Eight years after the events of the first Lake Placid, other giant crocodiles start killing human beings again.
A common thread between the two stories, the usual widow Bickerman (here played by Cloris Leachman, Oscar winner in 1972 for The last show) who fed for years the young of the first pair of crocodiles, killed eight years earlier.
The town's sheriff (John Schneider, famous for playing Bo Duke in the historic TV show Hazzard) will try to kill the dangerous behemoths to save, first of all, his teenage son (Chad Collins, Legion of the Dead) who was camping with friends.
David Flores (Boa vs. Phyton) directs this bad sequel that spoils what was good shown in the original.
One of the film's weaknesses is the poor special effects (crocodiles are seen frequently in the film, and little care is taken to make them "lifelike," just like the snakes in Boa vs. Python) who certainly suffered from the low budget allowed to make this film (it was released directly for TV with the "usual" contribution of the American Sci-fi channel, which specializes in science fiction, paranormal and horror), but to limit criticism to special effects alone would be reductive.
No actors from the cast of the previous episode were confirmed (or would it perhaps be more appropriate to say that the actors from the previous episode declined to film this sequel?) and the comic verve that had made Lake Placid moderate success ($31 million earned in America alone) was virtually lost in this ill-fated sequel.
Add in the actors, all of whom lose direct comparison to their counterparts in the first film (with the exception of Cloris Leachman, partly because of the greater "depth" the widow Bickerman enjoys in this film than in the first), and a plot stripped down to the essentials (perhaps "essentials" is too much), and it becomes clear why Lake Placid 2, which in theory had all the makings of an excellent sequel, is a film to avoid (unless you have seen the first one and want, out of curiosity, to know how the story ends).
Still, this remains a film that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth for what could have been and was not.
Missed opportunity.
Review of The Creature
