LAKE PLACID 3

SPOILERS 3

Once upon a time there was a perfectly enjoyable, if unremarkable, popcorn horror movie called Lake Placid, with a good name cast (Bridget Fonda, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Pullman) about a giant crocodile. Some eight years later it spawned a belated and frankly redundant sequel, shot in Bulgaria with a no-name cast (except for one of the Dukes Of Hazzard as the sherrif) and it was more or less just about watchable-ish at very best. And now, it's back again and it's worse than the second one, as much worse than the second one as the second was worse than the first. And the first one wasn't exactly John Carpenter's The Thing to begin with. This one at least has two familiar names: Yancy (Hard Target) Butler, and the ever-dependable Michael Ironside but even they can't achieve anything with it.

Lake Placid 3 kicks off in unsurprising fashion with a couple of horny teens skinnydipping before getting bloodily chomped by a CGI croc. Meanwhile the lakeside cabin where the crocs from the first two films were looked after by dotty old women is up for rental, and the new owner, their nephew, is an EPA Officer trying to solve the mystery of the disappearing elk, unaware that his own son is now feeding the crocs with stolen meat, because he's lonely and neglected and he wanted a pet. While another group of horny teenaged idiots stumble round the woods, Yancy Butler's illegal big game hunt turns up, but both are quickly hit by the giant crocs - and there's one that's even larger....

I guess I should have known because it's produced in association with the illiterately named SyFy channel, an operation not known for pushing the high quality envelope. This is just barrel-bottom drek, it doesn't make sense and keeps contradicting itself (the family say they never visited the old women because it was too far, but it's clearly only a bike ride away for the idiot kid). And despite the occasional spurts of gore, it's dull. Worst of all, the CGI monster effects are sub-Asylum dreadful and look like they were pasted in by a nine-year-old who'd never actually seen a crocodile before. Against such amateurish FX work and a frankly rubbish script, even a fun turn from Yancy Butler, hilarious as the tough-talking big-game hunter, isn't enough to recommend it. Michael Ironside is great as always, but this is so far beneath him - presumably he's paying too much for his car insurance and just plain needs the money. Very poor.

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Still, you can buy it here, if you really think you want to: