Lake Mungo (film)

Lake Mungo

Official Poster
Directed by Joel Anderson
Produced by Georgie Nevile
David Rapsey
Kerri Schwarze
Written by Joel Anderson
Starring Talia Zucker
Rosie Traynor
David Pledger
Music by Dai Paterson
Cinematography John Brawley
Edited by Bill Murphy
Distributed by Arclight Films
Release dates
  • 18 June 2008 (Sydney Film Festival)
Running time
 89 Minutes
Country Australia
Language English
Box office A$29,850 (Australia)[1]

Lake Mungo is a 2008 Australian psychological horror mockumentary film directed by filmmaker Joel Anderson and stars Talia Zucker.

Plot

Sixteen-year-old Alice Palmer drowns while swimming with her family at a dam in Ararat, Australia. After she dies strange things start to happen around her house. It's discovered that her teen brother Matthew was actually setting up the "sightings" of his dead sister to give the family reason to exhume Alice's body and give his mother closure.

One of the hoax video tapes of Alice showed that the neighbor was in Alice's bedroom looking for something, her mother found a sex tape of the neighbor, his wife and Alice hidden in the fireplace in Alice's room.

A psychic the family had contacted finally admitted that Alice had met with him several months before her death and had told him she was having dreams about drowning, being dead and her mother not being able to see or help her. Alice's boyfriend finally comes forward with cell phone video footage showing Alice on a school trip to Lake Mungo, she is shown very upset and burying something beneath a tree.

Alice's family travels to Lake Mungo, and finds what Alice had hidden, her cell phone and a bracelet. The video footage on the cell phone shows that Alice had seen her doppelgänger walking toward her. The double appears bloated just as Alice's body had been after being recovered from the lake in the beginning of the film.

Alice's family then goes home and moves out of their house, feeling that Alice had simply wanted them to know who she really was and what she had seen. The ending of the film adds some ambiguity to whether this was truly accomplished, as the film's mid-credit scenes reveal that Alice had manifested in earlier pictures and videos, with nobody noticing.

Cast

Production

The bulk of the film was written in 2005 and was inspired by documentaries of the time.[4]

Release

The film was screened in Austin, Texas (USA) at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2009.[5] In Australia, the film was at the Travelling Film Festival Wagga Wagga on 13 March 2009.[6] Lake Mungo was screened in the United Kingdom on 17 March at the Barbican London Australian Film Festival.[7] The film ran in the United States on 21 January 2010 at After Dark Horrorfest with a Lionsgate distribution.[8]

Reception

Lake Mungo was met with critical acclaim, earning a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[9] Andrew L. Urban of Urban Cinefile said "This superbly constructed and executed film gets everything right, to the smallest detail, as it draws us into the imagined scenario."[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Australian Films at the Australian Box Office", Film Victoria accessed 13 November 2012
  2. ↑ "Horrorfest '10: Official One Sheet for 'Lake Mungo'". Bloody Disgusting. 5 January 2010. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  3. ↑ "Trailer Debut: After Dark's Lake Mungo". Dread Central. 20 January 2010. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  4. ↑ Andrew L Urban, "ANDERSON, JOEL – LAKE MUNGO", Urban Cinefile, 30 July 2009 accessed 11 November 2012
  5. ↑ "SXSW Review: Tex Takes a Trip to 'Lake Mungo'". Bloody Disgusting. 24 March 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  6. ↑ Sydney Film Festival - TFF in Wagga Wagga
  7. ↑ "Lake Mungo (15*)". Barbican. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  8. ↑ "2010 horror movie preview: Lionsgate/After Dark Films". Bloody Disgusting. 28 December 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  9. ↑ "Lake Mungo on Rotten Tomatoes". Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  10. ↑ Urban, Andrew L. "Lake Mungo Review". Urban Cinefile. Retrieved 25 October 2014.

External links