It is the first installment in the Lake Placid film series and stars Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Platt, Betty White, Meredith Salenger, and Mariska Hargitay.

In the film, a giant crocodile terrorizes the fictional location of Black Lake, Maine, while a dysfunctional group of police and scientists attempt to capture or kill the beast.

Lake Placid was produced by Fox 2000 Pictures and Stan Winston Studios (which did the special effects for the creatures) and principal photography was shot in British Columbia, Canada.

In Aroostook County, Maine, Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife officer Walt Lawson is scuba diving with Sheriff Hank Keough in Black Lake when he is suddenly bitten in half by an unknown creature.

United States Fish and Wildlife Service officer Jack Wells, American Museum of Natural History paleontologist Kelly Scott, and Hank investigate the incident.

The group discovers that local resident Delores Bickerman, an elderly widow living near the lake, is feeding the crocodile after they observe her leading a blindfolded dairy cow to the water.

Hank and Jack call in the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for help with killing the crocodile, but Hector suggests that he should lure it out of the water and tranquilize it instead.

The site's critics consensus reads, "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".

[12] Andrew Collins of Empire gave the film four out of five stars, writing that "you can enjoy Placid as a straightforward camping-holiday nightmare, or as a sly, ironic take on the same.