Lake Mungo

With all this hype about the good, yet overrated Paranormal Activity, Joel Anderson's debut film Lake Mungo lies forgotten. This is a total shame, seeing as this is much better, and way creepier. Lake Mungo really is a very simple film, it follows the Palmer family as they deal with the loss of Alice (their daughter/sister). It is filmed in a documentary style, in which the family/friends/work associates are interviewed by an unseen person, with pictures and video footage shown as well. Eventually we discover Alice had many secrets, and the family try to find out about them and if they had anything to do with her passing.

The plot does not sound enticing, in fact, it sounds rather plain, however, this is not case fortunately. The documentary style really suits the film, and the actors are incredible and almost seem like they are not acting at all. The scares spaced throughout are genuinely freaky, and really got under my skin. Anderson makes sure the atmosphere is kept dense throughout the whole film, making every minute feel ominous. However, Lake Mungo does not just focus on the horror, but also how the family deals with the grief, and what they are willing to believe and do to help each other and themselves. The scenes in between the supernatural images and occurrences focus on how each family member (and some friends) deal with all that happens, and it is done in a refreshingly realistic (not over-blown, sentimental, or dramatic) way. There are a few twists along the way, and the final scene is very well-done, and will stay with you for a long time. Do yourself a favour, go see this movie, support movies which are actually good and don't rely on cheap scares. Recently my awesome homeland have been releasing some damn good horror movies (see Wolf Creek, Rogue, Black Water, Dying Breed, Lucky Country) and Lake Mungo is one of the best.

4½/5

The concept was interesting, but got dragged down by the interview-style telling. Alice's story only had interest through the peppering of "actual footage" that got thrown in here and there.

Well the movie itself has some flaws. It has some parts that is really unnecessary. But the allover story is really interesting.

It is one of the slowest horror/mystery movies I've seen, but i think that it benefits from it. The scares are mostly...not really scares, but they will get you goosebumps for sure. But you really have to stay the entire movie to get the entire thing. The end is what made it for me. People are comparing it to paranormal activity, and I get that, but the matter a fact is that these two movies are not very similar, the only thing really is that they use some home movie style footage.

Anyway, its a good movie if you like slow movies, and good scares. But its no movie theater material.

An extremely low budget and low key Australian horror done in the faux-documentary style that has now well and truly worn out its welcome, Lake Mungo is impressive in what it does with limited resources and its ambition is to be commended but a big problem with this now cult film is that it's sadly not very scary.

Whilst suitably creepy at times as Lake Mungo wears on towards it's slight 80 minute run time the films initial chilling set-up slowly descends into something that becomes unfortunately tiresome even though the film's final credits scenes provide some unnerving finishing moments.

While criticisms can be easily made of Lake Mungo's inability to capitalize on its promising cornerstones director Joel Anderson certainly must be commended for sticking to his low-budget guns and delivering a mock-doc that to the uninitiated may absolutely seem like a legitimate documentary! Using grainy phone footage, good use of talking heads and fake news reports, Anderson crafts a tale that actually feels real even if the story its telling becomes a little far-fetched and lacking. Telling the story of the sad demise of young Alice Palmer in this way allows Anderson to hide the films limitations in ways that don't take away from the films central premise and only some clunky delivery of dialogue really gives Lake Mungo's sleight of hand away.

One of the more impressive Australian horrors of recent times (although that's not entirely an amazing feat) and perhaps the best locally made example of a faux documentary yet produced (again not exactly tough competition), Lake Mungo has clearly in the years since its release found an appreciative audience that it failed to find upon initial runs these now many moons ago and you could do a lot worse than making Lake Mungo your horror fix over the slowly dying Paranormal Activity franchise or any other such higher profile wannabe.

3 buried cell phones out of 5

So I am:

Totally kicking myself for watching this right before bed. I'm so scared, but it was absolutely worth watching. I am normally a boss when it comes to scary movies, however this particular movie has some twists and turns that make you think about it for hours after. It starts out slow and steady letting you in on the back story of the family and what has happened. The whole film is shot documentary style with interviews etc.(and let me just say, that if I didn't know this movie was a "mock" horror or whatever you call it, I would have been pet-ri-fied) haha.

I was a little iffy:

After the first major twist (if you will), but I promise, keep watching because the end is worth the wait. I feel like I want to tell people all about this underrated movie and how it made me feel right now, but it's late so I'll wait and just tell all you movie people who read reviews to just go watch it, in the dark. Don't be a pansy.

Overall:

One of the best I've seen recently...it's hard to come by good horror especially ghost stories, but this one was actually pretty good. I like when I come across something unexpected. 8.5/10 Stars.

Read all my reviews at http://dianalynn5287.blogspot.com/