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Thursday, August 6, 2015

Lake Placid vs. Anaconda DVD Review

Reviewed by Jami Ferguson
Anacondas large enough to crush an SUV. Crocodiles strong enough to leap onto speedboats. When they're not hunting for human prey, they're more than willing to take on each other. Get ready for a non-stop bloodbath unlike anything you've seen before in this heart-pounding battle between mutated crocodiles and genetically engineered anacondas. Packed with hot sorority girls, big guns, and jaws massive enough to swallow a human in one bite, this is one screaming good time!


Film (2 out of 5 stars)
A team of pseudo-scientists are working to cross breed giant crocodiles and giant anacondas. Using a genetically engineered snake, they hope to speed up the process.  They are given access to a restricted area by Bickerman (Robert Englund) a man with one arm, one leg and one eye. They work quickly inside a mobile lab, planning to bring their specimen back with them but things don’t go according to plan.  Blood is spilled and the creatures are on the loose.

US Fish and Wildlife agent Tully (Corin Nemec) is skilled at catching poachers. When Sheriff Reba (Yancy Butler) needs assistance, she calls in Tully. She already has her hands full with a local woman who has gone missing. The woman and her stoner boyfriend have just been hanging out in a motel, which shouldn’t be dangerous except for the crocodile underneath the mattress. At the same time, Tully’s daughter heads to the lake with her future sorority sisters. The queen of all mean girls is hazing her pledges forcing them to follow her commands including getting in and out of the water.  Rush weekend turns deadly as one anaconda chases and crushes an occupied SUV. As the mean girl makes bad choices and puts everyone’s lives in danger, Tully’s daughter stays level headed and rescues her friends.

Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is as campy as it gets. After the requisite T&A shot at the motel, you meet the crocodile under the bed. That’s when I realized that the only way to watch this film was to treat it as a comedy. It is poorly written and includes random tie-ins to the movie franchises, including a brief mention of the Blood Orchid (which allowed the anacondas to grow so big in those films). You should really treat this as a drinking game. Drink whenever the local idiot, Deputy Ferguson, gets yelled at or makes a mistake. Drink whenever someone overacts a death scene. Drink when you wish you were watching another movie. The point is, with a lot of alcohol and a group of friends, this movie could be a lot of fun. As a fan of both Lake Placid and the Anaconda films, watching it sober and alone is very disappointing. The writers even called the hybrids “crocacondas”, which is actually a much better title.
Video (2 out of 5 stars)
Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is presented on DVD without a lot to brag about.  The CGI creatures are unrealistic and the blood splatter is less than convincing.  Fine detail and black levels are what you’d expect on DVD.
Audio (2 1/2 out of 5 stars)
Lake Placid vs. Anaconda features audio in English, French and Spanish with subtitles in English, English SDH, French and Spanish.  The screams aren’t blood curdling and directionality is lacking for a creature feature. The dialogue is even and consistent but it sounds as though every actor doesn’t speak English as a first language and possibly had to go back and re-dub the lines, which are just a bit off.
Extras (0 out of  5 stars)
The DVD contains no special features.
Summary (2 out of 5 stars)
Lake Placid vs. Anaconda failed to deliver a possible story line.  I didn’t need it to be plausible, just possible.  The writers had a copy of campy creature flick 101 and included the sorority girls, but not even hot ones, big guns and creatures eating bystanders and fighting amongst themselves.   The story is as dumb as Sharknado but just not as much fun.   It’s no Sharktopus or Mansquito, two films that were so bad they were good.    It sadly does not live up to the Lake Placid or Anaconda name.

Order your copy today!


1 comment:

  1. On what planet, are the girls in this movie, not hot??!?

    ReplyDelete