I have to agree with you on that one (though we'll have to AGREE to DISagree on
Dread)... I thought that Lake Mungo was a pleasant surprise, so that will lead me to my next review...
Lake Mungo
Not gonna lie; this movie had a few things going against it when I went into watching it:
- The movie poster reminded me IMMEDIATELY of Drag Me to Hell's (which made me think, "RIPOFF)
- This was the last of the 8 Films for this year that I watched and I wasn't overly impressed.
- "Lake Mungo" is a really really stupid title.
So, suffice to say, I was pleasantly surprised when this film turned out to be a smartly done, incredibly well-acted and -filmed mockumentary.
I haven't seen a whole lot of horror mockumentaries. I would count Blair Witch in that category, as its premise was a "documentary" gone wrong, and I would throw American Zombie in there as well (which I STILL highly recommend, for those of you who haven't seen it). There's also Behind The Mask; And both of those are two completely different movies from Lake Mungo.
Lake Mungo is a series of interviews, found photographs and video footage of the Palmer Family who is grieving over the loss of their daughter, Alice, who drowned prior to the filming. In fact, the "reason" for the "documentary" are the bizarre occurrences and notoriety that the family receives following the wake of her passing...
Through convincing interviews of family and friends, the story is slowly revealed, as is Alice's past. As with any grieving family, they begin to search for any way possible where Alice could still be with them... And so comes the photographs.
Lake Mungo isn't a straight-out haunting movie, like
Paranormal Activity; instead it takes the viewer through stills and photographs, where Alice's visage seems to appear - This kind of slow subtlety is the kind of glorious horror that just makes the hairs on your arms stand up.
I'm personally a fan of the "ghost photographs" phenomenon, whether they be "
real," or doctored, like
the Slender Man. That the narrative revolves around the discovery and reveal of the Palmer Family's ghostly images is an intriguing concept, and one that definitely kept me glued to the television.
While this movie doesn't have the flat-out "scares" of something like
Paranormal Activity or
Blair Witch, its subtlety definitely captured a genuine creepy mood that made me feel uneasy for most of the film.
My only issue with the film is that, by choosing the mockumentary style, you don't really get the climactic scene that you get with other hand-held ghost films, like the two mentioned above. Instead, the tone feels a bit disaffected and you don't have the big "payoff" as you generally expect. While I thought that the movie was really smart and well-done, it honestly left me wanting that big climactic gripping-my-boyfriend's-hand scene. It felt a bit flat by the end, though it was obviously the director's intention.
Since I ultimately felt flat in the end, I have a hard time giving this anymore than a
3.5/5. Regardless, I think that it's worth checking out. I was impressed.