Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012)

Reba the poacher is back, now an E.P.A. Agent. Black Lake has turned into a crocodile sanctuary, surrounded by an electric fence. When the fence gets left open one night, a high-school field trip bus unknowingly enters the park. It's up to Reba and the new town Sheriff to save the kids from becoming crocodile chow.

REVIEW: When it comes to SyFy Channel B-Movies, I'm hard-pressed to find a franchise I enjoy more than the Lake Placid one. The second movie is one of my all-time personal favorite SyFy Originals, and even though the third movie was a big step down from it, it still manages to be a fun time in the end, despite the issues I have with aspects of it. Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (hahahaha, yeah...right...) easily beats both of them in my eyes and remains my personal favorite entry in this series of TV sequels.

This one has Yancy Butler returning from the third movie, being the only character at this point to continue on to a future installment, and she's easily the best part about both sequels as everything that comes from her mouth turns into pure laugh-out-loud comedic gold. The cute-as-hell Elisabeth Rohm and horror movie legend Robert Englund both partake in the fun alongside Yancy Butler in The Final Chapter, with Rohm playing yet another new Sheriff and Englund an antagonistic big game poacher. Suffice to say with a cast like this the acting across the board in this one is actually pretty good for the most part. Also improved are the special effects. They use the same CGI models for the crocodiles that I love so much from the previous movies, but they seem to be improved slightly, as they interact with the environment and actors a bit better than they previously did.

By the time this movie rolled around the filmmakers knew they had to really do something new and unique to keep it all fresh so it's not just the exact same movie for the third time in a row, and so they included a subplot here dealing with a large electrified fence going up around the lake to keep the crocs in and people out, which reminded me of Jurassic Park on more than one occasion throughout. Of course they had to then come up with a way to get our cast of characters on the other side of said fence, and I do feel that how they went about that was terribly stupid and makes no sense whatsoever, but meh, minor quibble in what is otherwise my favorite entry of the series. Logic usually goes out the window in these types of movies anyway.

I know the new Lake Placid coming out this weekend is a 'fresh start' for the sequels, acting as a brand new Part 2 and ignoring all these ones. I only hope that it's at least as much fun as this previous sequel series has been.

10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward