‘LAKE MUNGO’ (2008) 15 Years Later, and America’s True Crime Obsession

We may be moving past the peak of sensational documentaries put out on Netflix and other streaming services. Regardless, 2008’s Lake Mungo serves as a fitting precursor to the true crime wave that gripped the late 2010s.

Written and directed by Joel Anderson, a man just as enigmatic as the film he made, Lake Mungo succeeds in a tasteful way that much of the true-crime media of the 2010’s failed, by focusing on the victims and the grief that the terrible event has left behind.

The film follows the events of the Palmer family in pseudo-documentary style as they cope with the accidental drowning of their daughter Alice (Talia Zucker: Ned Kelly 2003), and the possibility that she may be haunting their home, trying to resolve unfinished business beyond the grave.

Now, to be clear, the death of Alice Palmer was not a murder, although that aspect is in question if popular fan theories about her brother Mathew (Martin Sharpe: Lowdown 2010) are to be believed. However, the details of her death are dwelled on very little while her family and their empty feelings of grief are both explained and demonstrated visually through the b-roll of her empty room, and the space she once occupied.

This is also in service of the supernatural aspect, to be sure. But there is very little dissective analysis of her manner of death. No statistics on drowning, or accident occurrences in Australia, where the film is set. It captures a portrait of grief rarely seen in film, perhaps comparable to Ari Aster’s Hereditary, although Lake Mungo’s approach is more sanitized and less raw, but nevertheless real in its depiction.

We do witness criminal activity for sure. To divulge the events would get into spoilers that won’t be elaborated on here. But yet again, no laborious and downright pornographic embellishment of the details. 2018’s Halloween satirized the offensive nature of a lot of true crime media very well, by showing how producers of it focus on the gory act, with little regard for the devastation and trauma left behind.

In recent years, there seems to have been more of a cultural shift towards sensitivity towards the victims of violent crimes in true crime media. This is very much necessary for this subset of general interest. For this reason, it is compelling to revisit Lake Mungo and celebrate the cult fanbase it has built up since its debut in 2008.

The film is available to stream now on Tubi, Shudder, and AMC+ and to rent on VUDU, Amazon, and more.