Mike Flanagan is not any stranger to giving individuals nightmares, due to a filmography that features The Haunting of Hill Home, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and Gerald’s Sport. (His 2011 characteristic debut, Absentia, haunts me anytime I see a sidewalk that enters right into a tunnel.) With a new Exorcist film on his checklist of upcoming initiatives—one thing he just lately informed the Hollywood Reporter he views as “a chance to make the scariest film I’ve ever made”—he was requested which films he personally finds terrifying, and his reply was stunning.
Chatting with THR in the identical interview, he gave particular props to 2008 New French Extremity entry Martyrs (“There’s numerous gore, however it’s gore with some extent. I typically don’t love splatter”) however saved his highest reward for one more film, additionally from 2008: “The final one that actually frightened me into getting up off of the sofa was an Australian film, Lake Mungo. It chilled me to the bone.”
You will discover Lake Mungo streaming free with a Prime Video membership, and free on Tubi with commercials; it’s styled as a documentary with found-footage components. It’s a slow-burn viewing expertise, mixing a household’s wrestle to simply accept the unintentional dying of a teenage daughter with an exploration of how grieving individuals try to carry onto misplaced family members—on this occasion, by dream interpretation, spirit pictures, and a sympathetic movie star psychic.
There’s additionally a thriller ingredient. The household on the heart of Lake Mungo is known as Palmer, and although the 16-year-old who dies because the story begins isn’t named Laura—it’s Alice—there are echoes of Twin Peaks operating by the narrative. Alice, or “Ally,” is a small-town sweetheart with darkish secrets and techniques that floor solely after her dying; she additionally stored a diary detailing her doom-laden existential fears, and very like Laura Palmer, left behind recorded pictures that illuminate the stunning components of her brief life.
All of it begins, nevertheless, like a real crime particular; although there’s no suggestion of foul play in Ally’s drowning, there’s the acquainted cycles of interviews: pals and kinfolk remembering solely her finest qualities, grim-faced law enforcement officials recounting the seek for her physique. There’s even her mom’s frantic name to Australia’s model of 911, gasping that her daughter went for a swim (not in Lake Mungo, curiously; that individual location makes its significance identified later within the movie) and by no means returned.
However Lake Mungo additionally has an additional one thing, a way of dread that runs all through. It’s constructed with numerous fastidiously laid components. Eerie stuff that, taken alone, won’t appear vital. On the way in which residence from figuring out Ally’s physique, her dad and mom’ automobile will solely drive in reverse. Days after her dying, unusual sightings and sounds that may virtually be defined away start invading the Palmer residence. There’s a circle of household, pals, and even strangers who assist form the household’s grieving course of, for higher and worse; at one level, Ally’s mom turns into satisfied that her daughter could in some way nonetheless be alive.
It’s all offered very significantly; the “interviews” with the primary characters have a sure chilly detachment that feels genuine for topics who possibly aren’t thrilled to be rehashing the worst tragedy of their lives. There’s loads of skepticism and mistrust conveyed by numerous characters alongside the way in which—but additionally an ever-present sense of nice disappointment.
And, yeah, when individuals speak about Lake Mungo, they all the time carry up its standout scene—little question, it’s the exact instantaneous that impressed Flanagan to leap off his sofa. It delivers, however it succeeds not simply on its deserves as a creepy soar scare, but additionally as a result of the whole film beforehand has coaxed you right into a state of deep unease. Even with out that sudden, shriek-worthy payoff, Lake Mungo would nonetheless be a notable chiller.
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