Lake Eureka

Lake Placid 3 (Unrated) (2010)
Directed by G.E. Furst
Screenplay by David Reed

I was disappointed that Colin Ferguson isn't actually the sheriff in this film (though he does wear a sheriff-like uniform) until the sheriff turned out to be Michael Ironside.    At that point this film had the critical mass necessary to lure me into watching it even if it wasn't named Lake Placid and I wasn't in the mood for another Sci-Fi creature feature.  I would be willing to watch a buddy cop movie with Colin Ferguson and Michael Ironside.  Aw, heck, I'd be willing to watch a buddy orangutan movie with these two in it.
If Lake Placid 2 was passable, then the presense of Colin Ferguson and Michael Ironside give Lake Placid 3 enough charm to move up the food chain into a better category.  It's still not the film Lake Placid was, but it's a small step in the right direction.  That doesn't mean that this is Eureka with killer crocodiles (now that would have been awesome), but it's like listening to Neil Diamond sing a jingle for cat food.   It's not "Sweet Caroline," but it's still better than listening to anything by Blind Melon.

Is it bad that the first person in this film I recognized was Velizar Binev?   Velizar-freaking-Binev?!   A few years ago if you'd told me that I'd one day be able to recognize someone named Velizar Binev on screen I would have said, "Who the fuck is Velizar Binev?"   Just as many of you are now thinking to yourselves the same thing.   (Except for you, Velizar Binev, because I know that you've Googled your own name and come upon this paragraph which may be the longest mention of you in the English language.)   Velizar Binev is one of the breakout character actors of the Bulgarian sci-fi creature movie genre.  (You can laugh if you want, but now that there are about a hundred films in this "genre"  you're laughing at history.)  He was the deliciously evil villain in Shark Zone.   He's been on screen with Bruce Campbell--twice.   I just saw him in yet another film just this past weekend.  Velizar Binev is like the Bulgarian Burl Ives.   If I could direct a Bulgarian production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof he'd be my first choice to play Big Daddy.   (Maybe we could get Colin Ferguson to play Brick.)   In this film Mr. Binev plays Dimitri, the owner of Dimitri's American Market.  It's called that in order to remind people that this film is supposed to take place in America and is definitely not set in Bulgaria.
Or maybe Dimitri was really desperate to assure people of his patriotism, what with his thick accent.   Or, maybe because of Aroostook County's proximity to Canada he just wants to draw in the occasional Canadian customer looking for genuine American groceries.   Dimitri is first seen giving a ride to two young folks, let's call them Jason and April, in the back of his pickup truck.   Their names don't really matter, because their excessive sexuality will lead directly to their gruesome deaths in short order.

Jason and April's story is a short morality tale about why you shouldn't be in a hurry to have sex.  Because if you rush down the road to sexual fulfillment you'll end up stripping off your clothes and going at it on the shore of a lake infested with crocodiles.   And if there's one thing that crocodiles can't resist, it's eating naked people.    I don't know what the precise difference between the rated and unrated versions of this film are, but I'm pretty sure that only the unrated version has the bit where Jason's body is dragged underneath April until his face is caught in her thighs for a second, prompting her to say "Now, that's what I'm talking about!" before he is dragged completely out from under her and deeper into the lake where he is chopped into bite size pieces.  Before April can really think too hard about what just happened, she too is dragged off and dispensed with by the ravenous crocodiles.   On the one hand, I suppose the moral of this story is that they just should have waited until they could find a cabin, where at least they'd be murdered by a human or the ghost of a human looking for revenge on the kids whose negligence led to his death at summer camp instead of meeting a grisly fate in the gaping maw of hungry crocodiles.   On the other hand, maybe if Jason (man, the guy is named Jason--of course he's going to die in the lake) was more attentive to April's needs on land then she wouldn't be so pleasantly shocked at his sudden taste for cunnilingus and she might even have realized that he couldn't possibly hurl himself horizontally under her that way on his own.   Granted, by that point he's definitely going to get his feet eaten off by the crocodile, but he might still have lived.   Instead, April is distracted by the all too brief moment of newly found pleasure and thus Jason goes from merely potentially footless to completely dead.  

This is also a story about parental neglect and children taking responsibility for their actions.   Nathan Bickerman is busy wardening the local game and thus too busy to enjoy quality time with his son, Connor, who has taken up an interest in reptiles.   Meanwhile, Susan Bickerman is also too busy with her real estate career (enjoy it before the bottom drops out) to spend more time with Connor.   That leaves Connor to Vica the eastern European nanny and Vica's yappy little dog, which really means that Connor is left to his own devices because all Vica cares about are American cigarettes and their delicious nicotine.   Parental neglect (and inherent weirdness, perhaps inherited from the same gene pool that produced his father's Aunts Sadie and Delores) has led Connor to a peculiar combination of delinquency and lack of friends that leads to his seeking the company of crocodiles.   The delinquency is a result of his only friends being crocodiles, because Connor is forced to steal meat.   Piles of meat.   At first he just takes meat from his own refrigerator, but when this supply runs out, he goes to Dimitri's American Market and steals meat from Dimitri.    Stealing from a good hard-working immigrant merchant is definitely a bad idea.   Stealing meat to feed a pack of crocodiles that live in the lake near your house is a worse idea.   For kids the moral of the story is don't feed crocodiles and don't steal meat, especially if you're going to use it to feed crocodiles.   For parents the moral of the story is don't leave your kid with an attractive blonde Bulgarian nanny, because he'll just run away from her to steal meat for his crocodiles.

Vica and her yappy little dog are an interesting touch in this film.   If this was Lake Placid 2 then I'd say the dog was safe, but one of the more gratifying moments in the film is when Connor is splattered with the dog's blood as the crocodiles snack on it.    Vica herself is pretty badly mauled by the crocs before she is brought back to the cabin where she is eventually finished off by the crocodiles.   Frankly, I feel more sorry for her yappy dog (it's just a dog, after all) then I do for Vica, because the dog didn't lock the door on anyone when they were running away from a crocodile.    I can imagine that for the Bickermans Vica's death is not only welcome as a moral payback for her treachery, but also as a way to avoid a lifetime of liability issues.  Does Maine law cover workman's compensation for nannies who might be injured or disabled by crocodiles?  

One underdeveloped angle in the film is the ret-conned story of Nathan's Aunt Sadie who kept the crocodiles at the lake.   The ret-conning is especially annoying because it severs one of the better links to the original Lake Placid.

Meanwhile there's the college kids on break subplot.   Aaron has brought Ellie to Maine in order to make his move now that she's dropped her boyfriend.   (After Aaron convinced her that her boyfriend was cheating on her.)   Ellie has brought along her blonde best friend Tara, who loves to read fashion magazines.   (If you've seen Lake Placid 2, this should alert you that Tara will soon be eaten by a crocodile.)    As a counter move Aaron has brought along his buddy Charlie, who is a doofus.   This should be your first clue that there's something wrong with Aaron.  See, if he was a really cool guy then he'd have a better wingman, someone who actually has a chance at distracting Tara long enough to provide Aaron with some alone time with Ellie.   But instead Aaron has Charlie and that doesn't mean that Aaron is a nice guy who is friends with a dork, it means Aaron is a weasel who keeps a dork in tow so that he looks more attractive by comparison.   I imagine Aaron's real fantasy is that he'll get the Ellie/Tara three-way while Charlie goes to town to pick them up some snacks and beer.   You almost have some sympathy for Charlie as a dork who (we know) will soon be eaten by a crocodile.   But he ruins whatever sympathy we might have for him by being an annoying voyeur who tries to look up Tara's skirt while they're lying on the lake shore and who follows the girls into the woods when they leave to change into their swimsuits and proceeds to get some nude pics of them with his phone before justice catches up to him in the form of the gaping maw of a crocodile.   People like Charlie ruin things for dorks who aren't sociopaths.    Thanks, Charlie.   I hope the crocodile chewed you up nice and good.   Now Aaron has an outside chance at that three-way.

As if this wasn't enough we have Ellie's ex-boyfriend Brett who has signed up for a hunting tour with the outrageously over the top Reba who leads what can only be called poaching expedition tours.   Yes, that is Yancy Butler as Reba.  I honestly don't know what to say.   I like strong women but Reba is scary.   I don't think I'd go hunting with her because regardless of gender I'd be a little scared that she'd chop me up and use me for chum.   Brett has decided to follow Ellie all the way here to get her back, which is both sweet and a little obsessive.   Yes, Aaron lied to Ellie about Brett cheating on her (he wasn't) but secretly following her to Lake Placid and going on a poaching safari in order to track her down is beyond clingy and it's the kind of thing that's much less alarming in romantic comedies than it is in real life where it's the kind of behavior that gets you slapped with a restraining order.   Of course, Ellie is really cute so I can at least understand why someone would get worked up over her.

Reba's hunting expedition consists of herself, two yahoos who want to shoot big lumbering beasts in Maine and Brett who apparently thinks renting a boat is a more expensive and less efficient way of tracking down his girlfriend and the guy who wants to date-rape her than joining a hunting expedition that will most likely try to avoid other people (like, say, a college girl and the guy who wants to date-rape her) as they look for big things to shoot.   Reba's nemesis is the game warden Nathan Bickerman.  And now we've come full circle.   This is another film that calls into question pro-wildlife regulation when the killer crocodiles are out of control and you really wish you had some poachers with grenade launcher or other distinctly illegal weapons handy.   On the other hand, the hunting expedition is definitely outmatched by the crocodiles, so it's not like keeping Reba the poacher free of regulations will make her useful when the killer crocodiles attack.

So, this is also a film about relationships and how you shouldn't believe what the blonde guy who want to date-rape you tells you about your boyfriend.   And how you probably shouldn't chase your ex-girlfriend all the way to the little crocodile infested lake in Maine where she might end up sleeping with that blonde jerkhole who managed to weasel you out of your relationship.   Sometimes you just have to trust the judgment of that person you care about.  If Ellie is inclined to sleep with Aaron, then showing up with a hunting expedition in tow is the kind of weirdly clingy gesture that is as likely to fail as it is to succeed.  And that kind of failure is perma-fail.   I know romantic comedies encourage giant romantic gestures, but horror films and the legal system are there to bring us back to reality on this score.   I love the fact that this film rewards Brett's big gestures (later he pulls a shotgun on the Bickerman family in order to take the boat back to the lake to look for Ellie) by having him eaten by a crocodile while the reconciled Ellie watches helplessly.   It is one of the most just moments of reality I've ever seen in a killer crocodile film.
(Oh, by the way, belated spoiler alert.)  Of course, Aaron is already dispatched by this point, but not before he reveals the kind of callous jerk he is.   He doesn't care that his friend is missing.  And more importantly he doesn't care that the best friend of the girl he wants to date-rape is missing.  That is a distinctly un-smoothe move for someone who was slick enough to break up a couple.   Tara's death is more regrettable because she doesn't really do anything wrong and she's not nearly as vapid, mean or useless as her equivalent in Lake Placid 2 (whose annoying qualities also didn't merit death.)

So is Lake Placid 3 worth your time?   Well, it's still no Lake Placid, but it's a nice effort.   The number of subplots and the attempt to tie them all together is a level of complexity that deserves some commendation for the effort put into creating an interesting structure.   Colin Ferguson and Michael Ironside are big selling points and the brief bit of buddies on a boat hints at what could have been a good Jaws remake.
Still, it's a film that has a lot of charm and despite the cheap scare at the very end (crocodile's gaping maw right in your face) it's a decent monster movie.   Again, if you're looking for crocodiles then this isn't a bad outing.   Maybe you want to see what Yancy Butler's been up lately.  Maybe you're going through Eureka withdrawal.   Personally, I like this film a little better than Lake Placid 2.   Yeah, it's not Lake Placid or Jaws or Atonement or whatever you think you're comparing it with in your mind, but it's actually not a complete waste of your time.
Could I have imagined a better Lake Placid sequel in my mind?  Yes, I could have.  But I'm me.  And nobody asked me, so this is the movie we get.      

Dramatis Personae
Nathan Bickerman, a game warden....Colin Ferguson (Eureka)
Susan Bickerman, his wife, a realtor....Kirsty Mitchell (Triassic Attack, Monarch of the Glen)
Connor Bickerman, their son, a weirdo....Jordan Grehs
Vica, the Bickerman's Bulgarian nanny...Bianca Ilich
Reba, a hunting guide/poacher....Yancy Butler (Witchblade, Lake Placid: The Final Chapter, Kick-Ass, As the World Turns, Brooklyn South)  Yancy is a little scary in this film.  It's good, but I have to wonder why she's so good at playing a slightly crazed hunter.
Sheriff Tony Willinger, Aroostook County Sheriff....Michael Ironside (V, Top Gun, Total Recall, Highlander II) Jester lives.
Ellie, a college student....Kacey Barnfield (Roadkill, Grange Hill, The Bill, Resident Evil: Afterlife)
Tara, Ellie's best friend....Angelica Penn
Aaron, a slimy college student...Nils Hognestad (Blood in the Water)
Charlie Berman, Aaron's dorky wingman...Brian Landon
Brett, Ellie's recently dumped ex-boyfriend...Mark Evans (a Eurovision contestant)
Girl, a girl....Kremena Otashliyska
Town Drunk....Ivo Simeonov (Grendel, Second AD on Lake Placid 2)
Walt....Donald Anderson (Blue Mountain State)
April, a girl looking for a good time on the Lake....Roxanne Pallett (Emmerdale)
Jason, April's boyfriend....James Marchant
Dimitri, owner of Dimitri's American Market....Velizar Binev (Shark Zone, Raging Sharks, Alien Apocalypse, Man with the Screaming Brain, Black Forest)
Station Attendant....John Laskowski (Triassic Attack, Cyclops, Boogeyman 3)
Jonas....Atanas Srebrev (Rage of the Yeti, Hammerhead, Mansquito, Raging Sharks, Boa vs. Python, Grendel, Harpies, Sharks in Venice)

Cinematography by Anton Bakarski (Black Forest, The Grudge 3, Monster Ark)
Original Music by Nathan Furst (Act of Valor, Shark Swarm, Lake Placid 2, Copperhead, Grendel, Roxy Hunter and the Horrific Halloween)

Previews 
1. Blu-ray Disc™ is High Definition!
Sony Blu-ray promo!  Big octopus tentacle amazing show!   Not mandatory!
2. Piranha 3-D
Yes, I saw this film on the big screen.   I still can't believe I did that.
3. Red Hill 
Revenge just rode into town...Australian style.
4. 30 Days of Night: Dark Days
Kiele Sanchez is a rogue CIA agent forced to fight vampires and drug mule clones when a heist goes bad.
5. Game of Death
Wesley Snipes fights vampires and clones sent by the CIA to collect his overdue tax bill.  
6. Faster
Dwayne Johnson plays a rogue agent forced to fight vampires and clones in order to avenge his brother's death following a heist.
7. The Experiment
Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker are broke rogue CIA agents who sign up for a psychological experiment where they are forced to fight vampires and clones in a fake prison.  
8. Takers
A heist movie with an all (ahem) star cast, plus Hayden Christensen as a rogue CIA agent, who all turn on each other when it turns out they've robbed a coven of vampire clones.