Lake Mungo will have it’s first Australian television screening on WEDNESDAY the 6th at 10PM on SBS ONE.
What follows is a discussion about the making of this unique film.
Lake Mungo is a feature film about grief and the harrowing 12 months that follow the accidental death of 16 year old Alice Palmer. After her grieving family bury Alice a series of inexplicable, strange and possibly supernatural events lead them to seek the help of a parapsychologist who in turn uncovers Alice’s secret double life. Lake Mungo is a supernatural mystery and ghost story told as a documentary that explores just how the dead can forever haunt the living.
Lake Mungo started off as a bit of an experiment devised by the brilliant mind of writer / director Joel Anderson. Even today when I revisit the film several years after working on it (principal photography was completed in December 2006), I still find myself making connections and sifting further story elements from the finished film.
Mistakenly referred to as a horror film by virtue of it’s supernatural subject matter and disturbing disquiet, it’s really better thought of as a uneasy mystery thriller. It’s originality make it hard to categorise.
It’s an unbelievably layered and intricate story and the further you peer into it, the more you’re going to find. For this reason alone, it’s a very rewarding film to watch more than once.
Joel was really interested in the idea of apparent visual proof in images and how they can be used as evidence in the documentary form. I think he also liked the freedom of documentary story-telling structure. Unlike conventional drama structure where you tend to follow a single character’s story arc ( aka the hero’s journey) with all the story telling rules that an audience has come to expect, the documentary form allows you to near-seamlessly jump between different character arcs within the same film. The tone can unexpectedly shift gears and surprising story diversions can also play out without audience disbelief. You can even have blind alleys that actually lead to inconclusive outcomes and unresolved or unexplained story threads. It’s all part of the documentary oeuvre.
If you can have the audience believe they are watching a real documentary, other story telling mechanisms and conventions are suddenly possible. The truth is something that a documentary purports to tell and more importantly, to show. Using misdirection though, you can also manipulate the audience’s reading of the material being presented as evidence.
Every visual proof in Lake Mungo was created to be ambiguous and open to the audience members’ own take on the material. Like any good documentary filmmaker, we invited the audience to engage with the subject and to draw their own conclusions from what they were presented with as evidence.
We are so accused to the maxim, “a picture never lies”, that when it’s inconclusive, we’re not sure what to make of it. We were able to subvert’s people’s reading of images. Something that initially appeared to be concrete would be undermined by an alternative shot, or perhaps a revelation of new information by a character that would cause the image to be read in a new light.
We actually cast ourselves as prestigious documentary filmmakers embedding with the Palmer family over 12 moths of agonising and turbulent paranormal happenings. We didn’t want to judge or draw conclusions, just simply present what we were seeing and shown and let the viewer make up their own minds about what was happening.
Joel’s innovative script allowed for this by not prescribing any dialogue. Instead, a highly detailed treatment covered story beats and the intent of what each scene should be, it was up to the actors to get through those beats through improvising their own dialogue, usually in response to questioning from Joel.
Like a fencing match, Joel had to then tease the beats out of his documentary subjects….actors who were simply responding in-character to a documentary crew following them around. Sometimes they were hostile to questioning and sometimes they wanted to unload. You can hear Joel himself asking his characters questions in the film.
It was a fascinating conceit, to try and create a film using these techniques. Joel felt really strongly that it was also the only way to guarantee the veneer of authenticity. It also applied to the way we shot and staged the film. We went to extraordinary lengths to ensure we were authentic.
In effect, we were also characters in the film, acting in the role of a documentary film crew. We tried to make it a rule not to shoot things that wouldn’t have been possible for our fictional doco crew to have done. As often as possible we would shoot observational scenes in a single pass and without doing any blocking or rehearsals.
In an early scene with Ray Kemmeny, the parapsychologist, he has a session with one of Ararrats’s local residents (anne ?) who’s confronting a terminal illness. Ray was a sort of traveling councillor who offered a deeper insight into the possibilities of the afterlife. Practicing out of hotel rooms and spending most of his time on the road we staged him in the local motor inn without either of the actors having met each other before action was called on the scene.
In one continuos unrehearsed and unblocked scene that went for close to 20 mins we simply shot the counseling session as it happened with the actors meeting each other for the first time in-character and doing a counselling session. Shooting with a single camera there were no pickups, no extra coverage, and no take 2. We even realized during post that we had a significant hair in the gate during all of this sequence.
We decided against painting it out, which was possible to do. We thought it was further proof that we shot the scene continuously….the hair is there all the way through it.
In Joel’s mind, this was key to creating authenticity. To try to shoot scenes in an unrehearsed and even unblocked way. It was the only way to “bake in” genuine mistakes that sometimes might happen with framing and focus, not to mention awkwardness with actors and staging for camera. All these are unconscious signifiers and evidence of a real documentary and actually hard to fake when you try to create them.
We also relied on well established documentary techniques to tell the story. We could recreate events and more emotional interpretations on events that had happened in the past before our fictional documentary crew had arrived on the scene. We often used 35mm time-lapse sequences when characters were discussing events that contained some element of dread….
I deliberately limited our lighting package and crew size to mimic that of a documentary crew. I had a single focus puller, Geoff Skillbeck who also loaded and Gaffer Chris “Krispy” Dewhurst who mostly worked alone with a small VAN sized package. The occasional dolly shot was covered by grips Dean Garro and Greg Wallace who would come up for specific shots.
Given the supernatural elements that had to be created, we had to find a way to do this without it looking like a an effect at all.
The central character in the film is someone that dies before the film even starts. Our knowledge of her comes firstly from the families own re-told recollections, then her photographs and home movies. The aim was to paint picture of someone from the visual evidence she left behind. You get a snese of who she is from these disparate elements that are put together in the viewers mind. Eventually other kinds of amateur movies reveal another darker side to Alice and we’re then forced to re-examine the earlier images and how we see Alice herself.
Joel was really interested in interrogating visual images, and how the audience would view these images. He wanted to really look at what happens when you present an audience with apparent visual proofs only to then undermine it and really question what they were looking at.
But he really wanted to have the audience be troubled by the images that are presented as potential proof of the haunting of the Palmer family. As we the filmmakers tried to interrogate these images, they would frustratingly refuse to be explained and as we tried to work out what’s going on, the viewer is forced to conclude for themselves just what is real and what isn’t.
The closer you looked, the harder it would be to see what was happening. The more we’d peer into the images to try to enhance them the less conclusive they would be.
It wasn’t always easy to do this naturally and there was a lot of work and visual research done between myself and VFX supervisor Mathew Mackereth.
Subtle deceptions were employed so that images initially presented as being of one thing would look like something else when they were reprised later in the film. The audience of course assumed they were looking at the same image and with their new knowledge of the characters from film, could suddenly draw other conclusions about what they were looking at. We in fact would subtly doctor the image.
In the way footage of the Yeti and UFO’s defy deconstruction and reviewing, we wanted our found and family footage to be the same, to be credible enough to allow for both rebuttal and for the possibility that they were genuinely real.
There are over 60 VFX shots in the film, but most would hard pressed to identify which shots they were.
All these visually complex images in Lake Mungo don’t really provide answers. Deliciously ambiguous, the closer we try to examine or explain an image, the less resolved and conclusive it is.
As well as the documentary crew shooting contemporary footage of the Palmers in 2006, we also had to create a myriad of archival, family home movies, local news footage and police evidential footage. There was also a large number of still photographs that had to be created. During the very early days of development, Joel considered casting an actual family in the role of the Palmers so we’d gain access to their early family photos. I ended up designing a database in Filemaker Pro that would keep track of the different camera formats required for each scene. I even had to create the previous 5 years worth of family home movies, considering what kind of cameras the family would have had access to, making sure they looked properly aged.
Lake Mungo was shot using over 40 different cameras, with formats including 35mm, Super 16, HD, Digital beta cam, Hi8, Super 8, VHS and even mobile phones. We tried as much as possible to do it all in camera and to be low-fi.
Even during the post production phase Joel felt he needed to further degrade some of the home movie footage even further. I started by dubbing it to VHS repeatedly 6 times. ON the 7th time, we started up Complete Posts 1″ tape machine and dubbed it to that. While it was dubbing, I started yanking on the take up and feed reels of the open reel recorder machine, causing further glitches. After another couple of dubs through VHS , including one pass where I removed the tape from the cassette, crinkled it in my hand and carefully wound it back on. it was more than 10 generations old and finally to the point where it looked right !
We’d had advice from some VFX and post people that the degraded looks we wanted would be better done by shooting on a higher end formats and then treating the footage, but our early testing showed us that the only real way to get the right look was to do it all in camera. One of the most important scenes in the film was shot on a Joel’s phone mobile phone.
There were a lot of frowns when we initially said we planned to shoot using actual mobile phones, but again, testing in pre had us convinced it was the best way to go about it. We also realized that they way you hold a mobile phone to shoot with is totally different to the way you would hold a larger video camera.
We actually devised a series of tests in pre in order to work out lots of these key visual issues in the film. Would the mobile phones hold up on the big screen ? How could we find a way to create genuinely creepy images without resorting to post production and digital VFX techniques ?
It seems obvious to test for these things, and as Joel said in very early pre-production, how else could one “prototype” how to do things without testing them all the way to a film finish…
We ended up creating a test edit of about 3 mins of material of various tests. We compared different film stocks and even 35mm, Super 16 and super 8. The mobile phone material, some of our home video cameras and some of our ghost alice techniques all in a 3 minute edit of our various test shoots, including one at Lake Mungo itself.
We also used our test material to audition our post production facilities, by going to all three of the major post houses in Melbourne at the time. We graded the same material and had it all scanned and ended up with three prints form each of the vendors who all had different approaches to the scanning and grading processes. In the end we decided to go with Complete Post, principally because they had just installed the first Arri scanner in the country and because of their colourst Adrian Hauser’s diligence in trying to get the most out our material. Most of Lake Mungo would be shot using Super 16 and the arri scanner enabled us to extract every little detail of that fragile frame.
Before we had all our financing in place we started traveling to Ararat to start shooting shot of the town. Joel really wanted a sense that the doco crew had spent a considerable amount of time with the Palmer family over at least 12 months.
One way to do that would be to start building up a sort of stock library of the township and it’s surrounds as the changed with the seasons. We wanted shots in all four seasons to really be able to convince our audience that we’d been there for a long time, rather then the 25 days of principal photography in November. Joel and I would take the three hour drive to Arrarat for a weekend every month or so for about 6 months before we started principal photography. This also enabled us to have enough material to shoot a mood reel which turned out to be crucial to finalizing some of the private financing of the film.
I’m so proud of my involvement in this incredibly original and unique film. It was a challenge to make a film that wasn’t a mockumentary, but a genuine attempt to tell a story through the conceit of a documentary film. Most other films that attempt this usually break down at some point where you realise that what you’re watching is in fact a narrative. Our challenge was to sustain this over the entire film. Ideally if you saw Lake Mungo on TV late one night without knowing anything about it, you’d be convinced it was a real documentary film.
We could also use our documentary “cover” to make a virtue of our low budget and low-fi limitations and it made our film even more authentic. We wanted the audience to actually build their own narrative or truth constructed from many sources, be it a family member in interview, home movies or family photos.
Lake Mungo really does stand up to close scrutiny and is so brilliantly layered that the story can really be taken in so many directions and read in so many ways. Interestingly, the film seems to have had a lot more attention in the US than here in Australia.
johnbrawley 
Great to read about your experiences and the testing you did with different cameras. Very inspiring.
So glad to have come across some in depth up close and personal re-tellings of this film. I honestly think it’s the most neglected under-rated Australian film of recent times. I’ve seen it once and it has stayed with me vividly for over 2 years now (saw it on DVD). It’s also so frustratingly hard to get any info on Joel. As a fellow filmmaker, I’d love to be able to meet him and tell him how goddamn f*%ing great I thought Lake Mungo was (is). There was a rumour on the net for a while that Joel himself was attached to a Hollywood remake of LM. Is there any truth to that. By the way John. I think we worked together back in 2006. You did some aerial video for a corporate my partner and I were directing on Southern Cross Station…..I think that was you??
I’ll make sure I pass on your comments to Joel.
I watched Lake Mungo over six times. Why wasn’t the brother ever considered a murder suspect? Mattew seemed somewhat sexually obsseessed with Alice. He was the one with unexplaied bruises. Also, doctoring images of Alice after her death. He was also the last person to see her at the lake at night.
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This film is so creative, inventive, insidious and visionary, I felt like I did when I discovered 2001: A Space Odyssey, or The Tree of LIfe. What a success!
I saw this on sbs late one night not knowing what it was and it freaked the absolute crap out of me for a good 45 minutes until I googled it. So in terms of mockumentary, mission accomplished 🙂
Loved the movie. Do you know what software was used for VFX?
“Ideally if you saw Lake Mungo on TV late one night without knowing anything about it, you’d be convinced it was a real documentary film.”
I couldn’t sleep last night and while flipping through the channels, I happened upon this story. I watched, completely absorbed in the story line, clueless of it’s cinematic roots. Believing that I was watching a documentary based on a true story, I experienced the roller coaster of emotions associated with grief, fear and sadness. It gave me goosebumps & moved me to tears. What a delight to discover that I had truly experienced the exquisite, yet elusive, “suspension of disbelief’ when watching a film! Bravo! and Thank you!
Thanks so much Jennifer. I’m really glad you got to discover it the way we kind of intended for people to watch it. Without knowing what it was about, and maybe chancing upon it on the TV without taking any knowledge into the viewing of it.
jb
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I just watched it last night. It certainly sticks with you, despite certain incongruities such as the ability to hold up a cellphone to film in the face of one’s own dead image. This one’s a deep diver on the spectral plane. Why was Alice as she was? Did the change in her follow her or precede her? Time is a bit of an Escherian thing here. It is tempting to call this Schroedinger’s Film.
I keep a list if recommended films and decided to rent Lake Mungo, not having any idea what it was about. I was actually initially disappointed it was a documentary but decided to stick it out. I wasn’t that interestedin what seemed like a run of the millhaunted house claim so when relatively early on it changed course, I became genuinely engrossed. The only time it even crossed my mind ththat it was not a bona fide documentary is when I realized that every person in the story was good looking (or maybe everyone in Australia is hot? I’ve never been…) – but then I dismissed the thought because everything else about it felt completely genuine. After the movie ended my TV went back to the rental screen showing the cast and that was literally the first time I realized that it was “fake”. I was dumbfounded.
I really enjoyed reading this blog post although I know nothing about cameras, because it gave me an even greater appreciation for this work of art. Congratulations on a great film – I will recommend it highly to my friends.
Thanks Dan for taking the time to comment. Sounds like you enjoyed it the way we intended…As a film that would accidently be discovered without any notion it wasnt a “true” story. Thanks again for atopping by. JB
Okay, this is lovely.
But I have to know did June commit suicide in the end?
Why wasn’t she in the car? Why did she look at the cord in that way? Why did she even have the cord? Why did it look like June behind them in the door and not Alice? Why did Alice say she was gone when she never left the house? June was writing while crying earlier in the film. Suicide note perhaps?
We finished this film hours ago I just am curious.
Yeah, why wasn’t June in the car?!
Thanks for watching and commenting.
It’s not really for me to tell you what happened. We very deliberately wanted to leave it open as to what happened at the end. I think what the film shows is that Alice hasn’t left the house and it isn’t all neatly tied up. I wouldn’t get too tied up in the cord. It was just something that was left behind in the moving house process….
I thought this was real its convincing for the most parts although I did question certain parts
I bought this documentary 4 days ago, I was not even aware that this happened. I actually feel bad now for watching it 3 times, I feel like I am playing on other peoples’ misery. They probably will never know what really happened to Alice, very sad story, but the family talking about it hopefully may help them with the healing process, they will never get over it though, until they finally make peace with their daughter, so much she would have wanted to say to her mother was never said. I could not help but think that there was a little of twin peaks in this movie, but I know that this is a true story and Twin Peaks was not, sometimes for the soul to find it’s resting place it needs to be re-assured that it’s loved one’s will be ok, and that it is alright to leave, often when older parents’ hold on because they worry about their children, the children need to tell them that they give them permission to die, then they can die, have peace and be free to leave.
shits fake man
Watched this last night. I thought the actors were fantastic. It must be difficult to be an actor when the character being played is supposed to be a ‘real’ person in a ‘real’ documentary. They were convincing. It certainly had a spooky feel to it but was just as much about family relationships, love, loss and grief set against the terrible beauty of regional/outback Australia. Highly recommend this to anyone wanting to be engrossed for an hour or so. Love Australian cinema; one doesn’t have to go too far out there to find films which really depict us as we really are. And did I go on the googles this morning to see if any of it was based on fact? yep. 🙂
I first watched this in April 2010 and it instantly became one of my favorite movies, of any genre, particularly because of the cinematography. Everybody involved with this film should be very proud of what they accomplished. Thank you.
This film was imaginative, unique and amazing! An extremely impressive piece of work!
the fact that I cannot buy a blu ray of this film and that no one knows it exists besides a couple subreddits is possibly the most tragic example of film distribution I have ever come across. I wish there was some way the film could enter redistribution, for it deserves much more than what it got (especially considering the countless examples of trash that is produced and sold to theaters every year). I wish you the best. Amazing work.
Thanks for the note. It’s true that distribution on this film has been handled painfully. Thanks for the extra effort of watching and hope you enjoyed it. JB
Greetings from the USA! I finally watched this film last night after having it on my must-see list for MANY years, and while I knew what to expect going in, I wasn’t any less impressed upon watching. It’s honesrly one of the finest horror films I’ve ever experienced.
I do have a question regarding the plot, though: why was the brother never considered a suspect in Alice’s death? I don’t think the film was trying to suggest he was involved at all, but some of the case’s circumstances seemed like they would arouse suspicion in law enforcement. I was surprised he wasn’t suspected and then formally ruled out at any point.
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The fact that this piece of film making in particular still lingers in the back of my mind to this day is a testament to the personal and meticulous care you guys poured into it.
I rented this when it came out, from my local movie store in a small town in Victoria. Ararat being not far from me and a town my family frequented often really grounded the film for me and while watching the movie I genuinely felt the wash of emotions, fears and sense of internal perils each person brought to screen, from the guarded patriarch to the mournful and convinced mother and the guilt ridden brother, it all came across as real.
I believed that this could be a family that we might know from friends of friends, its crazy to think that my love of spooky and emotional dialogues could be so precisely combined in such away and so personally close to me at the time is just astounding.
This film demands higher recognition and definitely a release with some online marketing would really bring this into the foreground of film making. It’s truly mind blowing how you and Joel made this film and I can say you both made a lasting effect on me for years to follow.
Thank you for your work in bringing this vision to life.
“She’s not gone, she’s everywhere”
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I love this movie. I dont know what happened to Joel and why he didnt make another movie since Lake Mungo, but if he is okay today I hope a comeback from him to the cinema.
Hey John, thanks so much for this article. Lake Mungo is in my top five favorite films of all time, and my number one favorite suspense or horror film of all time. Your tireless work really paid off, and more films in the genre would do well to put as much into the details as you and the rest of the team did. As a writer, actor, and filmmaker, Lake Mungo is something I come back to time and time again for inspiration on how to do low budget right! I am talking about this film for a podcast the I do with some friends about film. If you want, I can shoot you the link once it’s done. Looking forward to what you do with GONE BABY GONE!
Hey John, this article is just the icing on the cake in terms of understanding how the film was made, I just watched it, after years of trying to find a copy it’s very hard to find in the UK and I was honestly floored at how good the film was, it truly scared me throughout it, its such an effective horror film but it felt so personal and heartfelt. I would love to thank everyone involved, I just wish Joel would make another film.
Well there’s a few things I can bring to your attention.
Lake Mungo is about to get a BluRay release and it’s from a UK company.
Joel is still out there figuring out what to do next…
Wow! Can I begin by saying that the cinematography was extraordinary – there was a real eerieness to the footage of the house, the dam itself and the surrounding area. The spaces in which this story takes place are filled (visually), somehow, with a profound sense of loneliness, fear, uncertainty and something inexplicable. This story is beautifully revealed via the mostly improvised dialogue, but it is the images which tie everything together, in which hidden messages and symbols are revealed. I think the film’s ambiguity is one of it’s best features, but I love how a closer reading of the visuals can shed important light on what may be ‘missing’ in terms of a literal explanation of the events. I’m quite haunted by this film and your rendering of the country victorian landscape.
“Lake Mungo” just popped into my head tonight for some reason, so I thought I’d do a little digging and I came across a link to this page. Why would a beyond-obscure film (friends of mine who are true horror mavens haven’t heard of it) still be lodged in my brain, years and years after I saw it? Because it was truly one of the most original and affecting movie-watching experiences I’ve ever had. I knew going into it that it was a fictional film, but after about 10 minutes, I thought that maybe Netflix had mis-categorized it, and it was actually a documentary. And I think that’s where it’s power lies, it just feels so real. The performances, the way it was shot, everything about it seemed so natural and unforced. And it is, without a doubt, one of the creepiest movies I’ve ever seen (yet also unbearably sad, what a feat that is). And the fact that the director hasn’t done anything since he made this (as far as I can tell) just adds to the aura that surrounds the film. Anyway, enough gushing — I was just very excited to come across someone who was actually involved in the making of the film, and had to share my experience and appreciation. I’m glad the film has gotten at least a little of the attention it deserves here in the U.S.
Hi John,
Just wanted to say what an incredible experience I had with this film. I watched it in bed in the dark a couple weeks ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. You, Joel, and everyone involved did an incredible job at making it feel grounded in reality. I was so mesmerized I couldn’t look away from the screen.
Thanks for sharing about the process, I had a great time reading this. All the best.
Glad you enjoyed it !!!
Hello John,
Lake Mungo is such a special film and your work is inspiring! A perfectly realized unsettling, and real film that got under my skin in the best way possible. And yes, I think it is one of the scariest films of all time because of how real and understated it is in telling a compelling story.
I am currently writing a paper on Lake Mungo and would love your thoughts on a few questions. How did “the fly on the wall” and the observational approach in documentary filmmaking have an influence while you were making the film? To what extent do you think the presence of you and the other filmmakers involved were erased in the film? Also, what specific methods were used in the filmmaking process to create a sense of reality and more specifically, objectivity?
Thanks John and take it easy.
Can’t wait for a blu-ray release! When is that happening!?
Hi John. My name is Dan Lennard and I’m the editor of Empire Australia magazine. I’m putting together an article about Lake Mungo – which I consider is one of the great undiscovered Australian movies – and I found this article, which was incredibly informative. I’d love to chat with you if that’s possible. Please email me at Dan.Lennard@aremedia.com.au if you’re interested. Cheers.
i bought the australian release dvd off ebay for 45 dollars and it money well spent i have watched it maybe 10 times and every time the lake mungo doppleganger scene creeps me right out.
MY QUESTION IS the whole story seems backwards my theory is the magnetic reversal actually found at lake mungo is being used in the story in movie AM I RIGHT
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G’day John,
I only found Lake Mungo last year from its Blu-Ray release provided by SSF in the UK.
To put it frankly, I feel so complete by this cinematic masterpiece that my cousin and myself recently drove up to Ararat and toured all of your filming locations.
You can actually check it out on my Instagram (@william_less)
I directly say this to you. Your prime piece of work on this film is at the exact moment in which the car ‘reverses’ into town. That single shot is what modern cinema lacks nowadays. There is such passion, power and promise in that 20 seconds of dialogue and colour.
Your work on this film is a massive achievement and you have done a dutiful service to both Australian cinema and cinephiles all around. Hope to see more of you in more projects. Keep up the excellent work in The Great and The Morning Show.
A message to Joel if you may pass it on:
Dear Joel,
Please never be discouraged by the lack of distribution that Lake Mungo suffered from. Your film has gravitated towards so many individuals around the world. When a film can have such an effect on a viewer and be consistent and non-discriminatory in that effect towards any viewer, that is perfect cinema. As a Victorian, I feel proud that I “have” a movie that I can be a little nationalistic about. I make it my abject goal to show as many people I know…of your project and its passion.
For a filmmaker, who essentially is living out the ambiguity and mysteriousness of your own style and calibre seen in Lake Mungo………I have the utmost respect for you. I spoke with Martin Sharpe recently along my tour of the thrilling town that is Ararat. He says you are on of the most “elusive people on the planet”. And honestly, I think that is entirely cool.
My message to you is to simply……keep on …keeping on. Deliver the passion again and continue to do what you’ve done best. And remember to engage with a community of fans every now and then. Build a mystery around your current life even more. Tease us with who you are, where you are and what you’ve been doing.
It’s a honour to be communicating with you both. And it’s supreme honour to witness Lake Mungo even after my19th time. On all facets of your film, I’ve come to the conclusion that Alice Palmer is essentially a true, real and colloquial presence. She is a person who suffered and a person who faced tragedy. She is a person imprisoned by her fate and mental problems.
And she is a person (who like many of those who suffer) who was overlooked.
Thank you for reading.
– William M
I’m very late to the Lake Mungo party, but after wanting to see it for several years I finally had the opportunity and… wow. What an amazing piece of work. It was both heart-wrenching and deeply unsettling and yes, I was creeped out walking through my own quiet, darkened house when I went to bed after the film ended. If you read this after all these years later, congrats… you scared me! It’s a film I won’t forget and will recommend to everyone I know who needs an unsettling piece of existential dread to keep them up at night!
One thing that kind of bothers me about this film is the whole sex tape scene. Wasn’t the actress who played Alice Palmer only a teenager at the time?
She was not a teenager. She was in her twenties. Though if you think teenagers aren’t having sex….
Can you recall what you actually “saw” in the sex tape?
JB
I’m sorry. I misjudged the situation.