Lake Mungo is about an Australian family that loses their 16-year-old daughter in a drowning accident while having a picnic at a local dam. As time passes, each member of the family grieves in their own way, with some wanting to move past the tragic event, while others deny that Alice even died at all. As strange things begin happening in the home, the family must piece together Alice’s past in order to make sense of her death. 

Lake Mungo is a mood (as the kids would say). It’s not super scary or exciting, but it is thoroughly creepy and left me feeling very unsettled. In true documentary fashion, the movie relies on old photos and videos to piece together the story, and every time a ghost appears on the screen, I feel unnerved. The secret sauce is the simplicity of the film. There are no jump scares or suspense-building scenes. A character just describes an event, and we are shown a picture or video to accompany the tale, leaving the viewer to put the puzzle together. The ghostly images are nothing more than blurry photos of a girl standing in a corner, but for some reason that really freaked me out. I also think the movie does a good job of sticking to the documentary format without getting too weird with it, except for one scene that no documentary ever in the history of the world would show. Other than that, it feels like a pretty real documentary. 

Score 8/10