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Lake Mungo is an Australian documentary film about the death of a sixteen-year-old girl
named Alice Palmer, who drowned in the town’s local dam on the 24th of December
2005. Two weeks after her death, strange events begin to occur around the house as a
ghostly figure wanders the hallway leading towards her bedroom. The Palmer family
who blame themselves for her death, try everything they possibly can to make contact
with Alice her to say goodbye. While Alice’s brother Mathew begins to video the
house on a daily basis, in hope to capture a paranormal encounter of his recently
deceased sister fails. They soon call a radio psychic investigator, Ray Kemeny, in to
investigate the house to find any sign of a paranormal activity by doing a séance.
Kemerny and the Palmer family only to slowly uncover the startling truth which could
have lead to Alice’s death.
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Lake Mungo is presented in a fabulous 1.78:1 letterbox widescreen. The picture looks
fine at times, but video footage is taken from several sources such as hand-held
cameras, television and mobile phones. Often at times the video transfer suffers
because of the film's low budget roots and the use of poor grainy video, which
sometimes makes the image very soft and hard to see what is happening. Its only the
one on one interviews with the family and friends which the film looks fairly decent,
but will surely annoy many viewers.
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You have two options when viewing Lake Mungo, you can choose either the 5.1 Dolby
Digital surround sound or the DTS (Digital Theater Systems) 5.1. The audio quality at
times is very crisp and loud, and other times their was a hissing, crackling and popping
sound. So the stereo soundtrack is acceptable to listen to, but not that quite
remarkable.
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Just like all Madman releases, they have jammed all the necessary extras that only the
viewer wants. You have a bunch of behind-the-scene footage a audio commentary
with cinematographer John Brawley and the producer David Rapsey which is featured
in a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround sound. You also have the original trailer and a good
handful of other Madman trailers to hold you off until you purchase your next Madman
DVD.
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Filmmaker Joel Anderson’s Lake Mungo is a "fictional documentary" that mocks the likes
of The Blair Witch Project (1999) and the recent box office hit Paranormal Activity
(2009). With a paranormal tale the films dialogue suffers to a poorly written script,
only to leave the viewer annoyed, as story constantly fades in and out of being a
supernatural theme then becoming a tragic-real-life crime theme. Not only did I find
this to really get on my nerves I did start to loose interest in the film. In 2008,
Anderson’s Lake Mungo surprisingly landed the attention from the makers of The Ring
(2002) into doing a remake, which is planned to be released in 2011. A Lake Mungo
remake would definitely be high on the cards of breaking the box-office as Anderson’s
version is authentic and often spooky. With a much bigger budget, fingers cross they
can work their Hollywood magic, tidy up the script and just focus on the supernatural
elements within the film.
Overall Lake Mungo is a nifty little film that many you average supernatural/horror fans
will enjoy watching. So if you haven't got anything to watch one weekend, rent it out
before considering of adding it to your DVD collection.
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