Lake Mungo (2008)

In 2005 a 16 year old girl from Ararat, a small town in Australia, drowns in a dam while out swimming. An investigation is launched and a verdict of accidental death reached. As her disconsolate family try to move on, strange supernatural happenings take place in their home. And they become convinced that their dead daughter is back from the dead. And with secrets. Who? What? Why? forms the crux of the story.


A psychological slow burner from the outback land of Australia which has habit of producing some sensational horror stuff every now and then, this too was widely acclaimed which led me to see it. And with a nice enough rating of 6.1 on IMDb I was expecting a slow decent into hell scary ride. But to my disappointment it turned out to be a generic ghost movie with repeated close up shots of the back from the dead girl. Shot in a fake  documentary or mockumentary style, it has video footage from different sources assembled to form a story of a girl who may or may not be as innocent as she seemed.


While the story and treatment are way different from the Paranormal series a couple of shots have been inspired by it most definitely. The idea of adding cameras to the house which capture the dead girl ALICE PALMER played by Talia Zucker does work in adding some scares. Also most actors are unknown so we feel as if everything that's happening has happened in real life. Kudos to David Pledger and Rosie Traynor who play the father and mother to Alice respectively.


For me this doesn't work. The story is sparse and so even 87 minutes feels a stretch. I realize so many couldn't be wrong about a certain movie but I think for a slow burner this doesn't have enough of a payback. While I don't hate slow burners payback is a vital component of any movie. If audience invests so much into it then raising of stakes is a must. But this doesn't happen here. While its all good to show how a family grieves but when you advertise something as a horror movie it should scare you. If it doesn't have enough meaningful scares then there's a problem. And for me the expectation of a nice last 10-15 minutes after investing energy into a movie dragging through needless twists and turns was a problem. It remains mostly static.


The writing is straightforward and static. Camera work is steady enough and when not showing us close ups of the dead girl ghost it captures some very nice view of the outback. Its that one place on earth where you want to live even if a person like that nasty WOLF CREEK guy could be your neighbour. The movie is just 87 minutes long and when that feels like just a little bit too much you realize something somewhere is wrong. The direction by Joel Anderson is pretty nice and that's what keeps this from going completely off track. All in all a foundation on which a skyscraper could have been built. But this two storey is disappointing and not for me. And for many who like it, cheers!


HighTension Meter: 5/10