Customer Reviews

Lake Mungo

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

"Lake Mungo" is an unsettling and unreasonably absorbing movie, one that ingenuously merges the structure of a documentary, the mystery of a detective story, the character development of a drama, and the suspense of a horror movie. It's genuinely good, but because it lacks gore, violence, nudity, and action, I suspect it will not be met with universal praise within the horror community. Like last fall's surprisingly effective "The House of the Devil," this is a film that should be commended simply for having audiences in mind other than teenagers with short attention spans. Rather than assault you with slasher tactics, writer/director Joel Anderson has the temerity to have the characters talk directly to the camera; if we do find ourselves frightened, it's not because something has jumped out at us but because we see the terror, grief, and confusion on everyone's face.

That's the greatest achievement of this film: It takes conventional ideas - poltergeist activity, buried secrets, premonitions, strange deaths - and humanizes them. Not even the brilliant "Paranormal Activity" could put a face on either of its leads; all effort was put into building a sequence of events. "Lake Mungo," more polished and varied in its approach, is edited in much the same way as a Discovery or History Channel special, with a group of people giving on-camera interviews for a team of filmmakers documenting a supposed case of suburban haunting. At the center of the investigation is sixteen-year-old Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker), who drowned mysteriously in December of 2005 while picnicking with her family.

Not long after her funeral, odd things begin happening at the Palmer residence. Noises are heard on the roof and outside the window. The door to Alice's room keeps slamming on its own, even after it had been taken off its hinges and replaced. The mother, June (Rosie Traynor), begins having nightmares, which become so bad that she takes walks in the middle of the night. At a certain point, she even breaks into other people's homes, not to steal anything, but simply to get some sleep. The father, Russell (David Pledger), goes into Alice's room and has what can best be described as a vision, which ends startlingly. Alice's brother, Matthew (Martin Sharpe), goes to the doctor with unexplained bruises on his body, which disappear just as quickly as they show up. And then there are his photographs and videos, which both seem to reveal the presence of Alice's ghost.

Before long, June turns to Ray Kemeny (Steve Jordel), a radio host and psychic who specializes in paranormal activity. June likes him. Indeed, there's nothing especially eccentric about him, although he does have a large collection of cassette tapes. During their first session together, June is put into a hypnotic state and asked to describe what she sees. What we hear is undeniably chilling, but it doesn't really resonate until later on.

Now, what are we to make of this? Is all as it seems? As is the case with a lot of actual investigations, not everything comes to light at the very start. Consider Alice. At her funeral, news reports quote her family and friends, who said she was a "happy, fun-loving girl with a zest for life," a "great person," and "very popular, clever, and lovely." All very nice, but does it actually reveal anything? People are not one-dimensional - to a greater or lesser degree, we all lead a double life, and of that, I will say no more. Consider Matthew. Do his photos tell the whole story? Maybe they say more about him than they do about Alice. Consider Ray. Let's just say that, regardless of whether or not they have genuine abilities, psychics always seem to know more than they initially care to admit.

A trail of evidence leads the Palmers to Lake Mungo, a dried-up Australian lakebed Alice had visited during a class trip. What they discover is terrifying, although I'm hard pressed to say that they get the answers they were looking for. We don't, either. We only have the speculations of a grieving family sitting in front of a camera.

Not bloody enough for you? Too much talk and not enough action? This movie will certainly not do anything for the masked-killer-and-gory-deaths crowd, who will no doubt see it as slow, uneventful, and boring. But for others, it will be regarded highly, seen as a quietly unnerving psychological drama that is legitimately frightening. I may be in the minority here, but I'm confident in my assertion that "Lake Mungo" is a horror movie, made with the intention of actually horrifying the audience. I attribute most of its success to its compelling character development; we're actually made to care about the Palmers and what happens to them, or more accurately, what we think happens to them. Good luck finding anything like that in a teen slasher film.

Fantastically eerie and surprisingly clever faux-documentary chronicles the haunting of a young family after the drowning death of one of their own.
Equal parts spooky ghost story and dark family drama with more than a few twists to keep viewers engaged, a real treat for the patient viewer who can appreciate creeping dread.

Reading the movie description, I expected a typical horror flick. Instead, this movie combines a horror film with an interview-like story. The movie basically tells the story by periodically inserting interview footage, and then following that footage with flashbacks of what is described in the interviews. I generally find that this makes for a somewhat discontinuous movie experience (ala Exorcism of Emily Rose). Despite the discontinuity, the horror elements were very good. Without giving too much away, the movie is primarily focused on sharing a family's experience with a ghost, and whether or not that ghost manifests itself in photos and video footage. The way the movie reveals the photo/video footage is quite good and was very eerie, but is definitely focused on mood and slowly building psychological impact than startling horror elements that jump out and scare you. Again, though, the eerie mood was very well developed and maintained throughout the movie. Very highly recommended, but do frame your expectations accordingly to properly enjoy.

Beneath its spooky surface - a brilliant imitation of a TV-style documentary on a possible haunting - this movie is really a harrowing look at grieving: about how we deal with loss, and how a shattered family tries to put the pieces back together, after the death of a loved one. There are no easy answers, and no solutions to the ultimate mysteries the movie raises - though the conclusion of the story is completely satisfying. As other reviewers have noted, it's not a gore-fest, and nothing jumps out at you - but I found myself, when it was over, wanting to watch it all over again, to see how cleverly the film-makers had maintained and raised the tension throughout. And I also wanted to see again many of the truly beautiful and haunting images - including time-lapse shots of the "haunted" house against a changing night sky... or the ominous movement of the camera down a quiet but possibly terrifying hallway. This movie is truly unique and quite an achievement.

The Australian film Lake Mungo is a faux documentary; let's get that out of the way right off the top. I make a point of mentioning this because if you see this film you will, at several points, have to remind yourself that it is not actually a doc. The director, Joel Anderson, has done an amazing job of creating a film that looks and feels as though it was created by a world-class documentary maker. This is not one of those Blair Witch-type films filmed entirely with shaky-cam shots and grainy video footage. There is some of that in Lake Mungo, but its restrained use makes these scenes all the more effective.

The film is about the Palmer family, who come to believe that they're being haunted by their 16 year-old daughter, Alice, after she drowns in a lake. The family seeks the aid of a psychic and uses video cameras to help determine if they are, in fact, being haunted.

That quick summary makes Lake Mungo sound like just another Paranormal Activity clone, the kind of film in which we wait for the next moment when something jumps out at us and the screaming ensues. Lake Mungo is quite definitely about the supernatural, and there is a ghost, but it is much more than a scarefest. It's one the finest dramas I've seen in quite a few years.

You could say that this film is primarily a study of grief; an incisive, sympathetic, nuts and bolts look at how a family copes with a tragic loss. In fact, the more times you view this film, the more you concentrate on the family drama side of the story and less on the supernatural. Lake Mungo is also about family secrets, about the way otherwise normal, happy families can keep things from one another. One of the biggest shocks in the movie is not caused by a spectral figure, but by a revelation about Alice.

A great deal of the strength of this film comes from its cast, who improvised their dialogue based on plot points they had to hit. If this is what improvisation can achieve, why bother with scriptwriters? Another aspect that merits praise is the look of the film. Anderson and his cinematographer have a knack for choosing just the right angles and lighting tones for their interior shots. Even better is their sensational use of time lapse photography, striking night skies, and electronic sound effects to make the Palmer's house and the surrounding town seem that much eerier.

Is Lake Mungo scary? It's definitely creepy, unsettling, chilling, and there's certainly one jump-in-your-seat moment. Comments about it I've read online, mostly from diehard horror fans, express annoyance that it isn't scary enough. My daughter (a generally sensible third-year law student) found it so frightening she watched (heard) most of the film from behind a pillow, and then spent the next five nights sleeping with the lights on. I think it works brilliantly as both a ghost story and a drama. After seeing it for the first time I left the film feeling terribly sad rather than frightened. I felt as though I'd shared the Palmer's loss, rather than suffered through a haunting.

Lake Mungo is supposed to remade by an American studio (now that's scary), so order it from Amazon before it turns up in your local cinema starring Lady GaGa and David Hasselhoff.

You can read more of my reviews at JettisonCocoon dot com.

This is one of those films that makes self-proclaimed horror buffs scream FOUL, but, in reality, this just goes to show that there is more to horror than blood and gore. Something doesn't have to have gory make up effects or extreme violence to be horrific.

And this film proves it. The narrative is quietly unfolded. This films shows that no matter what angle you look at something, there is always a different angle to see it at. This is the hard part, trying to review a film that has twists to it without revealing it's secrets and spoiling it. So I will put it this way. Something will be presented, then upon re-presenting it again, a new fact will emerge. And sometimes when it is presented yet again, another new fact will emerge. Just when you think it's eerie enough.....it becomes even more atmospheric.

This is a deep film. Not only does it deal with grief, but it deals with other human emotions such as trust and secrecy. And it deals with what great lengths a person might go to keep something a secret.

This is a multi-dimensional film. It works on a supernatural level, a documentary level, a drama level, a Spiritualism level. It is so complex, it might take several viewings to understand it all. And no matter how many times you view it to see it's secrets, the gloomy creepy atmosphere will always be there.

As I stated earlier, it is hard to review a film such as this without ruining it, but I highly recommend this film. It's not ultra-budget. Don't expect sudden shocks and gore. The best example of how this film is presented would be shows like "Snapped", "Murder By The Book", etc where the story is told through interviews, pictures, video clips, etc. And the opening with audio interview clips over vintage spirit photographs is wonderful!

I have viewed this film twice. I am about to watch it again. Now that I have seen it a second time, there are things said and shown that I did not catch the first time.

This has to be one of the most thoughtful films about death, greiving, and the afterlife that has ever been written. I pray that when the film is remade, that the director actually pays attention to it's message. I cannot picture this film presented any other way and I hope the remake is never made.

I caught this film at the recent AfterDark Horrorfest and was very plesantly surprised. The performances were so convincing that at first I thought it really was a documentary that had been included with the rest of the Horrorfest releases. No blood and guts or maniac on the loose. Just a nice slow build in tension that reaches a very satisfying conclusion. I look forward to seeing it again.

To sum up: "Lake Mungo" is a waste of time. Rotten Tomatoes had a 93% rating on the movie and IMDB had a 6.1 (The latter can be better relied on than the former). And while Amazon reviews are skewed higher (it is rare to see an average of two stars or lower even when the movie is genuinely horrible), the Amazon reviewers got this one right. As for Rotten Tomatoes, make sure there are enough recognized reviewers seeing the movie (like 30) before you trust their word).

I will not give away the ending but I advise you not to stick around for it. There is one scary idea in the movie - and it is not worth the long wait. Nothing happens in this movie. It is a documentary-style movie filmed as a series of interviews. The concept might be "new", but it is annoying to watch and doesn't make for an absorbing experience. "The Blair Witch Project" did a great job with the documentary style and that movie was actually scary if you saw it before you knew the ending and before everyone was making fun of it.

Just because a movie is bad, does not make it a "thinking man's" horror movie. My two favorite horror movies are slow and well-worth the atmospheric build-up: "The Shining" and "Session 9". This movie will not be scary to the horror movie novice. Is it slightly disturbing? Slightly. It feels conjured up and forced. To quote "Billy Madison", "Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it".

A movie experience is a time-waster by definition, but it should be an enjoyable one. Even bad horror movies can be enjoyable - like Robert de Niro's awful "Hide and Seek". Not knowing that a movie will be bad is like eating something spicy not knowing it it will be - eating wasabi thinking it's guacamole or drinking vodka thinking it's water - it makes it that much worse. Bruce Almighty was a horrible movie but its pain was eased knowing it was going to be just that. I hope my wasted time will encourage you not to waste yours on "Lake Mungo".

Lake Mungo is definitely one of the more interesting installments of this year's After Dark Horrorfest. An Austrailian faux-documentary about a family's grief after the death of their daughter, whose apparition apparently is showing up in various pictures and recordings. Lake Mungo manages to provide some eerie visuals and a fairly creepy tone, but what stops it from being something special is that it is way too slowly paced. Other than that, the acting is quite solid throughout (it really does feel like a documentary), very well shot, and the twists that occur are pretty jarring as well. All in all, Lake Mungo is something different when compared to the other entries in this year's After Dark Horrorfest, and is a worthwhile enough endeavor because of that.

I stumbled on this film by chance - I had never heard of it nor knew anything about it, so I had zero expectations. What a gem I discovered - this is an amazingly good movie. I might otherwise give it four stars, but chose five to try to correct for some of the one star reviews that might prevent others from checking this movie out. Pay no mind to those one-star reviewers - their brains have been eaten by zombies.

Lake Mungo centers around the tragic drowning of a 16 year-old girl, and her grieving family's belief that her ghost is present in the house, perhaps needing to communicate something about her death. The format is faux documentary - but there is never any doubt that it is scripted. I don't think the director intended us to believe otherwise. The real-world rough edges are smoothed out to better draw us into his eerie one. The performances are wonderfully understated, underscoring the surreal mood. And it may have been filmed on a low budget, but there is million-dollar talent behind that camera. Most impressive were the "ghost" scenes - they are shot like a disturbing dream, the kind you have when you are unsure if you are dreaming or awake. Not to get all highbrow, but I was reminded of Igmar Bergman's Persona. There were scenes in that film that blurred the line between The dream and waking worlds that left me with an uneasy, creepy feeling, just like Lake Mungo did.

I think the preponderance of negative reviews on this site are from those who were expecting cheap thrills. There are none to be had here, but the patient viewer is left with a more enduring, subtle horror. There are a few unexpected twists that may leave some viewers rolling their eyeballs, but hang in there. Not all is as it seems. There's a quote from the doomed girl that still sends chills up my spine: "I feel like something bad is going to happen to me. Like it already has. It just hasn't reached me yet. But it's coming."