Happy Halloween, everyone! We're finishing strong with a stunner of a film. Content: drowned corpse
An Australian family is devastated when 16-year-old Alice (Talia Zucker) drowns during a family vacation. Soon after, the family begin experiencing disturbances around the house, leading them to seek out a local psychic and radio personality (Steve Jodrell).
Okay, I am late to the party on this one, which is very well-regarded in horror circles. I was initially hesitant because of the words "found footage" but this is not shaky-cam. This is a spectacularly done documentary-style film that's a little like Presence mixed with Ghostwatch. It is so well-executed I can see someone believing that it's a real episode of a haunting show. The performances felt really natural, all the "twists" were exactly like the ones you'd see in a documentary, and it has just enough verité to make you wonder. I am going to get a little spoiler-y so as always, highlight the text to read it. **SPOILERS FOLLOW** One of my complaints about Presence was the "time is a flat circle" nature of the haunting which reads as predestination and inability to escape fate. I don't love that. Lake Mungo neatly sidesteps all that by making Alice see her fetch, a death omen from Celtic folklore. Maybe that's the same effect for you, but for me, adding a slightly supernatural element made it seem less philosophical and therefore less depressingly nihilistic. **END SPOILERS**
Lake Mungo is streaming on AMC+, Shudder, and Amazon Prime.
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