Lake Placid

Em: 00:01:06

Hi, everyone. I'm Em, and welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 303, Lake Placid.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't. That was going to be called Lake Placid, but someone said that name was taken. Huge. Hi, and welcome to Verbal Diorama.

To you all, whether you're a brand new listener, whether you're a returning listener, thank you very much for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of Lake Placid.

And just generally, a huge thanks to everyone who listens to this podcast who has continued to listen and support this podcast over the last six years and 300 plus episodes. I am so grateful for your support. Thank you so much for being here.

It really does mean so much, especially coming back after a short break doing Anaconda last week. This month I'm dubbing it Baby Kaijune.

And if you haven't listened to last week's episode on Anaconda, maybe because you're more of a fan of crocodiles than snakes, Kaijune was a series that I did a couple of years ago, mostly because I love monster movies, I love creature features, just anything to do with huge monsters, really. And that series included episodes on Bong Joon Ho's the Host, which is a great movie if you've not seen it.

Godzilla: 1998

And Pacific Rim, which is my boy, Guillermo del Toro. Love that movie. Smashy, smashy. Perfect. No notes. So that was the main Kaijune season.

I did that a couple of years ago and it was really well received on the podcast, actually. And then I didn't do it last year, and then this year I thought, I want to bring Kaijune back.

But I realized I only had two weeks in the month of June. So I devised this thing called Baby Kaijune. And that's because this series is smaller than usual.

The monsters are a bit smaller than the previous ones, but they're still really scary.

As I mentioned, last episode was on Anaconda and this is a movie that I think pairs really well with Anaconda because both of them are basically flying the flag. The late 90s Hollywood creature features and I kind of wanted to go into well, are Anaconda and Lake Placid Kaiju movies.

And I suppose first of all, it depends on your definition of Kaiju. Technically speaking, yes they are, because Kaiju means strange beast and is mostly used to refer to giant monsters.

And obviously the monsters in Anaconda and Lake Placid, yes, they are real monsters.

These aren't formed from nuclear incidents or any kind of event or anything like that, but they are bigger than the creatures that you would normally see in real life.

Now, broadly speaking, Kaiju are generally monsters of Japanese origin, but the term is applied to animals of unnaturally giant size that attack humans and cause widespread destruction. So sort of Kaiju, not Kaiju enough. The Diet Coke of Kaiju.

Kaiju, as in normal sized Kaiju, will return talking full sized and fully powered next year. It's something that I really want to do because I feel like I've kind of got the bug now. I really love to do it.

, I want to do King Kong from: 1933

As for anything else, I'm really kind of open to suggestion as to what it could possibly be. Please get in touch and let me know what you would like to see in this hypothetical future Kaijune season that I'm thinking of doing.

like last year that I saw the: 1933

Little bit racist, let's be honest. It's a movie from the 30s, but just totally magical. Like just wonderful movie. I adored it. So yeah, get in touch.

My email address is in the show notes. You can contact me on social media.

I would love to hear what sort of Kaiju movies you really like and hypothetical season next year let's talk about what we could possibly do for the history and legacy on. But anyway, let's get back to the main feature because unfortunately I'm really sorry to say that this episode isn't on Lake Placid.

The host of the: 1932

So sorry, random New York lake fans. This one is for fans of crocs. Not the awful plastic footwear, the real crocs. The I'm gonna eat you types of crocs.

The ones that gave me nightmares as a child. This is for you guys. Here's the trailer for Lake Placid.

Em: 00:08:55

Shortly after horrifying underwater attack in Maine's Black Lake, New York City paleontologist Kelly Scott arrives to help local fish and game officer Jack Wells to investigate. With only a mangled body as their starting point, Jack and Kelly embark on a mission to find the mysterious creature.

As Sheriff Hank Keough and mythology professor Hector Sear both want to locate the elusive predator first. But something deadly is lurking beneath a silent pond. And it's already taken a liking to the juicy human flesh.

And an eccentric elderly widow seems to know more than she's letting on. Let's run through the cast of this movie.

We have stacked cast, actually, for a late 90s creature feature, we have Bill Pullman as Jack Wells, Bridget Fonda as Kelly Scott, Brendan Gleason as Sheriff Hank Keough, Oliver Platt as Hector Sear, Betty White as Dolores Bickerman, and Meredith Salinger as Deputy Sharon Gare. Lake Placid was written by David E. Kelly and was directed by Steve Miner.

new, having originated in the: 1910

O' Brien in the Lost World in: 1925

came from beneath the sea in: 1955

It was in the: 1950

e New Jersey shark attacks of: 1916

ike Orca, the killer whale in: 1977

further with Jurassic park in: 1993

They had big enough budgets for big names and big enough budgets for big effects. Unlike the often mindless beasts of earlier B movies, Jurassic Park's dinosaurs displayed cunning intelligence, particularly the Velociraptors.

This shift towards smart, strategic predators became a hallmark of 90s creature features, which made the very real creatures of the likes of Anaconda Lake, Placid and Deep Blue Sea somewhat more terrifying when you realize that they could kill you and they were more intelligent than you. The 90s was a rich vista of creature features and disaster movies.

And I do want to do some disaster movies real soon on the podcast, because there are a couple I really love. But Even in the 90s, the creature feature landscape was continually evolving.

And if you're wondering if I copied that verbatim from the last episode on Anaconda, well, you'd be right. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Keeps our waterways and lakes clear of rubbish.

It's very important for the local wildlife, including crocodiles, even if they're not native to this particular part of the world. Anaconda and Lake Placid obviously share a little bit of DNA. They're both 90s creature features. They're both set in and around water.

They both have very sharp teeth. But while one creature is unknown for eating humans, the other most definitely is. The saltwater crocodile is the largest living reptile.

Both crocodiles and dinosaurs evolved from a common archosaur ancestor.

During the Triassic period, the evolutionary tree split early, with one branch leading to crocodilians and and the other leading to dinosaurs and eventually birds. They survived the mass extinction event that killed the non avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Modern crocodiles, like the saltwater crocodile, are the largest living reptiles and apex predators, continuing the archosaur legacy. I have always had a very intense fear of crocodiles, and people should be afraid.

Males, the larger of the species, can grow up to a weight of 1,000 to 1,500 kg and a length of 20ft. They are large and they are deadly. They ambush most of their prey and drown or swallow it whole.

They will prey on almost any animal that enters their territory, including other predators like sharks, fish, crustaceans, amphibians, other reptiles, birds and mammals. They will eat whatever is in their territory.

They're partially resistant to toxins from toads, unlike alligators, and they have the strongest bite of any living animal. Unlike Anaconda, which don't tend to kill humans, saltwater crocodiles have a long history of attacking humans, often killing them.

One or two fatal attacks are reported per year in Australia, which doesn't sound like a lot, but that's just the fatal attacks. Most attacks are successfully prevented due to better warning systems. But in other countries, most attacks go unreported.

Do not think that you can successfully wrestle a crocodile down. Do not think you can outswim them. Heck, don't even think you can outrun them. Just stay out of their territory.

In this movie, the character of Hector Seer, played by Oliver Platt, is fascinated by crocodiles and believes he has a spiritual connection with them, seeing them as ancient and sacred. Crocodiles have been revered as gods or sacred beings in several cultures throughout history and in some cases continue to be today.

The most famous example is ancient Egypt, where the crocodile God Sobek was worshipped as a deity of the Nile fertility and protection. Sobek was depicted as either a crocodile or a man with a crocodile head, and live crocodiles were kept in temples and mummified after death.

The city of Crocodilopidis was a major center of Sobek worship. The citizens worshipped a tame sacred crocodile called Pets, the son of Sucos, that was adorned with gold and gem pendants.

Petsukos lived in a special temple pond and was fed by the priests with food provided by visitors. When Petsukos died, it was replaced by another. In Hindu tradition, crocodiles are associated with various deities.

The Ganges river crocodile is considered sacred and crocodiles appear in stories about Vishnu's incarnations. The Makara, a crocodile like creature, serves as the vehicle of the river goddess Ganja and the sea God Varuna.

And once again, apologies for any incorrect pronunciations of anything in this episode. Several African cultures have traditionally revered crocodiles.

In parts of Burkina Faso, Mali and other West African regions, crocodiles are considered sacred ancestors or spirits. Some communities have sacred pools where crocodiles are protected and fed, believing they bring good fortune and protection.

So the idea that Hector Seer might revere the crocodile as a God or a spiritual being is not actually that far fetched.

a spiritual successor to the: 1980

From the film's point of view shots, the local police sheriff as a lead character and the eccentric character brought in to hunt an aquatic monster, Lake Placid is clearly inspired by Jaws. Technically, Alligator did have its own actual successor in Alligator 2.

But just like that movie, and like Jaws and like Anaconda, an animatronic crocodile would be the star of this show.

Lake Placid, despite having all the Creature Feature pedigree and being shopped around in the very creature feature 90s kept getting turned down by all the major studios. By the time the script appeared on director Steve Miner's desk, it had already been turned down by every other studio.

th in: 1980

in: 1998

He did that during pre production of Lake Placid, just because things here were taking a while and work is work. But Miner knew as soon as he got on board this little boat in Maine that there was one man he wanted to work with. The legendary Stan Winston.

or sort of worked together in: 1981

Savini was replaced by Stan Winston, but he had a scheduling conflict and had to back out. The makeup effects for that film would be done by Carl Fullerton.

Winston would contribute a small amount of visual effects to Friday the 13th Part 3, also directed by Minor, but his effects were in an unused ending.

And just in case you're unsure of who Stan Winston was, he's been mentioned countless times on this podcast for his effects work on the likes of Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, the terminator, terminator 2, aliens, the thing, Jurassic park, the Lost World, Jurassic park, literally.

Some of the greatest movies in existence exist because of Stan Winston's incredible skill at visual effects, makeup, animatronics, puppets, design and sculpture. The first thing Steve Miner did when he joined Lake Placid was send the script by Ally McBeal writer David E. Kelly to Stan Winston.

The project didn't even have financing at this point, but Winston was so on board that he started building an 18 to 20 foot crocodile immediately out of his own pocket, despite not even knowing if the movie was going ahead.

was put in turnaround by Fox: 2000

It impressed the investor so much. That's how this film got its financing.

The crocodile in this movie is a massive 30 foot long animatronic puppet, making it one of the largest practical creature effects ever created for a film at that time. Firstly, they built a maquette which served as the guideline for the full sized crocodile.

A full sized foam head and body were built and served as a reference for the main crocodile mold, which was painted with water resistant urethane on the inside to create the skins. From this, a fiberglass body was made which housed the animatronics, hydraulics and internal metal armature.

The water resistant skin was applied by hand to the fiberglass underbody. The crew had to wear full body clean air suits to protect themselves from the toxic chemicals.

The crocodile's hydraulics worked fairly well in a water environment as long as they were protected in waterproof housings and was surrounded by water resistant urethane skin.

The animatronic could perform various lifelike movements, including jaw snapping, head turning, eye movement and full body thrashing motions to simulate attack sequences.

To test the crocodile puppet efficacy in water, the crew took it up to Kestaic Lake in the Los Angeles National Forest prior to painting it and dropped it in. They had to adjust the buoyancy, but remarkably, the puppet could swim on its own movement.

But in the movie, the crocodile was attached to wire and propelled by boat. Remarkably, this crocodile only has 3 minutes and 43 seconds of screen time total, and that includes its digital counterpart.

The team here took maybe a little too much inspiration from Jaws in that regard. We don't even see the crocodile till 43 minutes into the movie, which is only 82 minutes long.

But in many ways the runtime is a blessing because it never outstays its welcome and and you're desperate to see the croc by the time you see it. And to be honest, it still looks great. The CG is in a patch on the animatronic, just like Anaconda.

But the movie also wouldn't work without the digital crocodile. Also just like Anaconda, here, its digital domain. Doing the CG effects for Lake Placid, just like Anaconda, was used sparingly.

The CG crocodile was used for sequences showing it diving in and out of the water.

Full body shots of the creature, swimming, water displacement and splash effects around the creature, and some of the more dynamic action sequences where the animatronics limitations would be apparent. There ain't no way Stan Winston's animatronic, as impressive as it is, could wrestle a brown bear.

The production chose to film in Canada rather than Maine, or indeed the actual Lake Placid in New York, which the movie wasn't actually about. The fictional setting was Black Lake, Maine.

British Columbia offered better production infrastructure and support, as well as weather conditions that could double for Maine. Although filming of the movie did have to be postponed due to poor weather conditions.

To get around the on location shooting issues, production designer John Willett designed and built a set near Vancouver for the main lake. They would only go onto the real lake in the area for some of the bigger shots of the characters boating on the lake.

But as production went on, the budget started to get squeezed. Stan Winston was originally supposed to build the tiny baby crocodiles we see Betty White feeding at the end.

However, the babies were going to be incredibly costly. Steve Miner instead suggested they get some actual baby caimans.

But Stan Winston didn't like the idea and wanted the opportunity to build the babies himself because just like in Anaconda, there are indeed two crocodiles here and they got busy.

Winston didn't get the opportunity though, because Minor hired some hobbyists who brought baby caimans who were released into the water and they got the perfect shot they needed on the very first take. Which is funny because I genuinely always thought that those were animatronic baby crocodiles. But no, they are actually genuine baby caimans.

Let's hope those baby caimans weren't fed too much by Betty White and didn't go off and start killing a load of people when they became adults. And this is the perfect place to segue into the obligature Keanu reference of this episode.

And if you don't know what that is, it's where I try and link the movie that I'm featuring, pretty much every movie that I feature actually with Keanu Reeves for no reason other than he is the best of men.

united with Sandra Bullock in: 2006

Now, that movie doesn't explicitly say there were saltwater crocodiles in that lake, but it also doesn't not say that. And presumably there are lake houses on Lake Placid. So Keanu could easily be linked to Lake Placid with the lake house.

July: 1999

The box office was pretty stuffed. It came out the same week as Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, which Hit number one, American Pie was sitting delicious at number two.

Big Daddy was third. Lake Placid had to deal with debuting at fourth, just ahead of Wild Wild west and Tarzan.

Star Wars Episode 1, the Phantom Menace was still in the top 10 despite being out for 10 weeks. The Mummy was at 18th in its 11th week.

Interestingly, Lake Placid also came out the same week as the Blair Witch Project, which was on a limited release, and that movie would obviously go on to become absolutely huge. But with the saturated market the following week, Lake placid dropped to sixth, and then the third week it had left the top 10 completely.

It's a real shame that Lake Placid came out when it did, because it just seemed to come out at a particular time in the summer when literally everything was dominating the box office other than Lake placid.

On its $35 million budget, Lake Placid would gross $31.8 million domestically and $25.1 million internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $56.9 million. Critically, I mean, it's kind of okay. Critically, I guess it's middling 47% on rotten tomatoes.

With the site's critical consensus reading, Betty White's delightful supporting turn may be worth the price of admission alone, but Lake Placid is swamped by a smarmy script and inability to deliver on the creature feature mayhem.

Unlike Anaconda, Roger Ebert hated this one so much he put it on his 10 worst films of the year list, giving it one out of four stars, describing it as completely wrong headed from beginning to end. Despite its lukewarm box office and critical reception, Lake Placid spawned three made for TV sequels.

in: 2007

Anaconda did really well, Deep Rising didn't.

And then in: 1999

But the script is not the star of the show here and nor are the big name actors. But while Jaws needed and warranted the shark not appearing till over halfway through the movie. Lake Placid doesn't.

And honestly, if Stan Winston makes you a 30 foot crocodile, you show that creature as often as you can because it is glorious. I do understand not wanting to blow your money shot too early, but Lake Placid needs to be less placid. The crocodile is incredible.

The scene with the crocodile and Hector Seer in the water in a standoff is remarkably tense and genuinely one of the best scenes in the entire movie. But back to the script. It's just a very typical 90s sexist remarks and comedy zingers. Or should I say attempted comedy zingers.

I like Bridget Fonda in lot of other movies, but her character is just so poorly written. Even the usually charismatic and charming Bill Pullman isn't as charming and charismatic as usual.

And together they have zero chemistry, so you don't even believe them getting together at the end at all. The character development is there because Kelly stops falling out of cars at some point.

That's basically the level of competency that we're talking about on this movie. The savior, or should I say human savior of this movie is the late Betty White. God bless Betty White.

I can't say her line completely because this is a family show, but it's along the lines of if I had a sausage, this is where I would tell you to suck it. Mrs. Bickerman gives zero hoots and knows that if the authorities find out about this animal, they will kill it.

And she is all about protecting the local wildlife. Not her cows, though she doesn't subscribe to bovine protection.

I really like this movie, but I wish it had gone harder on the crocodile because watching giant beasts attack stupid people is always going to be fun. That's why we love these movies. But we needed more kills, more gore, and less playing it safe with the boring human characters.

Hector Seer is fun, but also comes across a bit of a misogynist. I have no idea If Lake Placid 2 carries on with the babies from this, but I do love that this movie ends so memorably and kind of sweetly.

And the idea that this movie actually cares to think about the welfare of an animal, even one that might be killing humans, has to be considered. Why would you kill something unnecessarily if you can humanely capture it? Of course, like Anaconda.

This is a movie that gives you two beasts, and in this one, one is killed and the other captured. Anaconda and Lake Placid are in many ways a perfect double pairing. They both have way better creatures than cast members.

They're both filmed on location to a degree, and they both led to substandard sequels. Anaconda was the biggest financial success. Lake Placid had better critical reception. Anaconda's cast went on to big careers like JLO and Owen Wilson.

Lake Placid had Betty White. Anaconda had Walt Conti's snakes. Lake Placid has Stan Winston's crocodiles. It's a bit like that scene in Hot Fuzz, Point break or bad boys 2.

Not which one do you prefer, but which one do you want to watch first? Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Lake Placid.

And as always, thank you for your continued support of this podcast.

If you want to get involved and you want to help this podcast grow and reach more people, you could tell your friends and family about this podcast or about this episode. You can find me and follow me. I am verbaldiorama across social media. You can share posts like posts, comment on posts.

It all helps with visibility and you can leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser or Spotify or wherever you found this podcast episode.

If you like this episode on Lake Placid, you might also like and I'm literally just going to give you the same recommendations that I did for Anaconda because they're all incredible movies with incredible creatures. Episode 41, Tremors Episode 106, Jaws Episode 146 Deep Blue Sea, which is a very emotional episode for me.

So yeah, it's a bit weird, but it was a time in my Life. And episode 224 Jaws 2, Jaws 3D and Jaws the Revenge. And also please don't forget the last episode that I did on Anaconda.

Have recycled some stuff for this episode. But Anaconda is such a fun movie and a great double pairing.

I would highly recommend if you've got them, just sit down and watch Anaconda and Lake Placid back to back, though the creatures are worth the price of admission alone. As always, give me feedback on my recommendations next episode. So we're moving on from Baby Kaiju. Baby Kaijun has grown up and left the nest.

We've had the little babies fed by Betty White. Baby Kaijun is over, but will it still be on the water? More water but less monsters.

Because remember the days before Pirates of the Caribbean told us that pirate movies made money?

their pirate theme park ride: 1995

So join me next week for the History and Legacy of Cutthroat Island. This is a movie that has been such a long time coming to this podcast. I am so excited to finally be talking about Cutthroat Island.

I even bought it on Blu ray just so I could contribute to the financial coffers of a movie that is deemed as one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. Because we need to support movies like Cutthroat Island. There are so many reasons why.

Please join me next episode as we go into the history and legacy of Cutthroat Island.

And if you enjoy what I do for this podcast or you simply just want to support an indie podcaster who does everything on her own, and if you have some spare pennies you can financially contribute to the upkeep of this podcast, you're under no obligation. This podcast is free and it always will be free.

But if you do get value out of what I do, and you do enjoy what I do, there are a couple of ways that you can help.

If you have the means to, and only if you have the means to, you can make a one off donation@verbaldiorama.com tips or you can go to verbaldiorama.com patreon and you can subscribe and become a Patreon supporter and all money made goes back into this podcast and pays for software subscriptions, website hosting or new equipment. I'm hugely grateful to the patrons of this podcast.

They are Simon, Laurel, Derek, Cat, Andy, Mike, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Ian, Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas, so, Kev, Heather, Danny, Stu, Brett, Philip M, Xenos, Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle and Aaron. If you want to get in touch, you can email verbaldioramail.com you can send me hellos, feedback or suggestions.

You can just email me if you've liked an episode in particular and you want to talk about it. You can also fill out the little contact form@verbaldiorama.com as well.

But please feel free to get in touch, especially if you're interested in a potential grown up version of Kaiju next year. If that interests you, please let me know if there's anything in particular you would like to see.

Most importantly, it has to be something that there is a history and legacy of available on the Internet. So some really random, obscure foreign monster movie that's not a big kind of Japanese Godzilla movie.

It's probably going to be quite difficult to get the information on. But if there's something that is very big and is very accessible, please let me know and I will investigate it.

And chances are it could pop up next year sometime. Who knows? And finally, Bye.