6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
Horror-Comedy about a man-eating crocodile loose in the lake. What happens when a man-eating crocodile begins picking off tourists in beautiful Lake Placid? What if the crocodile wants to make it his home?
Starring: Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, Betty White, Brendan GleesonHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 5% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.36:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It’s been said that the reactions of fear and laughter are linked more closely than one might initially think, and there’s probably no better example than the tendency to want to giggle for a bit after a good scare. It’s a bit strange therefore that there haven’t been more outright horror comedies, at least films that aren’t parodies like the Scary Movie franchise. One reason may be the difficulty in maintaining a proper tone which delivers both laughs and chills in more or less equal measure, not to mention being able to deliver a cogent entertainment cobbled together out of seemingly disparate though perhaps psychologically linked elements. A salient example in this regard is the raucous 1999 film Lake Placid, an entry which offers some undeniably funny moments and at least a couple of decent scares along the way, but which feels a bit ragtag in its development and ultimately doesn’t quite hit the mark as either a comedy or a horror film. It’s an interesting hybrid, though, and one which offers a chance for the almost criminally underrated Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Platt to spar in two entertaining supporting roles. The film would arguably have been more effective had a bit more time been devoted to developing these characters, not to mention those played by the stars of the picture, Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda. But Lake Placid is to be commended for cutting to the chase from almost the first moment, setting up the premise that a mammoth crocodile has somehow migrated to the chilly waters of an isolated body of water in Maine that has been ironically nicknamed Lake Placid. When a Forest Service worker is bisected while attempting to tag some beaver in the lake, a coterie of local investigators is sent to look into the mishap. A distant paleontologist is also called to the site to examine an almost primordial tooth found in the corpse, one which is initially assumed to be that of a bear, but which is soon identified as belonging to an impossibly large crocodile. The rest of the film is simply the interplay between this motley crew as they attempt to ferret out the crocodile, with an emphasis both on the simmering romance between the Pullman and Fonda characters as well as the comedic rivalry between the Gleeson and Platt characters.
Lake Placid is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (an imprint of Shout! Factory) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.36:1. The bulk of this presentation is quite strong, with noticeable fine grain (especially evident in bright outdoor scenes where it's quite visible against the clear blue sky), an absence of noise, and a generally stable and clear image. When light filters through the murky green underwater footage, there are occasional very slight banding issues, but you have to concentrate to really see them. There are also some issues here with variable clarity and softness, however, including some expected downgrades in what looks like stock footage used for the establishing shots outside of Kelly's museum, and perhaps more problematically some of the wide range location shots which capture the beautiful environs of Lake Placid. Contrast is just slightly inconsistent, seeming somewhat pushed in the brightest outdoor scenes. Colors look accurate, if not especially vivid, though even that aspect enjoys an uptick in a couple of the more gruesome blood and guts moments.
Lake Placid's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix has a couple of significant improvements over the also included DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix, notably in the much more boisterous low end, something that amps up a couple of the shock sequences where sound effects and score are well distributed around the surround channels. This is still a fairly front-centric mix a lot of the time, though there is some good separation even here, with clearly delineated foley effects emanating directionally as the cast moves through the forest and, later, starts exploring the lake. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and dynamic range is quite wide courtesy of things like a roaring helicopter.
Lake Placid could have been an outright comedy horror masterpiece if just a little bit more time had been spent establishing and then developing the characters. As it stands, though, the film is a lot of fun almost all of the time. It's neither that scary nor that funny, but it does manage to tweak a few moments out of each genre with a fair degree of panache. While Pullman and Fonda are the putative stars here, it's Gleeson and Platt that really light up the screen, aided by a spectacularly foul mouthed Betty White. This Blu-ray offers generally great looking video and nice sounding audio, and in typical Scream Factory fashion, comes with some good supplements. Recommended.
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