It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This film effected me beyond the usual jumps and giggles of horror flicks. I'm genuinely amazed by the emotion and atmosphere it presents. Give it a shot, it's certainly worth the watch!

I've literally googled the entire web to see a single evidence of why this is so "scary", "unsettling", "creepy", etc. and all I've found so far are people making esoteric comments like "this was a beautiful tale about ...", "this kept me scared as hell.." etc.I literally finished watching after 3 attempts. The first time I literally fell asleep (I never fell asleep during movies, this was the first time)The second time I really got bored and switched to watching something else.The third time I really decided to carve out 90 minutes of my life and really dedicate to finishing the film because I've been reading so many raving reviews online about it. I really tried. All the way till the end. It was really difficult because the whole movie was very convoluted, slow paced (I don't think I've ever watched such a needlessly slow paced film before), and too many plot holes that made me unable to appreciate it.For starters, even before we get to whether this is a "scary" movie or not, I can confidently say that it's a "badly directed" movie. Most of the plots the director throw at you are completely unrelated and convoluted and totally unnecessary. This makes it really hard for me to focus on the film, especially considering how slow the movie was. The rabid fans will call it "slow burn", but NO. I've watched tons of slow burn movies, and I appreciate a well made slow burn movie when I see one. This wasn't one. This was just slow, badly directed movie.And as for the "scary", "unsettling", "creepy" part, I don't know what you guys are smoking, but there are way more scary unsettling and creepy movies out there. I love watching horror and thrillers. One of the most frequent responses I see online when somebody complains about this movie is a bunch of haters saying "huh you just have bad taste in horror, it's not the movie", "nah if you like THAT kind of 'horror' movies, just go watch freddie krueger", all of which are super pretentious and condescending.I'm pretty confident that I've watched more horror and thrillers than most of these people because I really watch a lot. And I can say that THIS IS NOT SCARY.Granted, there is ONE minute in the entire film where it can be considered creepy or scary, but that is all. And that one minute doesn't justify the boring, drawn-out, convoluted, badly-directed rest of the movie.Nowadays there are so many movies and content to consume out there, and people really hate wasting time because time spent watching one movie could have been spent watching another better movie. And there are thousands of better horror movies out there than Lake Mungo. If you have enough time to waste, so much that you don't care, then go ahead and watch Lake Mungo just for the heck of it. But at least don't mislead other people into thinking maybe there is something there.This is a badly directed, unscary, super slow, and convoluted movie. Sure you may like how it's a "beautiful story about grief", but if that's what you're looking for, go watch other drama movies that are way more beautiful, well-paced, well-directed.

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.

An extremely low budget and low key Australian horror done in the faux-documentary style that has now well and truly worn out its welcome, Lake Mungo is impressive in what it does with limited resources and its ambition is to be commended but a big problem with this now cult film is that it's sadly not very scary.Whilst suitably creepy at times as Lake Mungo wears on towards it's slight 80 minute run time the films initial chilling set-up slowly descends into something that becomes unfortunately tiresome even though the film's final credits scenes provide some unnerving finishing moments.While criticisms can be easily made of Lake Mungo's inability to capitalize on its promising cornerstones director Joel Anderson certainly must be commended for sticking to his low-budget guns and delivering a mock-doc that to the uninitiated may absolutely seem like a legitimate documentary! Using grainy phone footage, good use of talking heads and fake news reports, Anderson crafts a tale that actually feels real even if the story its telling becomes a little far-fetched and lacking. Telling the story of the sad demise of young Alice Palmer in this way allows Anderson to hide the films limitations in ways that don't take away from the films central premise and only some clunky delivery of dialogue really gives Lake Mungo's sleight of hand away.One of the more impressive Australian horrors of recent times (although that's not entirely an amazing feat) and perhaps the best locally made example of a faux documentary yet produced (again not exactly tough competition), Lake Mungo has clearly in the years since its release found an appreciative audience that it failed to find upon initial runs these now many moons ago and you could do a lot worse than making Lake Mungo your horror fix over the slowly dying Paranormal Activity franchise or any other such higher profile wannabe.3 buried cell phones out of 5