Saturday, September 3, 2011

Lake Mungo (2008)

The horror "mockumentary" started with The Blair Witch Project, and has been hit or miss ever since.  Probably the most recent success was with Paranormal Activity, which I particularly enjoyed.

Lake Mungo centers around a family grieving over the loss of their teenage daughter, Alice.  Alice drowned near the family's home, her badly decomposed body identified by her distraught father.  After her death, the family begins to experience a series of paranormal events in their home and surrounding area.  They capture the activities on photo and video, but sometimes wonder how believable it actually is.  In searching for clues to Alice's death, they learn more about her life than they could have expected. 

This movie was definitely slow and required focusing on it. The characters' monotone way of speaking, while adding to the creepiness, made it difficult to pay attention at times.   There were some serious moments of eeriness in this flick, and one particular moment where I actually jumped in my seat.  The "secrets" revealed really tied the entire movie together, and for a slow buildup, I think everything wrapped up pretty nicely.

It might have just been my TV, but I found the sound level on this movie to be incredibly annoying.  The people's voices were either blaring through my speakers, or barely audible.  Lake Mungo, you made my fingers tired pressing the volume button ;)

This was no Paranormal Activity but Lake Mungo is definitely better than most of the mockumentaries making the rounds.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I def thought this was one of the better after dark movies that was released that year. The twists actually work and keep you guessing I enjoyed it.