Lake Placid
Fox 2000 Pictures | Release Date: July 16, 1999 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
34
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
8
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
As irritating as Lake Placid sometimes is, it also has an easygoing sense of fun, along with one of the more memorable movie monsters of recent years. The mismatched ingredients blend into a blissfully, stupidly surreal summer cocktail. Read full review
80
EmpireAndrew Collins
A straightforward camping-holiday nightmare, or a sly, ironic take on the same. It works deliciously as both. Read full review
70
Film ThreatRon Wells
While we do get a bit of gore, the movie is really about this wacky bunch of people jumping on each other's nerves, kind of a zany hero's journey. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
A formulaic thriller, treated in a style that's just shy of outright parody. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Comes in well under the ninety-minute mark, leaving no room for bombast or overkill. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The strange thing is that for all of Fonda's whining, Pullman's wary squinting and muttering, the bad dialogue, the cheesy effects, the severed toes, the severed heads, the severed bodies and the cliched directorial choices, Lake Placid adds up to a halfway enjoyable time at the movies. Read full review
50
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
It also goes out of its way to give you a schlocky B-movie vibe by wrangling bait in the form of a bunch of Big-Gulp stupid stock characters - that's a whopping 44 oz. more stupid than you probably were bargaining for. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It’s a comedy, a romantic star vehicle, a thriller, a horror movie and a quasi-environmental parable that's calculated to appeal to all demographic groups. It's not enough of any one of these things to be particularly engaging. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Smoothly enjoyable, undemanding entertainment and features a couple of knock-out giant croc attacks. Read full review
50
USA TodayAndy Seiler
Amusingly macabre. [16 July 1999]
40
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
Trouble is, while not trading quips, the characters actually go through the motions of being scared of the croc, menaced by the croc and so on. And since even the gator horror satire is old hat (remember ''Alligator?''), there's no remaining way to make this interesting. Read full review
40
Dallas ObserverAndy Klein
The only genuine surprises on hand are the few moments when the film defies the expectations that have been programmed into our collective neurons by the past 25 years of horror movies. Read full review
30
VarietyRobert Koehler
To be sure, Kelley's Emmy-winning brand of off-kilter humor and cockeyed affection for rural folk is on display, but his attempt here to blend the citified angst of "Ally McBeal" (co-star Bridget Fonda was Kelley's first choice as that series' lead) with the countrified absurdisms of "Picket Fences," plus bits out of the Peter Benchley playbook, doesn't hold water. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's like a summer stock "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," with the proviso that occasionally a giant snaggle-tooth monster slobbers onstage and eats George or Martha. Read full review
30
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
It's laughably stupid, only fitfully scary and relatively harmless summer fun – if you're 12 years old, in which case you probably aren't supposed to be going to movies like this anyway. Read full review
30
The DissolveScott Tobias
At least White summons the camp energy that Lake Placid is fecklessly seeking. Read full review
25
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
A bunch of IQ-challenged characters traipsing through a laughably bad scenario brought to life using silly dialogue, banal direction, and questionable special effects. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
An almost mystifyingly bad movie.
25
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Instead of rooting for Pullman and Fonda, we end up praying that the crocodile is hungry enough to put them out of their misery. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is pretty bad, all right. But it has a certain charm. It's so completely wrong-headed from beginning to end that it develops a doomed fascination. Read full review
20
NewsweekJane Hogan
A "croc" of nonsense. Read full review
20
The A.V. ClubStephen Thompson
It doesn't help that, at 80 or so minutes, it feels like there's a reel missing—you know, the one with the finale that's even slightly more pulse-pounding than any of the four or five other scenes in which the big, impressive-looking monster attacks the heroes as their legs dangle in the water. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
A smallish cast peppered with a pair of bullish performances by both Platt and the lesser-known Gleeson. The two spark some chemistry between them, which is more than can be said for Pullman and Fonda's moribund performances. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
The shticky dialogue undercuts the solid genre plotting, which undercuts the humor. Read full review
20
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
By the end of this mercifully short excuse for a horror movie, you'll be wishing the beast had chowed down on the entire ensemble. Read full review
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