This review contains spoilers. A documentary style film, as the director visualised in his mind, and a cheap belief of what it is based upon. I absolutely lost my patience while watching this movie, because I wanted to see a good movie and all it had is how it wanted to be, which I appreciate but unfortunately I hatred it because I was thinking why is it not in some informative channel's stupid shows than a movie? I thought about Häxan - 1922. A film, I love so much because not only it is entertaining but also very well shot and represented. I also thought about "it follows" which I believe is another great horror film in the history of cinema. While watching this Australian director's film, I could not see what else it has that there never have been before or is it important as long as the film is good at it. Does this movie show us anything we have never seen? What I hated the most is the blend of dialogues and music. The cheap creepy background music was so high, that you absolutely have to feel the poor suspense the director forces us to feel so desperately, but it was so painful and disgusting far from disturbing. I only felt bad about the privacy of the family involved in the film, if it is based upon the real story which I don't wish to research on. I will tell you my analysis about the first creepy photo of the dead body and last same living video of the creepy faced body: A saddist murdered or psychopath did the horrible things to her face, who had all her possessions, and before killing her, he/she recorded her sadism and buried it in the ground so nobody could find it. Maybe he has been giving her drugs and raping her, which caused her to go through anxiety or depression of death and all those nightmare. Maybe the sadist is not anymore than the Hungarian hypnotiser. Now irrational but dumb people would like it, and some cheap people would spend some bucks to turn it to the most horrible horror film. I want to explain here - a lot of people like the end creepy footage - I found it absolutely horrible because again the cheap creepy sound gave me a headache

What I like about this movie is the unsettling atmosphere, the subtlety of the included paranormal activity and the turn it takes. It often feels so real. It never gets hectic or sensational. I love that. What I also feel however is that despite the subtlety, it seems a bit too contained.The story itself is mostly sad: a grieving family are unexpectedly drawn into a paranormal experience shortly after their daughter dies. Every family member deals with this in a different way. The vibe of the found footage/ documentary style makes all the difference. I suspect subtlety is key for the effectiveness; by staying away from bombastic episodes, everything you get is mysterious. The found footage is vague, creepy and 'real'. Also the timing and rhythm in the entire film add to the experience. You crave more but you get only as much/little as the Palmer's did.Lake Mungo leaves room for imagination. Although my first thoughts about what was actually going on (don't worry no spoilers) proved to be right, there were still unexpected revelations: one is clever because it happens at the right time. Another revelation seems to be completely random; there is a particular story line that could have been left out. Brings me to the one flaw of this movie; the film is quite slow already and could have done without that part slowing it down even more.All together Lake Mungo has the ability to keep your attention while exploring interesting ideas about ghosts, loss, life and death.

So many modern horror movies have gone for the "found footage" style that no one has realised that the faux documentary approach could be much more unsettling. "Lake Mungo" is a film that prefers the more realistic, quiet approach to horror, that is much less viscerally "scary" per se, but more unsettling, and it definitely leaves a more lasting impact after the film is over.The film begins with a death and the film could be summarized as a series of attempts for the family of the girl who died to find closure, or acceptance. It is a very subtle film that builds slowly, but never fails to be surprising. It is filled with a sense of dread and despair in every scene, not just outright horror.The family's attempts at closure begin with noticing strange occurrences of their daughter, Alice, in photos and videos 6 months after her sudden death by drowning, and her body's identification. From here and throughout the film, it is unclear whether these supposedly paranormal incidents are the family's grief getting to them and making them believe Alice is still there, or if there is actually something supernatural happening. Much of the film, even after the ending is incredibly ambiguous, and many aspects of Alice and her death and whatever follows go unexplained, and this only adds to the strange realism and mystery of the film. Even though I went into the film knowing it was fake, about half way through the film I actually began to think I might've been wrong because of how incredibly lifelike the performances, dialogue, and style of the film was. Everything in it aided this feeling that it was a REAL documentary. It was edited and shot like a documentary, with the only actual shots filmed by the documentarians being the interviews, and the rest being poorly shot footage that looked the part, whether it was VHS style home video cameras or flip phone footage, everything felt real, including the absolute lack of jumpscares. This makes the revelation near the end so effective.What the film is grounded on, however, is not its attempts to scare the viewer, but the family's attempts to accept the death of a loved one. This previously mentioned revelation is jot only incredibly scary, but serves the metaphor for the grief of the family. Ultimately, what the family needed in order to accept Alice's death was not the fact that she is still with them, but a feeling that she had accepted her death as well. They really needed to know that it wasn't as sudden for her as it was for them.

Of all the 'Found-Footage' movies I've seen, Lake Mungo is the one that stands out. For one, the whole documentary 'feel' to it is incredibly realistic, and two, like a real documentary, Lake Mungo is actually shot beautifully. Perhaps it should be called a 'faux-documentary' horror film instead.Every thing about this movie is great, and this is coming from someone who finds most ghost stories rather boring. But Lake Mungo is performed so incredibly that I could imagine many viewers thinking that it was actually a real documentary about a case of possible supernatural activity.I wouldn't say the movie is scary so much as it is unsettling. Through the acting and careful pacing, Lake Mungo tells a story that for once is believable. There are no flying chairs or bleeding walls here. In fact, I found this movie much more plausible seeming than many documentaries of poltergeists that I've watched.Truly a gem, worth the 2.99 on Amazon.