Lake Placid 2 (2007)

It may sound like ridiculous hyperbole, but I can think of few first sequels that have been as big a step down in quality as Lake Placid 2, a film that was released directly to the Sci-Fi/SyFy Channel in 2007, eight years after the sharp and witty first movie. It's a miracle that this is even watchable, thanks to writers Tood Hurvitz and Howie Miller at least occasionally trying to sprinkle in some of the humour that made the first film work so well.

The plot is very simple. Killer crocodiles are on the loose. Yes, there's more than one this time around. Sheriff James Riley (John Schneider) ends up working with Fish & Game Officer Emily (Sarah Lafleur) to get to the bottom of things. They end up being assisted by a poacher named Struthers (Sam McMurray), as well as his assistant, Ahmad (Joe Holt). Meanwhile, elsewhere around the lake area, the Sheriff's son, Scott (Chad Michael Collins), is enjoying the company of Kerri (Alicia Ziegler) and a few other potential croc snacks. And you have Cloris Leachman in the role of Sadie Bickerman, a relative of the character played by Betty White in the first movie.

It's a real shame about Lake Placid 2, and about the other films that would come after it. Some of the people involved try, despite the first film setting a surprisingly high benchmark, but then they have to rely on someone delivering the special effects. These special effects seem to have been created by a CGI company who forgot about their deadline until the very last hour, after having spent a full day in their local pub. The killer crocodiles shown here are just about on a par with anything seen in the earlier Resident Evil videogames. They're crude, move without the menacing fluidity of a real crocodile, and generate much more laughter than tension.

Director David Flores has just over half a dozen TV movies to his credit, as a director, and it's no surprise to see that most of his films were in this kind of vein (i.e. standard SyFy Channel movie stuff). Hurvitz and Miller have spent most of their career writing for TV shows, but they don't do a terrible job here. Yes, you get plenty of familiarity, because of the simplicity of the set-ups and the need to nod to the first film, but they at least try to craft some decent chemistry between the main adult leads.

Schneider is a decent enough lead, acting nicely laid back and easygoing for the most part. Lafleur does well alongside him, although she's often just there to explain either the creature or the background of new characters. McMurray is a lot of fun, although I did feel sorry for Holt, stuck playing a character who feels not too far removed from a "Friday" character (from Robinson Crusoe, not from the Ice Cube/Chris Tucker movie). Collins, Ziegler, and co. are all much less interesting, and obviously there to be placed in peril. Leachman is enjoyable, and would have been an absolute highlight if her character wasn’t just there to try recreating the fun turn from White.

Lake Placid was a great film. From what I know of the sequels, and there are many, none of them come close to the original. But that won’t stop me watching them all anyway (some of them for a second time).

3/10

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Super Shark (2011)

It's not surprising that Super Shark is a bad film. It's directed by Fred Olen Ray (who also co-wrote the thing with Clyde McCoy and Antonio Olivas). It has the word shark in the title. After the word super. And the biggest name in the cast is John Schneider. Now I like John Schneider in most of his movie appearances but an A-list headliner he ain't.

I'll try to contain my giggles while I attempt to explain "the plot". You see, there's this shark and it can even jump onto land and do other super stuff, which makes it a Super Shark. The shark is responsible for destroying an oil rig and that brings Oceanic Investigator Kat Carmichael (played by Sarah Lieving) onto the scene. She hires a boat captained by a local man named Chuck (played by Tim Abell) and the two soon realise that something wasn't quite legitimate about the drilling in the area. Kat questions company man Wade (played by Schneider) about his business practices but while it quickly becomes clear that Wade has something to hide it also becomes clear that there's something potentially damaging in the sea. Is it pollution? That may be what some people are thinking until Super Shark pops his fin up to say hello.

Knowing that this would be a bad film, I was hoping to at least find it one of the many "so bad that it's good" movies I have enjoyed so much over the years. A lot of films from The Asylum come under that category and Fred Olen Ray has made one or two good films over the years. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers isn't for everyone but I was damn glad when I finally got to see it, and Evil Toons is, well, ummmm, well actually it's pretty bad but showcases a few fantastic scream queens.

Sadly, however, this is just a bad movie that doesn't even do enough to allow viewers to laugh at its ineptitude. I gave the thing an extra point because of an amusing, and completely gratuitous, bikini babes competition but there isn't enough good stuff to make up for the horrible CGI (the shark looks like it has just escaped from the 1980s Jaws arcade game), the poor script, the poor acting (Schneider still gets a pass but he's the only one), the unappealing cast of characters and the sloppy execution of every moment that features the shark.

It's bad. The fact that there's a groovy theme tune and that the makers of the movie clearly wanted to replicate something along the lines of Sharktopus doesn't make it any better. Well, okay, I admit that it DOES make it a little bit better but I'm still reining in my generosity for this one.

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Shark-John-Schneider/dp/B006BZ8NZM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348078943&sr=8-1&keywords=super+shark

Shark Swarm (2008)

Two things surprised me as I watched Shark Swarm the other evening. The first was how long the damn thing was, it clocked in at just over two hours. The second was how good it was. Okay, maybe saying it was good is being a bit generous but it certainly wasn't the low grade schlock I was expecting. No sir-ee. This was more of an enjoyable soap opera style drama with occasional moments of, fairly well executed, shark action. Typical TV movie fare but certainly a step up from the many little films shown in recent years that have thrown a bunch of bad actors together with even worse CGI and given it a catchy name to entice people dumb enough to become intrigued (yes, people like me).

The folk onscreen here may not be at the top of their game but they aren't terrible actors and actresses. John Schneider, Daryl Hannah, Armand Assante, F. Murray Abraham (really? have the mighty fallen so far?) and even the likes of Mimi Michaels and Roark Critchlow do just fine with the melodrama.

The plot is a standard one for this type of film - a big businessman (Assante) is doing his best to buy up a small town and to help him on his way he messes up the local economy by affecting the fishing trade by polluting the surrounding waters. This makes a bunch of sharks act strangely and all different types start swarming together and munching on poor swimmers. One good man (Schneider) isn't won over by the businessman and he also notices the trouble in the water. With his wife (Hannah) and daughter (Michaels) by his side, he tries to right the wrongs that have been done. However, he doesn't realise the full situation until his professor brother (Critchlow) and professor colleague (Abraham) see the big picture.

Written by Matthew Chernov and David Rosiak, there's nothing here to get too excited over but it's perfectly acceptable stuff that can't avoid feeling like "Jaws-lite" in one or two moments. Things could easily have been condensed, or even removed altogether, to get the film down to a zippy ninety minute runtime but it was created as a longer schedule filler and that's how it has to be viewed.

The direction by James A. Contner is just fine. Of course, there's nothing majorly cinematic on display and no major flourishes or camera moves but the big draw, the shark footage, is reasonably well done and the film trots along nicely in between the moments of tension.

As well as the cast members already mentioned, we have John Enos III, Heather McComb, Alan Fudge, Gene Davis, Brent King, Jacleen Heber, Elisa Donovan, Darcy Rose Byrnes, Tiffany Hines and plenty of others giving acceptable performances in an acceptable time-waster of a TV movie.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shark-Swarm-DVD-Daryl-Hannah/dp/B001TJKVD2/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1337341136&sr=1-1

Wild Things: Foursome (2010)

Well, here we are with the third sequel in a movie franchise that should never have been. If anyone comes to this movie hoping that the series will take an unexpected rise back to a level of quality close to that of the first movie then they probably need professional help.

The big addition to this movie is right there in the title. Where the other movies all tried to shoehorn in a memorable threesome scene somewhere this film tries to show FOUR people getting hot and horny with each other at one point. I can't wait to see who they throw in to the mix if they ever try to stretch things out for yet another tired instalment. Wild Things: Pentalogy?

The main pretty young things this time around are: Brandi Cox (played by Jillian Murray), Rachel Thomas (Marnette Patterson) and Carson Wheetly (Ashley Parker). What fun can they plan for each other? Well, the plot of the movie involves murder, rape, double-cross after double-cross and interference from Detective Frank Walker (John Schneider). Or, in other words, pretty much the same mix as viewers saw in the preceding three movies.

The film actually doesn't do too badly, it's just a shame that it's so unnecessary and so lacking when compared to that fantastic first instalment. Jillian Murray is okay, I suppose, but Marnette Patterson fares a bit better. Ashley Parker just exudes an air of smugness that doesn't make him endearing at all but John Schneider is someone fun to watch onscreen. Ethan C. Smith, Jessie Nickson, Marc Macaulay and Josh Randall all do pretty well with their relatively limited screentime.

Andy Hurst (who co-wrote the previous two movies) is in the director's chair this time around and he actually does a capable job. I certainly prefer his directorial work to his writing. Howard Zemski and Monty Featherstone provide the script this time, it's their second time working together after scripting a movie called SharkMan (that I now desperately want to see - just knowing that a film with that title exists is enough to get me excited), and it really would seem to be a thankless task. Let's face it, this idea was worn out by the second movie so repeating the formula again and again just means that it's stale as soon as the titles flash up. Having said that, the writers do try here and there to keep things entertaining and unpredictable but it's the nature of the twists and turns (based on the template set many years earlier) that actually make the thing entirely predictable. The biggest crime in the whole movie actually takes place during the end credits, in which we get a sequence of revelatory moments that are completely uninteresting and add nothing to what we've just seen. Even the second and third movies managed to get that bit right.

I hope they just cut this series dead right now. It's horrible to think of the reputation of the first film being further tarnished. It's even more horrible to know that I'll just keep having to check out any future instalments. I hate having such morbid curiosity.

4/10

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