Lake Mungo - Film Review

  TheBloodyCritique’s ‘Lake Mungo’ Film Review  

Lake Mungo is an independent Australian psychological horror film presented in the style of a documentary. Following the aftermath of Alice Palmer’s death, a sixteen year old girl who drowns while swimming with her family during a trip to the dam, the film documents her family’s struggle to come to terms with it, especially after her brother finds something strange in a photo he took subsequent to her death. Alice’s family embark on an emotional journey to discover the truth behind her death and the truth about Alice as a person. 

Lake Mungo feels like a real documentary, from the look, the sound and the performances it’s perfect, there’s a rough feel to the footage and the pictures which really adds to the eerie tone while the interview scenes build the story, it’s perfectly done, these feel like real people and they act like real people would in this situation, it just felt like I was watching a documentary, there’s a level of authenticity to it that really deserves to be commended, I never questioned the found footage elements either, it’s all justified perfectly. 

I was drawn into the story and I was drawn into the world, the characters outside Alice aren’t particularly interesting but it’s all about Alice and what happened to her, who she was, the rest of the cast serve more as vehicles to forward the narrative. It’s intriguing, the tone is that of a serious documentary and I was definitely interested to discover with them what actually happened and I won’t spoil anything but I was satisfied with the conclusion, the ending is very grim but I thought it worked well, it’s a terrifying thought actually.  

There are quite a few eerie moments throughout the film that worked well on a more chilling level than say a scary level, there aren’t any jump scares and nothing is over the top, it’s very subtle, but the feeling you take with you, and you’d have to finish the film to get the full effect, is a much more terrifying thought than most of these stupid horror films are able to conjure up! I’m not really a fan of horror films in general, it’s a genre so full of shit it’s hard to find the gems!  

All in all this is an undeniably well-made film, I can’t really find any faults with it to pick at other than the fact that I probably wouldn’t watch it again, I watched it, I enjoyed it, I respect the work that went into it and I appreciate the idea and impact of the ending, I was satisfied. This might not be for everyone, it’s slow and it’s subtle, it’s not trying so hard to be scary, it’s more about a family dealing with a loss and that idea alone is scarier than most horror films! I’m gonna give Lake Mungo 7.4/10.   

What did you think of Lake Mungo?