The third film in the series that seemed planned to squander all of the goodwill gained from the first film, Lake Placid 3 isn't terrible, but it's still a very far step down from that first film.
Colin Ferguson and Kirsty Mitchell play Nathan and Susan, a couple who end up taking over the lakeside property left by Sadie Bickerman (there's no substitute this time around, no Betty White or Cloris Leachman amusing viewers as a profane elder). Unbeknownst to Nathan and Susan, their son, Connor (Jordan Grehs) soon starts to amuse himself by feeding baby crocodiles. But baby crocodiles soon grow into big crocodiles. Nathan soon has his hands full, much to his disbelief, helped by Sheriff Tony Willinger (Michael Ironside) and a local hunter named Reba (Yancy Butler). There's also a selection of teens spending time at the lake, bumping up the potential bodycount.
Writer David Reed, who also delivered the next movie in this series, at least does a better job than his immediate predecessors with mixing the humour and the thrills, and director Griff Furst is used to the format for this kind of thing (just browse his filmography to see a variety of great titles that tell you exactly what you can expect from him, including the likes of Arachnoquake and Ghost Shark). He's hampered by the low standard in special effects that most SyFy Channel seem to have, but that doesn't stop him from working well with a script that aims for fun over any attempts at plausibility.
Ferguson and Mitchell are about as bland as you can get, but that's all well and good when you have Ironside being very likeable in his supporting role, as well as Butler being amusingly over the top as someone who enjoys hunting any kind of prey, from the local wildlife to local young men. Grehs just has to be a kid with a secret habit of feeding crocs, which he does well enough, and Kacey Clarke, Mark Evans, Nils Hognestad, Brian Landon, and Angelica Penn play the main teens/appetisers.
Slight spoiler warning here, I guess . . . for anyone who enjoys the turn from Butler in this movie, you may be pleased to see that she is able to return for the next two films in the series, both of which also feature Robert Englund, despite her last scene in this film seeming to have quite an unambiguous fate. Mind you, expecting rigid continuity in a movie series about large killer crocs is probably like expecting to find a side of chips available for a quid in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
If you endured Lake Placid 2 then you might want to at least check this out. It's not one I would recommend to anyone else though. Only the hardiest of creature feature viewers need bother with it (and, indeed, with any other sequel entry in this snap-happy series), and anyone who wants to enjoy an all-too-brief sequence that features crocodiles on the hunt in a grocery store.
4/10
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