Lake Mungo

This review contains spoilers. A documentary style film, as the director visualised in his mind, and a cheap belief of what it is based upon. I absolutely lost my patience while watching this movie, because I wanted to see a good movie and all it had is how it wanted to be, which I appreciate but unfortunately I hatred it because I was thinking why is it not in some informative channel's stupid shows than a movie? I thought about Häxan - 1922. A film, I love so much because not only it is entertaining but also very well shot and represented. I also thought about "it follows" which I believe is another great horror film in the history of cinema. While watching this Australian director's film, I could not see what else it has that there never have been before or is it important as long as the film is good at it. Does this movie show us anything we have never seen? I absolutely hated the poor direction of how the characters were told to talk about the tragedy! What I hated the most is the blend of dialogues and music. The cheap creepy background music was so high, that you absolutely have to feel the poor suspense the director forces us to feel so desperately, but it was so painful and disgusting far from disturbing. I only felt bad about the privacy of the family involved in the film, if it is based upon the real story which I don't wish to research on. I will tell you my analysis about the first creepy photo of the dead body and last same living video of the creepy faced body: A saddist murdered or psychopath did the horrible things to her face, who had all her possessions, and before killing her, he/she recorded her sadism and buried it in the ground so nobody could find it. Maybe he has been giving her drugs and raping her, which caused her to go through anxiety or depression of death and all those nightmare. Maybe the sadist is not anymore than the Hungarian hypnotiser. Now irrational but dumb people would like it, and some cheap people would spend some bucks to turn it to the most horrible horror film. I want to explain here - a lot of people like the end creepy footage - I found it absolutely horrible because again the cheap creepy sound gave me a headache

Docudrama concerning the possible ghost of an Australian girl

A 16 year-old girl disappears in the water in a rural area of Australia and family members & others claim they see apparitions of her while various secrets are slowly unveiled.

“Lake Mungo” (2008) is a mystery Indie with a bit ’o horror, but in the style of a mockumentary, aka fake documentary.

Like "Curse of the Blair Witch,” which was released three weeks before the found footage hit “The Blair Witch Project” in 1999, “Lake Mungo” consists of fake interviews with several people about the central topic, as well as examination of some found footage. "Curse of the Blair Witch” worked because it only ran 44 minutes whereas this one is twice as long and the fact that it’s all an act pretending to be a documentary can’t sustain interest. I suppose if you thought it was real it might be more compelling.

The brother’s revelation (no spoilers) is odd in that it takes away from what the docudrama is trying to do. For me, the first 53 minutes of constant phony interviews is pretty tedious. Thankfully things perk up in the final 34 minutes. Although the first revelation thereof goes nowhere, the second one (the one that occurs at the titular lake) is well done and certainly creepy, not to mention an intriguing concept.

I’m sure everything ties together if you reflect on it, but IMHO it’s not worth the effort because the flick just isn’t compelling for the bulk of the first hour. And the payoff isn’t enough to make it worth the investment UNLESS maybe you’re a devotee of mockumentaries or found footage flicks. Add to this the aggravation of the pendulum swinging back-and-forth regarding the nature of the paranormal happenings (she is a ghost; she isn’t a ghost, ad nauseam).

That said, the movie is well made for what it is, the actors are convincing and I enjoyed seeing that part of southeast Australia.

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in Ararat, which is a 2 hours’ drive west of Melbourne, and Mildura, which is 3.5 hours north of Ararat.

GRADE: C-/C (4.5/10)