A GHOSTLY MYSTERY FOLLOWS A FAMILY IN MOURNING
★★★★★ (A Must-See)
Director: Joel Anderson
2008
The loss of a child is devastating and disorienting, but in Lake Mungo, this trauma is expanded when a couple’s dead daughter shows up in her brother’s videos to warn them about something. Filmed in a documentary style similar to Dateline stories, Lake Mungo reroutes all the rules followed by most horror films—the jump scares, loud music, exploitation—and frightens you with soft images of a shadow walking around the house as the family is sleeping. This unique movie is not just unsettling; it’s also a moving tribute for anyone who wants to believe their deceased child is only a breath away.
Lake Mungo takes place in Australia, and I’m not sure if it’s the culture or this particular family, but there’s a stiff upper lip about the people who are the focus of the mockumentary. A sixteen-year-old named Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker), known to be wholesome and sweet and well-liked, accidently died in Lake Mungo only a few months before, but not a tear is shed by her mother and father, and perhaps it’s because all of the tears were shed before the cameras showed up. The Palmers appear to be in shock now, not only from the absence of the fourth member of their family, but because their photographer son has begun capturing his sister in photos (the reason why the television crew has showed up). Alice’s friends and the Palmers were just starting to move on before this happened. Most of them. Photography was the new hobby taken up by Matthew as a distraction...the father, Russ, threw himself into work. Then there’s Alice’s mother, June (Rosie Traynor), a character whose stoic veneer hides great sorrow. Confessing to a complicated mother/daughter relationship so many of us can relate to, she is stuck because there will never be a resolution to their quarreling. After signs that her child is wandering their home, she is ready to believe anything, even reaching out to a psychic so she can have closure.
Lake Mungo is a very special film. Though you won’t experience traditional scares, you will find yourself disturbed after the credits roll thanks to the believability of the project—and a series of images that could chill even the most jaded horror fan. If there had been one bad actor in the bunch, the illusion of this documentary would have been ruined. We get interviews with Alice’s young friends that are honest or ridiculous, all culminating into one big secret the dead teen was keeping from everyone. Much like the Dateline episodes, you’ll find yourself playing armchair detective, putting the pieces together to find out whether the girl’s death was an accident or not. After all, she was not herself before she died, something had spooked her. If you take anything away from Lake Mungo, it’s the lesson to be on good terms with your loved ones at all times.
GENRES: Atmospheric, Psychological
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