If You Haven't Seen a Ghost... Look Closer. Lake Mungo (2008)

Today I had a few friends over, and since they expect to be entertained, I figured I shouldn't put on some old movie. Not everyone appreciates them like I might. So I reached back into my Trick-or-Treat bag to find a movie I never managed to get to back in October: Lake Mungo. This is an Australian ghost story that may sound a bit like Paranormal Activity from a brief description, but while it shares some similar bullet points, it's not really like that movie at all. All will be explained after the jump.


While the story is about ghost sightings, it tries to take it more from a documentary angle, compared to many movies like this which are just "found footage." In this story, Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker) is the unfortunate victim. The daughter of Russel (David Pledger) and June Palmer (Rosie Traynor), and sister to Mathew (Martin Sharpe), she has sadly drowned on a family day trip. Not long after her funeral, strange noises can be heard in the house at night, and June is having horrific dreams about her dead daughter coming back into the house. Several months later, their son who is an amateur photographer, claims he's taken a picture of his sister's ghost in the back yard. This "mockumentary" of sorts mainly takes a look into whether or not these photos are real. At the same time, the family tries to get to the bottom of the mysterious secretive life they've found out their daughter had before her death.

A massive Police search is made where Alice went missing while swimming

Not only does the movie go into ghostly photos, but the son Mathew sets up really cheap video cameras in the halls to see if he can capture more ghostly evidence. Now this is where it will sound like it's just another Paranormal Activity ripoff, but in actuality, they spend very little time on the tapes. Usually it's shown in an Unsolved Mysteries kind of way. They interview all kinds of people, like the family and friends, getting their opinions on the footage and how they thought the family was dealing with it. Like asking the father's work friend if he believes that Russel saw what he says he saw late one night when coming home after work. Trust me, it's pretty creepy sometimes.

There are lots of interviews, such as this with the Palmer family, and also one-on-one with many others.

The movie does a really good job of going back and forth between "here's evidence that the ghost of their daughter is totally real! OMG!" and "Oh, but here's how that might not be the case." Usually when one piece of evidence comes up, it isn't long before it is refuted or subtracted from the equation, but I don't want to spoil anything. However, there are a few key moments that I realized they never really touch on, instead they get you lost in facts about something else, essentially leaving some evidence alone about it possibly being real. I really found myself totally unsure if the ghost was real or not for most of the movie because of those few seeds left to grow in my mind.

A scene from one of the tapes, a figure quickly crosses the hallway in the middle of the night.

Quite a few times I felt a cold chill run up my spine while listening to the stories told in the interviews, but I never jumped or was startled, this really isn't that kind of movie. There truly are some really creepy moments in this, and it's kind of refreshing that it's set in Australia and not America for once. That also instantly lends to having actors that are totally unknown to me, which, when combined with their believability, really made their performances work. Unfortunately, while it was good overall, I have a feeling I might largely forget about it in a few months.

I would still recommend this movie if you really like ghost stories though. I don't want to give anything away, but the ending gets pretty crazy, even if you already can suspend your disbelief for ghosts! I do hope the movie stays with me in the long run, because I did think it was a decent little film. Watching it with my friends I think added to the experience quite a lot because we were able to pause and briefly discuss what the F we thought was going on. So if you're looking for a little bit of a creep factor and want to see a new ghostly movie, give Lake Mungo a shot. Remember, it's not only a ghost story, but it has a pretty good mystery surrounding the whole thing, as well as some good drama of the family dealing with their loss.