Movie Review #2

Lake Mungo (2008)

Sixteen year old Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker) drowns at a local dam and a week later her body is retrieved and identified by her father, Russell (David Pledger). This tragic event sets in motion a chain reaction of alarming incidents that will have a profound effect on her family as they find themselves embroiled in a series off ghostly disturbances. Harrowing secrets are uncovered along the way as they deal with their bereavement and discover some disturbing truths about their daughter.

Lake Mungo presents the viewer with plenty of supernatural shenanigans and, as a result, rates pretty high on the chill-o-meter. However, it is as much a movie about a family finding their individual ways to deal with grief and learning how to move on. That is what elevates this above what is fast becoming an oversaturated subgenre of horror. Admittedly there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before. But the devil, as they say, is in the detail and the upshot of this is a damn fine addition to this overcrowded sub-genre. As a result this is required viewing for anyone who enjoyed The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity etc. In fact, in a lot of ways this is a superior example of the form.

What we have here is a moderately successful attempt to create a hybrid of the fake documentary genre and the found footage movie. The performances from all involved are believable throughout and if the viewer is willing to give himself over to the possibility of this being an actual documentary, detailing a real ordeal, it wouldn’t take too much effort to do so. There are several disparate elements that are expertly knitted together to make this as convincing as possible. News reports and clippings; talking head interviews; amateur footage taken from a number of different sources. The film makers corral all of these elements and more and the end result is never less than utterly believable. This looks every bit the TV documentary it sets out to convince the viewer it is.

The most important factor in any fake documentary is that the performances during the talking head sequences must be convincing. Without that, and regardless of how effective the rest of the movie might be, the entire project is doomed to failure. More than anything else Lake Mungo gets this element right with a selection of subtle performances that crucially don’t feel like those involved are acting. These people feel real and it is this, not the moments of video footage showing “evidence” of a supernatural presence scattered throughout the runtime, which makes this movie work. Special credit must be given to Rosie Traynor and Martin Sharpe as the mother and son of the family. They both have to do most of the heavy lifting here and both are outstanding throughout.

The movie isn’t perfect. There are quite a few moments that stretch credibility somewhat. Mostly these revolve around things that are discovered in some of the amateur video footage that simply are not clear enough for those viewing the materials to be as certain of what they saw as they actually are. That said, most of the time the video footage is extremely effective and the images of “ghosts” succeeded in sending a chill up my spine. The make-up effects used to depict Alice’s corpse were particularly impressive.

Lake Mungo must have created at least a minor stir and as a result it has somewhat predictably caught the attention of the makers of The Ring remake. I can’t think of much they could do to improve on what already exists but I can, through experience, think of a lot they could do to royally screw it up. It is further evidence of the lack of imagination in Hollywood today. Why come up with ideas yourself when you can buy them and feed them into the remake machine?

Overall I was really impressed by Lake Mungo. It has a subtle way with its chills that hearkens back to the works of literary greats such as M. R. James and Ambrose Bierce. Although I did find things to enjoy in the first two Paranormal Activity movies (the second movie less so than the first) the subtle approach employed here is far more enjoyable and in truth it’s also more difficult to pull off. Lake Mungo could have chosen a more clamorous approach to scare its audience. The film makers should be congratulated for their restraint. It mostly pays off and as a result I highly recommend that fans of a good ghost story check this out.

7 out of 10