The Most Terrifying Movie I've Ever Seen

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Lake Mungo is an Australian mockumentary from writer/director Joel Anderson. It follows a family in the midst of a great tragedy recounting the haunting events and discoveries made after the loss of their daughter... and it's the most terrifying movie I've ever seen... ever...

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[XkitkatersX]

The backyard photo really gets to me. They were so distracted by a made up ghost they couldnt see the actual ghost in the same picture... and the audience couldnt either. Its profoundly tragic

[TheTheorizer]

When you said that the creepy figure she approached was her own soaked body, my stomach DROPPED. I was prepared for it to be creepy and uncanny and game changing, but now I can’t even look at that picture. That’s completely and utterly terrifying. The feeling— it’s like you know something you shouldn’t— but it pulls it off in a really unique way, like the whole film was bracing you for that one moment and then it just *happens*.

[stephaniecragg]

I saw a comment somewhere about this film saying, 'to be so completely alone you have no one to haunt but yourself'.. I'm heartbroken for weeks every time I watch this film

[ChaoticNeutral]

The thing that scared me about Alice in the photos is that she's not even doing anything. She's just looking at the family/camera, as if she's feeling left out and wants to join them or smth

[zack]

the end credits with showing the photos that she was actually there SHOOK me

[AforART]

the lake mungo scene where Alice comes face to face with her future dead corpse to me is the most unnerving scene made to me especially once i rewatched it and noticed the corpse actually swaying slightly back and forth and interpreted it as if the corpse were the one walking up on Alice and not the other way around. It still gets me

[cosa_oscura]

For me it was the dual visions of mother and daughter at the end that scared me. The idea of being left alone and invisible and out of reach of your loved ones broke my heart

[billjones]

That final sequence when their visions link together is freaking insane. I don’t know how the director came up with that and made it work so well. Absolutely amazing.

[AimForMyHead]

My sister passed away in 2008, the same year this film came out. I can't begin to describe the psychological effect it had on me when I watched it. I think people who have experienced loss in their lives will be hit hard by it.

[Garfunkels_Funky_Uncle]

Three things about this movie that get to me:

The Actor playing the Dad nails how I've seen Fathers act in documentaries about a missing/dead child.

It's never made clear if the sex tape was made before OR after what happened at Lake Mungo

at the end of the credits, we see the silhouette of the doppelganger at Lake Mungo again in a flash of lightning.

[wanderinghistorian]

I've watched multiple videos on Lake Mungo and it always surprises me that no one seems to recognize what Alice saw. It was her doppelganger (also more horrifyingly called a "fetch"). While the term has come to mean other things, the original idea of the doppelganger was that it was an apparition that looks exactly like you, but in death. Once you see your doppelganger, you don't have much longer to live. Alice's encounter at lake Mungo is a textbook doppelganger encounter.

[levischorpioen]

This beautiful masterpiece is ultimately about loneliness to me. Alice was a very misunderstood soul who didn't seem to be seen by anyone. She wasn't missed by any of her friends when she went off on her own in Lake Mungo, her secret affair with the Peweys flew under everyone's radar and when she asked for help from her parents, well, it seemed like her parents just had better things to do. Both her mother and brother made up false narratives to help themselves get over this grief quicker (ironically while trying to help each other and trying to escape the truth, as the mother never wanted to see the remains and her brother doctored the footage) and her father threw himself into work. Severe loneliness, especially in kids her age, can often feel like there's no future. It honestly kinda feels like you're already dead.

This is why I don't think we're supposed to take the seemingly supernatural element of the wonky timeline as literal, but instead as an analogy for how Alice and her family always seem to just miss out on properly connecting (which would also explain why Alice felt more comfortable in the affair, since this family DID notice her, albeit under irresponsible circumstances). The most tragic thing at all happens when the family finally learns to move on. They move away and Alice is left alone, again. Still misunderstood, still unacknowledged, still without the love of her family.

What actually happened at Lake Mungo was never the point. Wanting that answer is understandable, but even asking the question makes the mystery about her death. People always seem so interested in the dead, but if we actually paid close attention to people while they're alive, maybe we can actually form a connection that will make life worthwhile. That's a life Alice never had, and that is ultimately why this film is so haunting to me.

Alice was all alone in life, and now she's just as alone in death, with people holding onto ideas of who they thought she was, while never actually having paid any atttention to the reality of her.

[Ardox_the_fatebreaker]

The scariest part about this movie for me is that Alice is not at rest. Whatever entity latched onto her at lake mungo made sure she'll never be able to move on, permanently stuck in this state of undead and the family moving is leaving whatever remains of her spirit alone forever. The line about "leaving the porch lights on in case she comes back" hits so much harder on a second watch... She was always there, but was never noticed.

[eenayeah]

I fucking hated the zooming in the pictures and just staying there for several seconds. Easily the top scariest moments for me in my whole horror media consumption life.

[saltcastles]

this was a great video. and i don't know if i'll ever be able to imagine anything scarier than seeing your own corpse walking up to you in the darkness. that scene made me physically ill with terror.

[ladybirdg]

I remember some people recommending this after Skinamarink came out. I decided to watch a video essay or two beforehand to see if I'd like it, and honestly this is the video that sold me. Your empathetic perspective really shows that you're invested in the story Lake Mungo is telling moreso than how "scary" or entertaining it is. I've since watched the film and it's honestly become one of my favorite movies. Alice's deep, bleak depression and grief really speak to me. A lot of people meme on her "I feel like something bad is going to happen" monologue, but her diary entry where she describes crying at her parents' bed haunts me. When she said "I realized there was nothing more they could do for me, " it changed something in me permanently because I know that feeling. I coexist with that feeling every day of my life.

I love stories about teenage girls and young women who are suffering--I LOVE watching those lifetime-style TV movies from the 90s and 00s about eating disorders and stuff. Because I was there, and it feels meaningful to me for that pain to be realized in the form of media that other people are watching and reading. I'm kind of an expert of the genre. One thing I know from watching these movies (and from lived experience) is that the "bad things that haunt you" (trauma, grief, SA, etc) never really stop bothering you, you just have to supplement the pain with joy and love. Lake Mungo is a bleak but very REAL portrayal of a girl who never figured out how to do that.


But the movie really isn't about Alice at all. It's about her family's grieving process. And the movie ends when their grief resolves, even though she's still there. There's an after credits scene I don't think you mentioned (at the VERY VERY end, after ALL of the logos and everything) that shows Alice still sitting on a rocky bed in Lake Mungo. She's still there even after her family moves on. But the fact that it's after all the photos and all the logos that would usually come AFTER an after credits scene makes it feel like you, as the viewer, really have to go out of your way to SEE Alice in a way her family never could. "As the viewer, you were part of it too." We sure as hell ARE!!

[_Diesel]

I remember being terrified of the corpse scene of course, but also the slightly, jaggedly moving pixellated reflection of a face- the fact that we're hard-wired to see patterns in anything and everything, which can absolutely tie back into finding ghosts anywhere, this is why I will never look closely at shadows at night- and then being relieved that there was no ghost. Then feeling gutted by Alice's presence or memory being left behind, not sure if it's better or worse to think it's real or metaphorical. What a movie.

[komuso]

Having lost my little sister to a tragic accident when she was 17, this movie hit me hard. It's an incredibly good movie though, as tragic and raw as it is.

[zackparler]

If I could use one word to describe this movie it would be “emptiness” which has never really been used in horror. Just feeling so empty and lonely in the landscape of grief and death is such a masterful way to do a horror film.

[thisisclemfandango]

When watching Haunting of Hill House, as soon as episode 5 ended I knew instinctively that the writer must have seen Lake Mungo and been as fucked up by it as I was. It was clearly a source of inspiration for Nellie's fate. Pleased to know I was right!