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To help me break with some writer’s block I have been suffering from since the large amount of writing I did for my finals in the middle of May, I am going back to basics. You might be saying, “you haven’t updated this blog in months.” To which I must replay, “yeah, I had other shit going on.”
A large
amount of this blog is just me writing about movies I have seen. For a time I would rank/review all the movies
I had seen from a given year. I stopped
emphasizing movies for whatever reason and now my brain is tired from thinking
bigger thoughts about the world and suffering and how people in power know
exactly how to fix it all, but they don’t.
Today I am
going to write on here something simple, much like how I started simple when I
went back to the gym following Covid.
Written and Directed by Joel Anderson (who is known for
this and that is it)
Currently available on Tubi.
The Premise
This is a fictional-Documentary
about the events surrounding the death of a young woman and the subsequent
haunting of her family by that young woman.
The Good
I found
out after the fact that the actors adlibbed most of their dialogue. The idea being that they would sit down, be
told what the idea of the scene was, and just to act it all out. This strategy sounds like it would be a
fucking disaster but turned out quite well.
The reason I found out about this is simply because I found the acting
strong enough that I was intrigued with the behind the scenes.
The
haunting material is solid. The idea of
someone appearing in footage or in pictures is a classic “Ghost” thing in
folklore/media and it is presented well almost every time (there are some
instances in which the ghost is supposed to go unnoticed till a reveal and you
are left going, “I saw that earlier”).
The
mysteries and secrets that get revealed are intriguing and spooky in equal
measure.
The Bad
Um… I mean,
I already mentioned the few instances in which you will see the ghost before
they intend you to. It happens.
It is a
little slow and I think the most interesting bits could fit into a 60 minute
format, but compared to the bloated nightmare that is modern true crime
documentaries on streaming where 1-2 hours of content is spread over 4-12
because god forbid they cut the fluff… “Lake Mungo” is tight as a drum by
comparison.
I guess
the only “complaint” I have is that it is far more sad than scary. It is perhaps the nature of ghost stories
that “grief was the real ghost the whole time”, but this one especially.
Conclusion
“Lake Mungo" is a good, sad, short little ghost story.
It is worth watching.
If you like or hate this please take
the time to comment, share on Twitter (click that link to
follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my
opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
