incoherence. The dialogue never rises above risible, any attempts at tongue-in-cheek makes one face-palm, the silliness gets over the top and other parts take themselves too seriously.

Overall, very bad. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Gator is huge outside but small inside the buildings... Just a horrible job creating this stupid, waste of a time, movie.

How would I describe this movie? GARBAGE. This movie is garbage. First of all, they tease us on the box art, and on the poster, implying that this film is going to take place in a lush outdoor environment with emerald green water and lush forestry. NOPE! You get teased by that for about 5 minutes in the movie when they're driving towards their destination...where the killer croc lives....but then the rest of it takes place in nondescript underground tunnels, storage rooms, corridors lined with pipes and blinking lights. There's also not much action...which is a major bummer. For a 90 minute film, if you were to cut up all the scenes that have action and stitch them together, you probably wouldn't get 30 minutes. Most of the film features long boring scenes of the main characters arguing with each other about which way they should go or acting frantic at the slightest distant sound which we're to assume is a killer croc stalking them from afar. Let's talk about the characters: The rebellious angry bearded hipster activist guy who smokes pot, the dorky computer hacker kid, the hot babe, her timid awkward sister who tags along, the athletic token black guy who's always ready to beat someone up. Do these sound like dumb stereotypes to you? That's because they are, and they're ridiculously under-developed, have really poor dialogue, and are so unlikable that by midway through the film you'll be rooting for the killer croc to eat them all and be done with it. Why are they even friends? Now about that croc. I guess the tight budget dictates what kind of movie you can make but if you're going to make a film about a killer crocodile, atleast know what a crocodile looks like, how it moves/swims/eats, and if you can't get a real one, please, please, please make your CGI crocodile look real. I can't stress how bad the CGI croc in Lake Placid: Legacy looks. To say that it looks like a really cheap cartoon is an understatement. It doesn't fit into the scenes properly because they didn't take into account the lighting, or shadows, or placement and in many scenes, it really does look like it was superimposed over a live action scene (I know that's what it actually is but it's not supposed to look like that!!). Any suspense or excitement quickly dissipates when this thing walks into a scene because it looks so ridiculous. Look out guys! The cartoon crocodile is coming! Run for your life, angry hipster dude! Finally, let's talk about the ending without spoiling it: Never mind there is no ending. No, seriously.

6yrs after the creators lied to us and gave us Lake Placid: The Final Chapter we have yet another straight to television Lake Placid movie and it's unsurprisingly terrible.

Yet again people are on the run from an oversized crocodile in a movie with a wafer thin plot and a forgettable cast.

I mean seriously why? Why does this exist? Why do they keep pounding out these dreadful movies? I mean Legacy of all words to choose! Is this the Legacy that the franchise is going to get? Awful movies that you'll see repeated weekly on the Scyfy channel?

Skin this croc once and for all and let the franchise die, it hasn't been good since *Thinks* the very first film for crying out loud!

Poor movie just like the last bunch.

The Good:

Nothing comes to mind

The Bad:

Unshockingly poor cgi

Whole thing is just so very basic

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Horror movie 101 is don't go down the stairs

Joe Pantoliano must have owed someone a favour

Movie was a waste of time, unlike the Original movie, this movie makes no sense, we all know this movie is about the monster crocodile but in entire movie all you see is pathetic screams and gore but you can see crocodile for a few seconds, not to mention the worst animation (CGI) it's C grade movie, performance of the actors doesn't count if the movie is about something and showing something else, my recommendation don't waste your time