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Review: Lake Placid vs. Anaconda

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I was reading other publications’ reviews this morning and one of them cited Lake Placid vs. Anaconda as the “battle of two failed franchises.” I don’t feel this is necessarily true as Anaconda, Anaconda II and Lake Placid were all financially successful. It wasn’t until both of the creature features went the campy SyFy TV route with bad CGI did they really start to suffer in quality. And really, does any film franchise sustain all of its charisma by the fifth installment? My point of bringing this up is that both franchises, Lake Placid and Anaconda, had their place in the limelight and were successful at one point. But, my, how the mighty have fallen now…

Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is written by Berkeley Anderson (Monster Ark, Robocroc) and is the directorial debut of A.B. Stone. Cast members include Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Fear Clinic), Yancy Butler (Lake Placid 2, “Witchblade”), Corin Nemec (Killer Bud, Sand Sharks), Nigel Barber (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes), Laura Dale (Roboshark), Stephen Billington (Resident Evil), Luke Dinchev, Ali Eagle, Jeffrey Beach, Heather Gilbert, Isaac Haig and Skyle Lourie.

From what I can gather, Lake Placid vs. Anaconda starts off with an all too frequently used plot device of a scientific establishment attempting to genetically alter or hatch embryos that have been mutated for some specific reason. As always, these experiments prove to be fruitless as the monsters break out in the first minutes of the movie and begin devouring a small, unsuspecting town. Now it’s up to local authorities, members of some high up ecological firm and a bunch of sorority sisters on a pledge season get-away to survive and stop the monstrous creatures. We’ve all seen this basic plot used dozens of times before, so there’s the bare minimum. You’ll be able to fill in the gaps on your own.

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I think that Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is an attempt for the people who hold the rights to Lake Placid to try and squeeze a few more drops of blood out of the franchise. Anaconda had far more successfully done movies that halted in 2009 with Anacondas: Trail of Blood where-as Lake Placid has Lake Placid 3 (2010), Lake Placid 4: The Final Chapter (2012) and now this one. Also, the fact that this title takes place in or near Black Lake, Michigan with two returning characters – Yancy Butler as Reba (Lake Placid 3, Final Chapter) and Robert Englund as Bickerman (Final Chapter) – gives the first franchise an unfair advantage. Maybe going into a mutual environment and getting a returning character from either series would have made this film of a movie vs. movie type of deal. There is far too much leaning in Lake Placid’s direction to be fair.

Speaking of Robert Englund, I wish he would steer clear of these CGI creature features. I have so much respect for him as a man and as one of the biggest icons of fright, so it always pains me a little bit to see him doing movies of this caliber. It’s a waste of his awesome talent, if you ask me. Matter of fact, everyone who was featured in Lake Placid vs. Anaconda had either a lot of talent or shreds of talent and I hope that they pursue other types of movies in the future. The problem with SyFy Original Movies like this is that they are fun, campy, have decent actors and the cinematography is always top notch. The problem is, with a budget of $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 – there’s not a lot of money left over for creating the giant creatures, thus why they go with the terrible CGI monstrosities. This could be remedied by a variety of ways, mind you.

Honestly, Lake Placid vs. Anaconda wasn’t nearly as campy as I thought it would be and I struggled to make it halfway through my viewing to have a somewhat dignified review. I think I made it to the forty minute mark before I tapped out and fell asleep. And I don’t think I’ll be watching it again to see what I missed, either. Nothing new here, just another dead horse beaten with an equally dead stick. Fun in concept, looks good visually, but the cheese factor was still sky high and the CGI was all over the place. If you’ve seen Mega Shark vs. Whoever, then all you need to do is copy and paste the antagonists and the protagonists to make this one make sense. Yawn.

Final Score: 4 out of 10

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Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

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