LAKE PLACID VS ANACONDA (REVIEW)

Dir. A.B. Stone

Reviewer. Martyn Wakefield

Firstly not sure why a lake vs a snake is riveting enough for a film. OK, maybe being facetious but the title is not a good start when it is literally the combination of two franchises is never a good start. Surely a more apt title should be THE ALLIGATOR FROM LAKE PLACID VS AN ANACONDA? Either way, it's as terrible as the title as even a good and committed central performance from Yancy Butler and Corin Nemec can't hide the terrible actors and CGI around them. A band of sorority girls play the food for the predators and boy do they test endurance, added to that is a Dufus level police officer who bumbles through everything but never quite captures the comic timing well enough that you're laughing at the film rather than with it.

Luckily Butler and Nemec make it a slightly tolerable journey even if every attack is laugh out loud funny for all of the wrong reasons. As far as plot goes, an unusually large anaconda escapes a laboratory and heads to Lake Placid where the local giant alligators roam. Hot on the tails to capture the anaconda are a band of mercenaries and Robert Englund who reprises his role from previous Lake Placid movies but even his appearance is bewildering when the action takes place.

The stars of the film are the the snakes and crocodiles and if this was a comedy special they would take away all of the awards, the CGI is Asylum level bad and they defy physics as well as the suspension of disbelief, even when the rest of the cast are chewing the scenery more than they are their prey. There's no hiding from the budget which has never been in the CGI for either series but this is the final nail in both franchise coffins. The genuine definition of so bad it's good-ish.