Weird Crap Movie Commentary 2 - Lake Mungo (2008) - Weird Crap in Australia

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One, two three.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to the Weird Craft in Australia podcast Stam. Your
host Matthew Sol joining me for another episode of the
Weird and Wonderful is Holy Soul and we are about
to jump into another movie commentary, which is exciting.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Holly, you want to say, hello, Hello, we're into usplitation
yet again.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, it is the month of spooksoba, it is October.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
So horror osplitation, Well, most osplitation is in the horror
film industry lately.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Really, however, I think this is just a wonderful example
of a very good horror film. I don't think there's
a lot about it that is exploitative. I'm going to
be talking about the genre a little bit so today
before we go any further, we're going to be looking
at two thousand and eight Lake Mungo, a classic Australian film. Now,

(00:58):
I few you have not seen this movie. Don't listen
to this audio commentary. Please go and watch the film.
You can stream it right now on Amazon Prime. I
believe you can also buy it from Prime and Umbrella,
which is an Australian boutique DVD Blu Ray four K
company has just done a re release on four K.

(01:20):
So the copy where watching is actually not an Australian copy.
This is from a British boutique in print, but it
was brought from an Australian store. Okay, so quick run through.
So if you go to IMDb and check out the

(01:41):
very this is actually quite a week synopsis. Strange things
start happening after a girl is found drowned in a lake.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
I find there to be more descriptive in the tags.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well it's a good thing I wrote. I've got a
little paragraph here.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
So Late Mungo was released in two thousand and This
faux documentary from Joel Anderson doesn't shout Holly, it's scares.
It whispers until you realize the whispaper has been in
your ear the whole time. The film about loss that
feels real, not because of the jump scares or monsters,
but because the people in it could be your neighbors,
your family, or you. Do you think that's a better

(02:21):
synopsis than IMDBA.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Definitely longer, and it gives more of a description of
what actually happens instead of just describing the first three
frames of the movie.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
This is this is very true. So this film was
directed actually before I get into this, so right into
the intro, this is what I really really like about
this film is it uses WIN Television. Yeah, now, Win
television doesn't exist anymore. I believe it's called Channel nine
and then it split into a bunch of other channels.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Well, when I was a kid, it was Channel nine.
It wasn't Win until I moved to Mildura, and I'm like,
what the fuck is Win?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yep, So from New South Wales, so Riverine or area
where I grew up, all the way to like Natura
towards Victoria. It's called Wind, which, like I said, I
don't think exists anymore. So one of the things that
this film does very very quickly is it utilizes the
Wind logo. It utilizes you know, this feel of.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I believe it is the original news presenters at the
time as well.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes it is, it is, and so you do get
that real feeling, you know, it does sort of throw
you into it.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
It's one of those ones that you'll only know if
you're an Australian that it feels real. Otherwise it's just
it's a presenter on a news thing.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
But they also use like this mixed media approach as well,
like that looks like a VHS hates the you know,
documentary footage of the film because it's a faux documentary
obviously is in high definition, so you know, you get
you do really feel like you're watching an actual documentary.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, they've collected footage from here and from here and
from here and strung all together with someone sitting in
a room talking to a camera.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yes, so we're being introduced to the family at the moment.
We'll get into them a little bit more later, but
I just wanted to hit on the director a little bit.
So this was Joel Anderson's very first film. This was
his first.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Movie written or directed, or both wrote and directed. Yep.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Then he disappears for basically between two thousand and eight
and at two thousand and twenty three, fifteen years right,
and he comes back to do Late Night with the Devil,
which was filmed.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Down in Melbourne, which is also a good movie.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
So yeah, except for the ending, the ending seems a
little bit funky, but everything else I think is quite
good about that movie.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
It amazes me that someone could come out of the
gate with this film, Like right now we're looking at
there's a couple of lights in the d there's a
lot of like Australian atmospheric scenes and they look beautiful
and they're gorgeous for a and then it's that there's
this thing that Australian filmmakers can do, which is if

(05:13):
we show a glory shot of a kangaroo, we show
a glory shot of a kookobara, that tells you that
you're in Australia. One of the laziest examples of this,
in my opinion, is Heath Fledgers Need Kelly film, which
is this example of just here's a kookobara, Heath Fledger,

(05:34):
Here's a kangaroo, Heath Fledger, here's the bush Heath Ledger. Right,
it's so lazy.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
If you can't tell that it's Australia from the trees,
the scrub, or just the general feel of it, then
you're not doing your job right. There is a very
unique feel to the Australian outback, which makes it a
character in and of itself in a lot of movies.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Well it's well. Wolf Creek does it very.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Well, especially horror films. The Australian out back, the Australian
landscape is a character in and of itself, and I
believe it is in this one too.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I think so. I think it plays an important role
though the environment our main character, well, one of the
main subject focus of the Faux documentary is Alice. Alice
has died. You know, she's drowned on you know, I
had some misadventure. She's ended up drowning, and so you know,

(06:28):
you're dealing with this family who was going through grief.
Like we interview the brother, we're interviewing the father, the mother,
the grandparents, and it really is talking about, you know,
how do these parents deal with grief. Like at this
point in the film, you know, they're examining how their
life continued on afterwards, and it's like, well, her bedroom

(06:51):
has left in situ, you know, made the bed, left
it in Sitchu. We now feel differently about our town.
Our parents helped us deal with it in a sort
of different way. And then it starts Diggs, it broadens
out at scope, you know, it starts to talk to
the townspeople and how they feel about it. Growing up

(07:11):
in a small community that is sort of very similar
to this Victorian rural community that's presented in Lake Mungo.
You know, I have a probably a stronger connection to
this movie. Even though I have seen this movie three
or four times now, I think this is my fourth
time watching it. It's still un settles me. I still

(07:34):
feel a bit sick to my stomach thinking about watching it. Yeah,
and I think that is really because I know what
this sort of experience is. You know, this is a
lived experience for me. Yeah. Now this is off.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
The back of the found footage genre, don't they Yeah,
and also the faux documentary as well, Like there's a
round documentary documentary. The mockumentary has been explored a couple
of times in horror, you know, with films like Creep.

(08:14):
And then you have the found footage genre with you know,
probably still to this day, the like the premiere example
being the Blair Witch Project.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Technically Late Night with the Devil is as well, because
that's all broadcast footage one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, yeah, so it's a it's sort of a found
footage well, yeah, mostly found footage.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
A wonderful director certainly as a type.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, and then they like they Enner splice here very
realistic looking news footage, Like if you live in Australia,
you're going to have more of a connection with it.
If you're living internationally and you watch it, maybe you're
not going to have as much of a connection with
the news footage. But for us, it looks and feels real.
You know, they switch up how looks as well. They're

(09:01):
using handicams, which would have used mini DV tapes or
these tiny little cassette tapes that you would then transfer
to a VHS tape. Well, you know, I used to
use I had one of those when I was making
little weird amateur films in in in Tuma. I think

(09:22):
for me as well, you know, there is this connection
for me with the river and premature death. Tumi River,
Tumutt River had it. It took and still to this
day takes a lot of victims. Yep. I used to

(09:43):
go swimming in that river, and you know there were
sort of oh man, that's that. They're just going through
this montage of the body, you know, which is some
amazing prosthetic effects, because god damn, it looks like a
bloated body. It looks just disgusting, you know, the black eye,
core sort of dropping out of the mouth, the ol face,

(10:05):
the swollen face, the gray skin, you know, And this
is another interesting thing about this film. The actress Alice.
We see her in a series of photographs, we see
her in the prosthetics. Just then we see Alice through
a bunch of footage. I look at that shot, absolutely

(10:27):
beautiful shot of Adelaide. I think that's Adelaide.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
It's definitely looking at a Windmiller's here.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
I'm and yeah, like there's there's a lot of work
being done by an actress that is not a part
of the main story in the linear sense of it.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
It's almost she's only in the b roll footage and
that's it.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah. Yeah. One of the things they're talking about right
now is that, you know, this has happened very close
to Christmas, which does happen a lot in Australia as well.
This is I think uniquely Australian in the respect that
Christmas happens in summer for us. You know, over in America,
North America, certain areas of Britain as well, Christmas can

(11:14):
be cold, it can be snowing. Here on the Southern Hemisphere,
Christmas is not. It's it's very sunny. And I don't
think I have ever gone through Christmas where there hasn't
been a drowning death reported on the news.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
A shark attack, something someone like.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
That, because people are out there, they're swimming. So that
there's an aspect of this film as well that is
uniquely Australian, and that that unique Australian aspect is summer
and Christmas and drowning deaths. So yeah, you know, I

(11:54):
grew up with a lot of drowning deaths. There was
a family I later worked with their cousin years and
years afterwards. I'm not going to mention the names because
the family deserves her privacy, of course, but their little
boy got caught on a snag. And this is the
problem with snags. They catch you and because of the

(12:19):
current driving force over the top of you, it becomes
nearly impossible to untangle yourself right now. A snag can
be anything, you know. It can be about tree route
that you didn't see, or something under the water. Lots
of different things can sort of pull you under and
you don't get back out, so rightly or wrongly, I

(12:41):
kind of think wrongly. In this case, we were, as
little children sort of marched out to create an honor guard,
as it were, for the little boy who had drowned
because the Franklin Public School that I attended in Truman
was literally down the hill, literally down the hill from

(13:01):
the cemetery, which unfortunately, Holly, you've been to a couple
of times now, yes I have. So the school was
just so as we go over that hill, just below
that was the school. And yeah, so drowning desks were
a big part of our community very much from the

(13:22):
get go. The expectation was that everyone would go out
and learn how to swim to avoid these sort of situations.
The river had also claimed a lot of lives through
you know, suicide potentially. There was also you know, drinking accidents,

(13:46):
historic events as well. There was a two girls had
decided that they were going to go out with their
much older boyfriend. He seemed to have some sort of
sway over both of the girls at the time. He
was thin. He accidentally drove into the river. He got
out of the car, they did it, and then they

(14:06):
found the car. You know, this was I think nineteen sixties.
They found the car and the girls inside nearly a
week later. So, you know, that's Truman. You know, it's
a little town with a lot of with a lot
of very dark history. And so you know, this town

(14:27):
and everything that's going on in this town for me
feels very much like my lived experience. So it's a
I'm very close to this film.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
The interesting thing here as well is, you know, as
the film starts to progress, we start to get into
more of this idea. Is Alice haunting the family or
is her there is some sort of something supernatural going on,
And I think it's really clever that the film sort

(15:01):
of focuses on that very quickly. It's like, you know,
this is the tragedy, and now is Alice reappearing? And
they talk about like the mother not seeing the body
in the morgue, like she can't do it. She doesn't
go and identify her daughter, and the husband has and
his like, you know, I've had that closure. My wife

(15:21):
hasn't had that closure. Is that affecting what she's experiencing?
You know, because she hasn't had that closure, she feels
like maybe Alice is still alive or or you know,
it's either. It's really interesting because the mother as she
experiences grief is either like, you know, it can't be

(15:41):
a ghost. I'm pretty sure my daughter didn't die and
is trying to tell us that she hasn't.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Died, then why would she be haunting you?

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, that's she she believes the hauntings are so vivid
and real that it is it is, you know, it
basically suggests mental breakdown due to grief, because, yeah, the
other you know, the other residents of the home, Like

(16:10):
right now, the father's describing like a scary noise coming
from the room, and so he is talking about like,
you know, experiencing it like a haunting, you know, seeing
like a figure inside of that room. And there's going
to be exciting, like a very interesting flip here about
halfway through the film, and we have some explanations for that,

(16:33):
but you know, right now he's experiencing this sort of
thing and it's freaking him out. But his wife, who
hasn't had that Catharsis, hasn't had that conclusion to her
daughter's life because she doesn't see the body, is starting
to assume that Alice is actually still alive. Well, the
poor brother's sort of caught there in the middle. So

(16:58):
the faux docum entry within the first I think, what
are we up to maybe fifteen twenty minutes. Yeah, it
establishes itself very quickly as like, is this a haunting? Yeah,
you know this family has experienced is very traumatic, very
quick thing, and are they now experiencing a haunting?

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Because it's really basic. Things like the car wouldn't go
into front drive, so we had to drive home in
reverse the whole way. The figure in the bedroom. There
was computers randomly turning off and restarting and stuff like that.
You know, all those little tiny coincidental things that you
don't think about day to day, but once you start
looking at how they pile up, you start wondering.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Let's see that. That in itself is why I find
hauntings and things of that nature very fascinating. I'm going
to bring up a story here that is going to
upset Holly a little bit. So we went to Scotland
and we went to the tombs. Catacombs are they well
know the Catacombs were in France. In Scotland they call
them the tombs, Okas they're not really toms, they're just

(18:08):
part of Scotland that's been on earth. Because because British
cities are layers on layers on layers, right, So.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
It's like the lower bridge and then you build another
bridge on top because that one almost gets covered in
a flood. Then you build another one on top of
that because that one's starting to fall down, and then
you just keep building on. And that's where we went. Yeah,
there was. It was a night.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
So we go through Scotland and we decided to do
a ghost to it because Holly and I quite like
ghost to us.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
We were recommended this one by Last.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
One last week. Yeah, last podcast and Left recommended it.
So we're going through Scotland and you were primed, you
know right here this is where the grave was and
then they've you know, built over the top of it.
These are some horrific things that would happen. This was
some murders that happened in this street, and you know,
you're sort of it's built up. It's built up, it's

(18:59):
built up. They're doing something what I call priming. The
idea is to get you scared, get you worried, and
then take you underground, you know, and try and you
generate as another spooky story for their YELP page so
that they can get more people going down. Now that

(19:21):
being said, I would recommend this to it anybody. Number one,
if you're someone who is a bit primed, to experience things.
I think you're going to experience something by the end
of this tour if you're someone who enjoys history. I
think it's fun too. I think it was really informative.
So I liked it a lot and really recommend it.

(19:44):
So going down into the tombs, the first thing I
noticed was the workers upstairs who were prepping a sort
of light snack and drink. Their footsteps were echoing through
everything and bounced around, So, you know, the first thing
I noticed in there is like, oh, yeah, of course
they'd set up now like number one. It's obviously timing wise,

(20:08):
it's convenient, but obviously it's going to create some atmosphere.
You know, you go downstairs, it could have easily been
lit with full electronic lights. It's not, sorry, electronic electric lights,
it's not. It's lit by one dude with a candle
wearing a cap, which is which was cool. I like
that guy a light.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
He was really into it and I think that helps all.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Of the light. So you know, you're down there and
it's a candle and you're hearing all these creepy noises
and it's the middle of the night in Scotland on
a Friday, well, it's raining and you're around people that
you don't know, and I didn't experience anything, didn't feel

(20:54):
any any like it was all cold because it was
all cold down there. You know, didn't experience anything strange,
but you felt that you did. Yes, do you want
to talk about what you saw? Why? Not?

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Like it makes me feel silly now.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
You know. Also, the brother Matthew, they spell his name wrong,
should have two teas.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
I think the original Bible it's one t is it one? Believe?

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, I've always had two. I like the two feels right.
So that they're talking about the brother Matthew here, and
he's the one who really pushes the sort of ghost angle,
you know. So they're establishing his career in photography or

(21:41):
he's burgeoning career in photography. He talks about how he's
been you know, studying it for four years, how he's
been working on composition, all those sort of things, and
he inevitably ends up with a ghost picture, right, And

(22:04):
you know, he inadvertently ends up with his ghost picture
because he's been taking a photograph of his backyard every
single year, sorry, every month, I think three months. And
then this is where they're showing you the photo, nice,
nice big black and white photo to change the ambiance
and cpr toned. And there is Alice in the backyard, which.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Again four months after her death, which.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Again leads the mother to think she's alive. You know,
someone was in her room. I've got an actual photo
of her. Yea, you know, obviously somethings else is going on.
And the other thing that I like about it too
is if sort of like the all the actors in

(22:52):
this or townspeople come across really authentic.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
This guy looks like he works the farm in the
dust bowl all day every year, because he probably does.
They just pulled him out of the pub that week.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
And then another thing as well, like we've just seen
another photo and again zooming in and it's a blurry picture.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Of Alice, supposedly of Alice.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
That's supposedly of Alice. Yeah, and when I dig about
this film, in about ten to fifteen minutes here, yep,
it's going to it set you. It's primed you for
the ghost. Ye right, it's about to pull the rug
out from under you and show you that none of

(23:39):
it is.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
You're still climbing the hill, and then suddenly you'll be
dropped and.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
Then it's going to bring the ghost back, and I
think in a really interesting and compelling way.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Those spoilers, Matthew, those spoilers.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Well again, I hope people aren't listening to the commentary
while watching the movie.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Look to be honest, most of our listeners are probably
listening to this on the train or in the car
on the way to work.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, yeah, and hey, like, we did one of these
and we got some good feedback in the first time,
so we you know, we're pro Like, isn't that a
photo again yet, the photo of the bloated Yeah. Water,
especially damn water, it doesn't do a lot of good
things to your skin.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
It has a lot of bacteria in it, and not
the good kind of.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
What's the stuff in you probiotic?

Speaker 1 (24:32):
No, that's an a bad thing. Ammonia doesn't have any
of the ammonia eating bacteria in it, or if it does,
it's a very low count. So therefore the damn water
will be slightly more asthietic and more ammonia concentrate than
if you're in a river or something like that.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Also, I believe this the town of arrow Rat where
this ascent doesn't exist, does it. I believe it does,
because Ballarat definitely does. I don't know if our I
believe it, Arrow Rat does.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Let's let's ask Google. Are right town in Australia.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
So this is the Victoria and again like this inner
splicing of photographs, inter views, again win news footage which
is not real. I think it's fantastic, Like it just
really makes this movie feel lived in and real.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
There are eight and a half thousand people who live
there and they all hate you now for not thinking
that the sound th real?

Speaker 2 (25:31):
How many eight thousand, eight and a half thousand, so
very similar to the size of Truman. Yeah, yeah, which
has dropped. It used to be seven. It was on
its way to eight thousand, and it's dropped down now,
so I believe just a little under seven. I think
it's six eight hundred now now. Exhuming a body, We've
talked about a couple of cases where there's been the

(25:53):
accumation of a body summon to me and being one
of them. Yes, I do not believe that in any way,
shape or within four months would you be able to
exoom her body.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Well, smit'son maness taking years of back and forth, back
and forth. Catherine Folbigg's kids. That took a few years
of appeals and court dates to try and get them
dug back up so they could retest them and all
that kind of stuff. It's not going to happen just
because someone thinks there's a ghost.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well that well, it's not even happening, because if someone
thinks it's a ghost, a mother believes that her daughter
is still alive because of all these you know, the
photograph and the photograph of someone who looks like Alice
who was taken by the farmer. Yeah, and I think that,
you know, that's probably the most unrealistic aspect of this film, Yeah,

(26:42):
is that you would have you would be able to
get that to happen. Yes, and it obviously, you know,
it does provide that that sense of closure that the
mother is desperately after, though by that point it wouldn't
be much left. So it's DNA testing and then she

(27:04):
can start her recovery from that point forward. The thing
about this movie is that it is about the expressions
of grief. How we can deal with grief in a
healthy way, how we can you know, deal with grief
in an unhealthy way.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
The one thing that always worries me when people do
experience grief is a very quick run to psychics. Oh yes,
look acceptance. Acceptance is okay. Even if it's a quick acceptance,

(27:44):
it really comes down to the person. Grief is a process.
It's not linear. It's not something that you can just
sort of yeah, it's not saying that you can just
hit a couple of dots. So again, we're back to

(28:05):
some video footage now and we see our shadow figure
that her father had seen as well. And again it's
a bit quite a little bit creepy. Again, this is
all coming from the brother Matthew.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
It's all really really low rose. Because it's two thousand
and six, supposedly.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
It's harder to get away with it now. Yeah, the
found footage genre just because of the you know, the
level of technology, which.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Is ridiculous considering we all have cameras on us at
all times. Like, if a found footage is going to
be a thing, it should be. Now.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
The problem is the camera that you have is capable
of recording four four K high definition in low light conditions.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
No, I just believable that the found footage would be
found because everyone's got a camera.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely, we're being introduced to the psychic now
as well, who becomes a prominent character throughout this film.
Going back to what I was saying about grief, it's
not linear. There are going to be things that you
have to deal with. There are people who find comfort
in being able to continue some sort of communion with

(29:16):
the deceased person through an intermediate a of a psychic.
The work we've done on Weird Crap in Australia, we
have never encountered a credible psychic.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
And we've been to quite a few massive graeve sites,
to the catacombs in Paris.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah, you hated the catacacts.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
I hate being underground with an absolute passion, like I
would much rather be dropped from the top of a
building to having something on top of me. Heights is
my thing, it is not depth. Matthew is the other
other way around. When we're walking through the catacombs, don't
worry me. I started walking fast through. He's like, what's
a rush, and I'm like nothing, I just have to

(29:57):
get out of here. You scared. No, there's a let
of on top of me. I'm good to get underneath it.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
I think it's really important to go through your stages
of grieving. Yeah, I think it's important to allow people
to grieve. Grief can be a two year process. It
can be quite a long time, and you know, it's
really important to share your grief with other people. You know.

(30:26):
One thing that I've seen a lot in the work
that we've done is, you know, a child dies and
then twelve months later and new baby's born.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, that's only like three months of brief.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, you know, And there's there's a lot of times
that that happens, and people will involve, like the character
Ray in this who is is a psychic, They'll involve
psychics because you know, they want that closure. If I
ever meet a genuine psychic, I will change my opinion
on this. If I meet someone who I've is so

(31:01):
conclusive I can't deny it, or they know something that
isn't publicly available, which would be it would be very
easy for a psychic to prove to me that they're real.
Thereas there's a particular story about my past that myself
and two other people know, one being Holly and the

(31:23):
If the psychic told me the details of that particular event,
I would be very I would be a believer, very
very very quickly.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Right, Okay, but what if the psychic turns around and says,
Holly says, stop being a lump of grief and go
live your life because you're a fuck with Do you
think that that would convince you that it was me
saying it?

Speaker 2 (31:46):
No, because you would never say something like that.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
I'm also depends on how drunk I am. On the
other side, would you say that like?

Speaker 2 (31:55):
So this is an example of where Holly is not
a great improviser. No, why do you You would never
say that to anyone at all. I could never imagine
someone being in a period of grief that you would
say that to him.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Look, I'm probably more likely to sit on their ethere
if older poking them, going, come on, go do something.
I want to go do something, to visit other people,
and I'm stuck hounding you and I can't go. If
you're not going, You're a ghost in this scenario. Now, yeah,
I'm the dead one.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
I can't wait till you listen back to this. So
Holly's gibberish aside, I will get to check the dementia later. Yet, Look,
a lot of people do this. The Beaumont family didn't
want the psychic to come, but he decided to insert himself.

(32:41):
He was a quote unquote famous European psychic that never
was able to produce anything. There have been psycho Yeah,
there have been psychics who are involved in William tyrrell disappearance.
There have been, and still he has yet to be found.
I don't like them. I don't think in Australia there's

(33:03):
ever been any that have offered anything significant. The question
is I suppose as we're seeing Alice's mother now she's
on these videos, you know, doing her guided psychic meetings
as someone who is training as a therapist, I don't

(33:25):
know if it helps for some people I can see
are bringing a sense of closure, if what has been
said by the psychic is final, that it brings a
finality to the whole thing. You know, Yes, mum, I'm
in heaven now, I'm happy. I'm safe. Don't worry. Move on.

(33:48):
The problem with the nature of psychics is they want
repeat business. Repeat business does not come from giving you
what you want right away, and so I am very
wary of psychics in the grief process. I don't like
them in the grief process. I think it's much better
to openly share your grief. Talk to friends, talk to family,

(34:13):
Tell people what your expectations of them are, what you
need for yourself. If you say to people, look, I
just can't deal with anyone today. I can't deal with
you today, I can't deal with family. I can't deal
with friends. I just need to be by myself today,
you know, like let those people know, you know. I

(34:34):
think that's the healthiest way to deal with grief.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
I just want to break in here. This scene of
them touring the house like as though she's imagining it.
It's always unsettling to me because I'm waiting for the
jump scare. It feels like there should be a jump
scar and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting
and nothing is fucking happening. But I'm still gonna wait

(34:56):
for it because I've been conditioned by so many of
the horror velm.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
I think that's why this film is so successful, because
it doesn't do that. You know, it doesn't need to
do that. It doesn't It's already created this real sense
of eeriness. One thing that I skipped over that will
become a big issue down the track is talking about
the neighbors as well, like they do these sort of
interviews at the start, and then later the neighbors will

(35:21):
disappear and we'll talk about that when it pops up.
The other thing that this psychic does very quickly is
integrate himself into this family unit. And I think the
point that the film is trying to get across here
is that he I think the psychic likes being part

(35:47):
of the family, right. I think the psychic likes being
the savior figure. I think they have a bit of
a God God complex going on. I don't think you
meant to look at the psychic as a positive figure
in these people's life.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Well, I don't think he is.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
No. I mean maybe we're just like objectively, we're very
outside of it and can say, Okay, you know, the
filmmaker is saying that psychic's pieces of shit because I
have an inherent bias, I'm willing to put that out there.
But I think the character definitely, you know, enjoys being

(36:29):
integrated into this family. I think he enjoys, you know,
becoming a mentor for the son, who's the son in
this movie is probably the one who I feel the
most sympathy for. The character named Matthew. Coincidentally, I think
I feel at a sympathy for Matthew in this film
because he is he is dealing with his own grief

(36:50):
and his loss of his sister and the companionship that
was offered there, and he's been struggling, and his mother
is struggling in a different way, and you know, his
father is struggling in another way. Again, another eerie picture
of someone in the house, another woman in the house.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Really really don't like this.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Bing, but you know what is going on behind me
because you've seen this.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Rab yep, that was a year ago. I remember that much.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, there is an answer for the pictures, yeah, I
know there.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
Is, but it's still creeping me out.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
You know, the picture spirit photography was a thing that
came out. I want to say it was definitely eighteen
hundreds because with industrial industrialization came entertainment, big entertainment. You know,
we started to say the traveling Seance as it was

(37:55):
these eerie shots, these fucking lovely time lap shots of
the outs and the stars are just beautiful, and it
makes it feel creepy, man Like, it makes it feel
so creepy. The interesting thing talking about character development here

(38:17):
is because Matthew is going through these stages of grief
as well. Back to the neighbors again, you know, we
don't know about their psychechic. He seems a bit funny,
seems a bit a bit odd. Also the having the
accurate police outfit.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
It looks like it, yep, because.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
I do believe that most of the people that are
in this are actual, like people from the township.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
I believe so right.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
I didn't know that. I didn't think that arrow Rat
was real. I thought they gave him a fake name.
But I know that I'm pretty sure a lot of
the townspeople are real. And they've only got a very
small group of actors. That's how he Because this film
feels big as well, doesn't it. It does like it
doesn't feel like a cheap movie or a cheap, cheap
faux documentary.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
So there's thirty nine credits to the film. At least
one two three people are playing themselves. Ye, so, and
that's just the ones who are named. Then you have
like the Rindos that just wander in. It's off the
back we go, So.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
We're going through the creepy DV footage there in the
mini footage doesn't making you feel creepy Yeah, where's the ghost, Holly, where's.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
The chair standing behind the mirror?

Speaker 2 (39:45):
And I think that's like that there's that's also what's
brilliant about this and the you know, the jump scare
of it. All right, beautiful score by the way, the
music in this really the atmosphere, Yeah, because it presents
the photos to you and it's really hard to find

(40:08):
where the ghost is.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Right, I mean, I get the fresh of the zooms in.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
And then you see it and you're like, I'm looking
at this picture the whole time and I can't see
the ghost. I know the ghost is there, but I
can't see the ghost. And then it starts to like
zoom in and and it makes the focus And I
think the jump scares in this film are there.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
They're just they're political rather and horrible.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, you know they're they're very very slow, and they're
very deliberate, and you know you get the yeah, you
get that that the image focused and you're forced into it.
It's almost like a rollercoaster, like a haunted house sort
of way of doing it, which I think is why

(40:57):
this film.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
There really annoying thing about those types of shots is
that now I'm a conditioned like searching the background looking
for what they've spotted before they zoom in on it,
which I think.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Is effective in and of itself because you're like, Okay,
I understand the rules. Now, I understand the rules of
this movie, you know. And the rule is, we're going
to show you a creepy image. We're going to zoom in,
and we're going to show you where the focus should
be right, and we're going to present the image in
a way that you want to be able to tell

(41:34):
really where the creepy ghost is. And I think that's
why it is so effective. You know, you zoom in
and then you know it.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Goes and then it starts creeping up the back of
your neck.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
You know. And it's designed in such a way where
you start looking for it and you don't know where
it is until they give you that little hint. It's
like like the where is it all? And now this
is at the point where the documentary film crew have
found Matthew creeping around potentially presenting himself as Alice, you know,

(42:16):
and that's where you know they really start zeroing in
on Matthew. You know what is going on there? There's
an interesting thing because I think at this point in
the film, you know, Matthew has sort of well, look,

(42:37):
he presents himself as not being it is not posing
for a photo or anything like that. You know, it
looks mysterious because he's sort of gotten away quickly, and
that's his explanation. I don't want to be photoed wearing
her jacket because he wanted to feel close to her,
which is perfectly acceptable. As people go through grief, they

(43:02):
can experience a wide range of feelings, and a lot
of people are encouraged to actually have some sort of
ritual with the debt, you know, the relationship changes. In
my own home, I can tell you that my ritual
with my friend Graham, who passed away this year is
I have some of these records that I inherited myself

(43:24):
and his other friend Jim. We split his collection amongst ourselves,
and whenever I am sort of missing him, I go
put on one of these records, right because I know
he touched it, he wanted to play it, he loved
the music you want, you know, so it forms that connection.
That's what a lot of people are saying now in
mental health is that you develop a ritual, you know,

(43:46):
with the person and a connection with the person. In
this case, Matthew was wearing her jacket, which is perfectly fine. Yeah,
you know, absolutely perfectly fine. Two have that connection. But
it starts to that. That's where the film starts to
throw a bit a light. I'm like, you know, is Matthew,

(44:11):
you know, absolutely, you know, fabricating this haunting And as
we start going through the footage, absolutely it is. You know,
Matthew has plenty of footage of his sister. He has
been utilizing the mirrors to create reflections from the television screen,

(44:34):
and for me, this is an expression of grief. He's
been neglected by his family. This is the only you know, symptomatically,
the only way he can get any sort of attention
from his parents is to be this this conduit the alice. Yeah,

(45:00):
you know, And it's quite sad. And I think the
documentary is interesting in that, you know, it presents like
his mother seems to be very I don't know, how
do you what do you Does she seem surprised or
does she sing someone vailing thinly veiled anger? What do

(45:24):
you think?

Speaker 1 (45:25):
It like? Her hopes have been dashed, but they're also
still there because even though he was making this, she
still feels that Alice is hanging around. So this may
not be the proof that she had, but she still
believes that there some out there. Meanwhile, she's angry at
Matthew for forging this stuff and making her feel like
it was a big thing but it wasn't. And yeah,

(45:49):
that's what I'm getting from it.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
You know, I think there's an angle of humiliation here,
and as you know, there's like I kind of like
out of this whole family, and I kind of feel
bad for the dad.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
Yeah, he's like I identified her. I didn't want to
do the salance. I don't want any thing to do
with any of this stuff.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Yeah, I'm gonet. Another shot him with the neighbors talking
about how the Parma's not doing well. I don't even
think we went through the characters' names, but they're all
there for you. If you watch the film. While I
am DBA, it's easy to just go, well, that's Dad,
that's Mum, that's Matthew, because that's the core focus of
the family. And then of course you've got Alice, who

(46:30):
is very present in the film, very creatively present, which
I like a lot. So yeah, like this is an
example of grief, like I think if there's a failing
of Rustle, the dad, I don't know if he has
you know, I don't know if he has the equipment

(46:51):
to be able to help, like help his family. His
wife is struggling with the grief, absolutely struggling.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
Neglecting the child that they've still gott in order to
mourn the one they've lost.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
And you know, the only way for Matthew to explore
his grief like his you know, he's dealing with the
fact that he's lost his sister as well. His parents
have decided to sort of you know, they're dealing with
their grief in their way. His father has pulled away,
his mother has doubled down. And you know, this is

(47:28):
an example of like very dysfunctional grief. You know, some
grief can bring families together. Some grief can absolutely tear
them apart, you know, And it's all it's always different
for everybody, very very different for everyone. And yeah, like
we're about thirty minutes in and they're like, yeah, that
that sorry, forty five forty five and they're like that

(47:51):
ghost that you were scared about, it's not real. Yeah,
don't worry about the guy. There's no ghosts here. This
is a family who have been through a lot of pain.
When I first encountered this movie, this is kind of
what's funny. So I was going to an overnight gym
and Truman, this was not too long before I met you, actually,
and so I'm going to this this gym and I

(48:13):
hadn't seen the film back in two thousand and eight
when we first started talking. I think it was twoy ten,
was twenty eleven, so, which was the normal cycle back then.
A movie would come out, then it would go to videotape,
then you know, a year or so later you would

(48:35):
end up seeing it on television, and this is sort
of not a film that's going to get a huge
mainstream of release at dinner back in the day. It
obviously did very well at the festivals. I think it
had a huge amount of success for at Adelaide Fringe
your fringe existed back then, or its equivalent, and then
it went, you know, straight to DVD. It was very

(48:56):
successful on DVD. Then it sort of did a bit
of a tour over in America, like it I think
it was. It went to fright Fest, and then obviously
it ended up on SBS because SBS was one of
the channels that helped fund it, you know, they were
The Tunnel I believe was also funded by SBS partly anyway.

(49:22):
And again, yeah, like the son Matthew, he's now going
to go off with the psychic and do all these
interviews and film quite creepily, actually film a bit of
footage of people coming and going. And it's interesting, these
people going to the traveling psychic who's at the hotel,
and it almost feels like prostitute. See. That's why I

(49:48):
don't think that. I don't think the filmmaker is very
I don't think it's on the side of the psychic.
I don't atle bit those shots make him look dirty,
like it's like it is a meeting up with a
hooker at a hotel.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Not that there's anything wrong with sex work either, I
just you know, look, you should have more respect for
sex workers than we do for psychics. I'll put it
to you that way. One's far more legitimate than the other.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
It's more honor in being a sex wicker.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
You know. Yeah, there's there's you know, I just I
really don't like psychics, you can tell. Yeah, So the
movie does pretty well at festivals, and so on and
then EN's up on television. I'm there at this overnight, Jim,
and I'm watching bits and pieces of it as a

(50:40):
pops up, and I just can't quite work out what's
going on, and I sort of catch bits and pieces
because this film does have a flow. It's like, you know,
tragic event happens, family guts, going through grief, go citing.
Oh it was all Matthew, Who did it? Or is it?

(51:01):
You know, there's still that little bit of you know,
did he do it? Did he not do it? You know,
that that sort of angle, and that that's when they're like, oh,
but we have this footage now, and I wasn't here.
I was gone. I just left the thing rolling and

(51:22):
something strange happens on August twenty seconds and we checked
the footage, all right, and we're doing it again. We're
gonna do this, okay. You know what, where's my focus
to the left right, because and that's what I love
about this movie is the frame was not set up

(51:44):
for your eyes to be.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Drawn to the way, you know, breaking down into the
you're looking down the hallway of the house.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
You weren't meant to be looking in the bedroom, and
you know, at that point, they're like, look, there's this
figure in Alice's room again, Matthew is not here. The
only people who know we were recording is myself and
my husband.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Who would it be? What could it be? Why is
this thing happening to us?

Speaker 2 (52:13):
It's definitely Alice again. Yeah, you know, so we're back
to ghost and the rollercoaster ride of this film is
like I'm like, well, are we here again? Like?

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Are we now? Back to back up a little bit?

Speaker 2 (52:28):
And on my second watching of this film, when I
watched it properly, you know, not in bits and pieces
while I was on the gym equipment, I.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Was like, oh, I don't know about this, Like I
don't know about this.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
I don't know whether this film is just fucking annoying
me now because it's sort of like doing this ramp up.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Ranking you mind. Is it a ghost or is it
not a ghost?

Speaker 2 (52:54):
I think if you're being critical of this film without
saying all of it, you would go okay. So the
I didn't know what's right, So it's like, oh no,
it's not a go oh now it is actually a ghost.
And you know, it's at this point where Matthew has
filmed something strange that can't be explained, and to sort

(53:16):
of buff it up, he's inserted all this additional footage.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
This happens, and then you look at the right of
this and there's another person in the that's right. And
that's why this is so fucking effective.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Man, It's this split focusing.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
So this is how brilliant this one shot is.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Right right, So it focuses on one point and then
pulls your focus to the left to see Matthew faking
Alice's ghost. And then it.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Shows you the same footage again and it refocuses you
to the right, and there is another presence in her room.
And at no point, like at this point, there's one
blurry shot. Yeah, has tricked you three times.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
What I want to know, and I remember saying this
last time we watched this is if I go back
and watch the original display of that footage of him
walking through the hallway, will it have that figure in
the corner?

Speaker 2 (54:20):
I think they do. I think they do.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Yeah, listeners, go back because we can't do it because
we're recording for rewind. Let me know, is that figure
in the footage in the original show.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
So this is a point where they start looking around
to see what the figure was investigating an Alice's room.
And for me, this is probably the saddest part of
the movie. I think it's established that Alice is what sixteen, yeah,
maybe you're sixteen. The neighbors, the Towey family that have
popped up a couple of times, Alice had been babysitn

(55:00):
for the two E's and you know, they have two boys,
So Alice has been babysitting and this is where it's
shown that the Toe's have groomed her and that they
the tape that he was looking for is the sex

(55:25):
tape that they filmed. And the movie kicks you in
the guts again, right, and so that we thought there
may have been a ghost, but there wasn't a ghost.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
It was creepy creeping in the house.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah, trying to find this this sex tape. And the
you know, as soon as this is sort of that
this comes out, you know, the Twoe's disappeared very quickly
from the film, you know, and it's it sort of
starts to show you that Alice had many a secret,

(56:01):
you know, which was the tagline from the film, like
Alice has secrets or the the you know, the the
girl drowns and the secrets starts to poor part of
the town. This happens in small towns, not as much
as like I like to think that this won't happen
as much as it used to. Hopefully, I think parents
are a little bit more aware, at least I would

(56:25):
hope they are.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
The tagline on the actual poster is in two thousand
and eight, Alice Palmer died her nightmare didn't That's the tagline.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
That's a pretty good tagline, you know. And I think
it starts to delve into the life of these parents
as well. You know, I think there is stuff going
on with their daughter that they're you know, they're blatantly
not aware of. Yeah, and it speaks to again the

(56:58):
mother's grief, you know. I think that there's they talk
about her relationship with Alice, how it sort of gets
on the rocks around maybe this point. Obviously because she
was being groomed, she was being exploited by two people
that the family trusted, and so you know, they I

(57:21):
think the filmmakers very clearly start to put the parents
into a bit of a not a great light, yeah,
you know, not to say and this is the thing
that's very important as well, not at all. Parents know
that there is a crime going on by a trusted
family member and yeah, so this is really interesting, like

(57:44):
the like, look, the sex was consensual, she was sixteen
years old. They interview her boyfriend as well, and a
boyfriend's like, I didn't know this was going on. There
has been a crime committed though, yep, right, yes, she
is sixteen and in Australia, funnily enough, the age of

(58:06):
consent for women is sixteen. The age of consent for
men is eighteen. Right, that is still weirdly on the books.
The sex was consensual, correct, what crime was committed holly
by the twoies film? That's right?

Speaker 1 (58:21):
In the modern era back then, maybe not so much.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
No, no, still back then, still back then. Yeah, so
their film child pornography, So a minor is all the
way up to the age of seventeen. That is why
you have to be very, very very strict and make
sure your children fully understand that if they film themselves,

(58:46):
if they film, if they take pictures of themselves distributed
on the Internet, they have actually engaged in child pornography.
As the law stands. Most of the time, prosecutors are
a little bit smarter than that in this country, they
use they use discretion. However, it's something to be very
aware of when you're having those discussions with your children. Yea.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
So yes, the two we should have been arrested. Yes,
if they could find them, they would have, but they
I don't think by the end of the movie they've
been able to find them.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Well, the police officer says, like they get slapped with her,
like they're not as willing to pursue it because it
does appear consensual. Now look, talking in two thousand and eight,
I do think that, yeah, like you know, would police
have pursued this, probably not. Would they pursue it today? Yes?

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
The other thing that I find is interesting here is
now we're ramping back up again. So Alice has been
going to see Ray, the psychic yep, and Ray now
has to reveal that, oh, yeah, I know your daughter,
and I have known your daughter, and she was having
all these dreams and she was consulting with me, but
I didn't tell you any of that. So you know,

(59:58):
Alice's mum goes through just a series of constant betrayals.
You know, the family is betrayed by the neighbors they trust,
the family is betrayed by Ray, who they trusted in
certain ways.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
They're betrayed by Alice in ways, in ways like way
that every teenager doesn't tell their mom everything.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Yeah, exactly. You know, Alice hasn't come forward to Ray
with you know, these dreams that she's been having out and.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Now the supernatural angle gets ramped up again.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Right Like, so, so we've sort of gone through the
initial ghost and it's crime and now it's back to
ghost again because she's talking to Ray and she's talking
about how she is experiencing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
The same as what her mom did.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Well, she's sort of throughout the series of tape keeps,
she's describing herself as a ghost, and later on in
the film will go through what she's describing and you actually,
you know, you see how it's sort of lived through that.
But yeah, at this point, like there's so much broken

(01:01:18):
trust for this family. Matthew has betrayed his mother's trust,
Alice hasn't confided in her Ray has broken her trust,
her neighbors have broken her trust.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
I'm pretty sure it's just the husband that she can
cling to at this point in time. And you know,
if I was writing it, he's been cheating for six years, So.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
I'm kind of glad they don't do that though, Like
I think that would be a hat wearing a hat,
whereas I think this is, you know, this is sort
of a better way of approaching it. And Alice, you know,
is going to see a psidekick because she's dreaming of
being a ghost, she's dreaming of her dad. And so

(01:02:03):
once again, there's a fourth another beautiful shot, another beautiful shot.
There's another flip here, all of those pictures, Holly where
you're like, it's not a ghost, it's Matthew faking or
it's this person trying to enter in the house to
get the sex tape. Well, actually you're wrong. For a
fourth time, there is a ghost in that room because

(01:02:25):
Alice is describing those shots as a ghost, right, because
it's sort of like, is she seeing the future?

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
No, she's not seen the future. She is the ghost.
She's already there. She's already there. That's why she's describing
the footage that you see that's creepy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
And I think that that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
That's giving me House on Haunted Hill vibes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
You know that the perspective, in the perspective, in the perspective,
in the perspective, and then the true horror of this
whole movie hits you because Alice has been writing in
this journal about experiencing her death before it happens. She

(01:03:13):
is describing being a ghost in this house. She is
describing the isolation, not being able to see her mother,
not being able to communicate with her well sorry seeing
her mother, but not being able to communicate. And she's
been living the life of a ghost through her premonition
six months before she dies. So again we're back to

(01:03:39):
this footage again, and the footage that we just saw
is being described in her journal, you know, and she
knows that her death is Lake Mungo. Yeah, and you know,
she's clearly doing that. And it's like, I think again
that the well, sorry, Lake Mungo isn't where she drowns.

(01:04:03):
Lake Mungo is where she experiences the.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Something.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
You know, Yes, there's some sort of convergence of supernatural forces,
but yeah, it's like the true tragedy is, you know,
someone understanding that they were going to die, having premonitions
of that, and also experiencing life after death as it goes.

(01:04:32):
Who you know is is isolated. You know, it's the
isolation because like Alice is terribly isolated. She can't confine
in her parents and a family, so she's isolated from them.
She can't confide in a boyfriend, so she's isolated from him.

(01:04:52):
She's been abused, she's been groomed. She's seen her death,
she's seen her future. It is one of the the saddest,
most tragic figures that I have encountered in a film.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Well, it's like, was her death suicide?

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
No, I don't think I think it's clearly. I think
it's clear that she was on rails, that nothing she
would have done could have prevented her fate.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
But that doesn't rule out suicide.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Why do you say that, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
She's looking quite forlorn while she's there with the friends.
She feels like she's about to become a ghost. So
and she feels like she's on rails. There's nothing she
can stop, so she becomes a ghost.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
I don't like that's your interpretation. I don't interpret it
that way. I interpreted it in the you know she
I mean, I suppose it's sort of interesting. I guess
like talking about that perspective, because if she has a
prediction of drowning and then she goes to a dam

(01:06:04):
and then she drowns.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Was it a self fulfilling prophecy?

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Yeah, but I suppose she would have to go swimming
at some point unless she never goes swimming again. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
I maybe she was in it out back town. It's
not like she lives on the coast.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Like they start looking at, you know, what had happened
to Alice on this night where they go to Lake Mungo.
So she's there with her family and she's become prophetic
at this point, so she's you know, she's having visions
of the future, of her being a ghost of of

(01:06:43):
something going on, and so she's out there and she
leaves something, yeah, you know, and when she comes and
when she comes back, you know, she's terribly upset in
a family, like her friends don't really know what to
do with her in this situation. It's just terribly sad.

(01:07:05):
You know. I think that's because you watch horror films
with ghosts in. It's like, if you're into the conjuring
films or any of that sort of stuff, ghosts are
presented as evil.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
You know, they're nasty, they're evil, they're going to hurt you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
They're there for payback.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
They're there for payback or revenge or or something along
those lines. Or you know, they're green and they made
hot dogs.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
They're growth.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
You know. I think that would be a terribly tragic
element to being a ghost.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
I mean, you're stuck forever doing the same thing over
and over again. I believe that is the most tragic thing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
You know. I would hate to be stuck on this
planet in a very confined area, not being able to
interact with anything, to interact with the world. I think
that would be terriby. Like, I think, inherently, like the
belief in ghost is almost incredibly selfish, you know, kind

(01:08:05):
of hoping that something sticks around long enough just to
talk to you, just to talk to you, you know,
or to move your ship from one spot to another.
And I also think it's quite interesting, especially when you
look at the Conjuring films right like now, those two people,
like the actors are obviously not the real people, but
the real people they were comebacks, you know, they were

(01:08:27):
Charlatan's one of them was a groomer as well. The
guy was a groomer.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
They had a living basically underage sex slave in their home.
So now they're finding Alysi's stuff. So she put all
of her precious things in a bag and buried it
at Lake Mungo.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
In the western New South Wales. She lives in southern Victoria.
It's a long way from home.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Why about to about to find out?

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Oh, the good old knock you could survive? Jline Mun's
buried in a doone and stuff about.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
This is Alice's footage, right, So this is this Nokia,
which I don't believe good film to this degree, but
let's forgive the film for that. So Alice is walking
around Lake Mungo and you know, cut with some footage.
You know, she's talking about like I'm afraid to die,

(01:09:27):
getting closer. I feel like I'm getting closer to my
inevitable death. And then god this. Yeah, it's hard to
talk over this this because I want to sit here
and watch it. Yeah, but just you know, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
So difficult to see. I really, I am so glad
that we have moved past this level of film.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
But again, you can't do a movie like this without
that sort of footage anymore, no, I.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Know, because it would give away all the side shots.
But I'm aware, but it's still frustrating for me. To
watch this up. The resdem there is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
You know, but I think that's why.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Like, so it's I'm assuming that the thing here is
she walked off.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
On her own and she saw herself.

Speaker 5 (01:10:12):
Yeah, rounded gross, So do you think your suicide still
holds or do you Like I said, it's given me
House on Haunted Hill vibes, which is she died as
she went back in time and saw herself all of
the sleep paralysis demons screaming at it was just her

(01:10:36):
screaming after a death. It's given me those vibes, and
that terrifies the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Shit out of me, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
You know, the vibes it gives me is actually Donny Darko.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
I've only watched that once, so it really have.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
In Donnie Darko and Donnie Darko is an incredibly interpretive film. Yeah,
you know, Jake Jillen Hall himself said, oh, how you
say it has kind of up to you, you know,
you know in Donnie Daco there's, from my interpretation of it,
like two earths collide, you know, so for the time

(01:11:14):
there is this sort of shared earth, like two realities
are shared, and so it's up to Donnie to sort
of find a way to separate the two earths, and
that leads to certain consequences. You know, he learns about
what will occur, what won't occur, and what the effects

(01:11:38):
could be for him going through all of that, and
I think like Mungo sort of has elements of that
as well. You know, where Alice is experiencing time, not linearly,
she is experiencing her life or her death timeline has added,

(01:12:01):
you know. She yeah, she's experiencing what life will be
like for her death, what life will be like as
a ghost. You know, she's experiencing her death in real time.
Like the closest I get to that is there are

(01:12:25):
there are times when I experience severe deja vu. Now,
deja vu actually has a scientific explanation, which is that
we are an imperfect system and so our synapsies don't
fly exactly at the right time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Your brain is moving so fast that it glitches, and
that's where you feel.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Like buffering buffering, so you feel like you experienced it twice. Now,
the problem is that for me, and this is again
the only I guess supernatural aspect, I can easily explain
it through that, but the problem is that sometimes I
feel and I can't really prove this, because I don't

(01:13:08):
keep a dream journal or anything like that. But it
feels like the Asia experiencing that actually drink. Yeah, things
feel like they've happened in a certain familiar sequence.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Well, the ancient Egyptians believe that every dream is a prophecy.
You just need someone to interpret it properly. So good luck.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Well, and when giant monsters attack the planet, that's all
I have to say about that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
Good luck to everyone. When war breaks out, we're fighting
like ancient Romans once more.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Like, that's that's all I'm gonna So time bleeds and
monsters mentioned.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
Yeah, this is the multiverse just smushing together in an
infinite crisis.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
But you know, now we're at the end of the film,
and so we know about you know, Alice being like
a journal to describes being with the family for months
after her death, describing her being a ghost. So the
ghost has been there the whole time. Alice has been
there with us the whole time, which is the magic
trick of this film, a beautiful magic trick, by the way.

(01:14:13):
And so the family, having gotten their closure.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Can start to mesh together.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Okay, yeah, they start to mesh together again, and you know,
realize that it is now time to leave the home,
which is again is interesting because Alice describes an empty
home in one of those journal entries. The metaphor of

(01:14:42):
it I really like, though, too, like the metaphor of
you know, when someone dies and they dine in the
home and you have to go, you know, you have
to pull up and you have to go somewhere else
for whatever's sake. You know, maybe it's for your own

(01:15:03):
mental health. Maybe you know, a support network is closer elsewhere,
and so you have to go. And I think that,
you know, for this family, they have to leave, and
to do that though, they have to leave, you know,
the memory of their daughter in that home. You know,

(01:15:24):
that home was their daughter's home. That will never be
their home again. And we leave a lot when we move,
you know, like you're think about the homes we've lived in,
Like this is our third home that we've lived in together,
and it's like the people that existed in those different

(01:15:46):
homes are very gone, you know, very changed, very gone people.
And when we lose someone in a home and we move,
you know, we really do leave them there.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Memories have severed, all the tires are gone.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
It's a terribly sad film. I think that's why it
works so well.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
It's not and it's like from the occasional creepy bit
and aside from the occasional bits of what the fuck
was that, it's just sadness. It is quiet, and it
is sad.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Yeah, there's a sadness that permeates the film because you know,
there there's a mother there who, at the start of
the documentary presents herself as very clued into her family
and very clued into a daughter, but did not realize

(01:16:42):
she was being.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Abused, realizes she knew nothing or she knew next nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
She knew nothing. Yeah, you know, her daughter was was
being abused. Her daughter was, you know, experiencing this this
terrifying shit, absolutely fucking terrifying ship and she knew nothing
about it. Like she was completely I don't want to say, disengaged,

(01:17:08):
like I just outside the loop. Yeah, definitely outside the loop.
I think I think the you know, I think the
fact that you know, for Alice experiencing all of this
in a vacuum like that, that's really sad. Yeah, her

(01:17:29):
parents must feel awful and maybe only is some person
here is kind of the brother and then.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
It's this final one is the juxtabsition of the two
recordings of the mum and the daughter. Yea that way
through the house and not quite meeting each other.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
Yeah yeah, So June is describing going through the house
and it's empty now because they're moved. Yeah, you know,
it's empty. She can't see your daughter, she can't experience
any of it. And it's like you said, it's structaposed
with Alice, and Alice is talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Hearing her mother coming down the hall and the houping
into the house. Yeah, coming into the room.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
You know, So it's like there. Yeah, and again it's
because Alice is We'll see Alice is there with her, yeah,
you know, and it's yeah, it's so clever, it's so clever.
It's such a magic trick this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
It's a piece of writing that I wish I could
do something that could leave an audience with like goosebumps
leaving the cinema, just that final little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
Of yeah yeah, yeah, it's just so fucking sad, the
magic trick of it. Also, and they're leaving a ghost
in that house by the way. Yeah, there should be

(01:19:05):
a Lake Mungo too, where they're.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Like Alice's revenge.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
You know where Alice becomes is this polg ghist. Yeah
no I.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Didn't, no, no, no, you I'm a millennial. I'm renting this
place for like five times on it's worth my fault.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
Yeah, And I think there's there's a cleverness to the framing.
There's a cleverness to the photography. There's a cleverness to
utilizing as much of the town as possible, the townspeople
as possible, the reality of the lived in experience in
rural Australia. I think all of that is really important.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
And just thinking about a shot so much that you
can put three plot twists in one photo and frame
the photo in such a way that until your attention
is directed to them, you don't notice that they're there.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
And yeah, so it's like, and this is interesting too
because the faux documentary footage right that, you know, they
have the footage of June leaving the house and matches
up to Alice. You know, so even the document she
was predicting the documentary crew existing there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
And watching them go and watching them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
Go because now she's trapped, she's there forever. You know,
they've they've left, they've moved on. Life moves on. The
life doesn't move on for the dead.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
And then there's a photo in the background. What do
you say, Alice's ghost, Alice standing in the window.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
And now it has now transcended these people, right, it's
transcended the documentary crew, it's transcended them. Now you're the witness.
You're the last witness to this haunting. We've got our
little kitten Holley decide, I need to jump up and down,

(01:21:01):
of course, so yeah, and it leaves the audience as
the last witness of the ghost. Yeah. Written and directed
by Joel Anderson, You beautiful bastard. And he went into
like behind the scenes. He stayed away from film to
an interview with the Devil, which blows my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
Late night with the Devil, a late night with the Devil.
It was obviously working on his next good good And
there's another shot right and now of a different family.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
No, no, it's the same family. These are the shots, right,
So Alice is so basically what we're doing now. And
again this is the fourth trick here. We're going through
all of these shots that we've just watched.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
Seeing her in the back, and she is fucking creepy.
I know it's a movie and this is and there's
someone staged it. Yeah, still fucking creepy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
So this is all the footage, right, documentary it like,
so the first lot of footage was from the birthday party. Yeah,
that piece of footage, right, So this is the fake
photo that the brother created the other there's.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
Alice on the other side. And you saw all of this.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
You saw all of it, but it does this incredible
thing of pulling focus and perception is reality. Like, I
love people experiencing this film because it shows you how
easily we can be tricked.

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
You saw all of this, you were given the entire photo.
You could have seen it, but you didn't because you
were looking at this one we wanted you to look at.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
I've seen this movie four times and I still forgot
about all of this and it's still caught me again. Yeah,
and yeah, it's just about like reinforcing all the things
you missed.

Speaker 5 (01:23:02):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
Yeah, it is just one of those films, terribly haunting film.
I happen to think it is. And I say this
without without any just because look, I am Australian. I
do believe in Australian filmmaking. This is the best ghost
film that has ever been made.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
There is nothing creepier than this, There is nothing sadder
than this. There is nothing as unsettling as this movie.
I didn't want to watch it again, like I felt
dread putting this come back on. It is just so
effective and so haunting. And the more people who go
out and say this, I think, I think the better

(01:23:42):
off we are.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
So in the credits there's people like credited is like
funeral director, and it's two people with the same last name,
which means they're probably are funeral directors.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Because it's a family because it's.

Speaker 1 (01:23:55):
A family operation. You have police divers who were given
four names. I guarantee those are actual police divers who
were called up and went, hey, do you guys want
to be in a movie? We just need you to
do this one thing for us yep, specifically credited as
Win news cameraman, yep. Things like that. So it's always fun,
especially in this particular mockumentary, to go through and read

(01:24:18):
the credits and see how many real people are actually
in it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
And just as we're going through the credits here, so
we do have some trivia. I like to bust out
the IMDb.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Trivia go in charge of water thiefy Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Director Jordan Peele we quite like his horror films. His
last one was Nope, which I love. Nope is great.
It's it's Jaws meets et. Yes. Director Jordan Peele stated
in a podcast with Keith Palmer that Lake Mungo is
one of the movies that has scared him the most
in his life.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
When showing the edited photo of Alis's ghost in the backyard,
Alice's real spirit can already be seen in the top
right of the frame, sitting on the bench. Yeah, you
know which you just experienced during the first night. A
footage the neighbor can already be seen in the right
of the video.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
So yeah, all those shots were in there their attention.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
Yep. The last named Palmer is a likely reference to
Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks, a character who also knew
she was going to die tragically before it even happened.
She did not drown, but her body was dumped in
the water and found washed up on the beach. The
show also has similar themes as the movie, including Laura
having many secrets and living a double life.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
Just going to point out another credit there special thanks
to the people and businesses of Ararat.

Speaker 2 (01:25:34):
There you go. Although the film is fictional, Lake Mungo
is a real place in New South Wales, Australia, and
scenes in the film were shot there. Lake Mungo is
a dry lake and an important archaeological site. We've talked
about this before, we have done a podcast on it.
In nineteen sixty eight, the remains of a young Aboriginal
woman were uncovered and she was nicknamed the Mungo Lady.

(01:25:56):
She was found to be ritually buried and her bones
were approximately forty thousand years old at the time. I've
discovery Mungo Lady is one of the earliest anatomically modern
human remains discovered anywhere in the world. Five years later,
another skeleton of around forty thousand years old was found
at Lake Mungo and named Mungo Man. We believe now

(01:26:17):
that it could actually be closer to fifty thousand years
So that's an episode we did on Mungo Man on
the bodies found at Mungo, So go check that out.
Despite the opening monologue, the film is a monumentary. It
is not based on real events.

Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
Think fuck yes, Seeing that many things that those many
photos with that creepy thing, I just don't want to
do it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
Yep. Alice's phone is seen at one hour and eight minutes,
and it is the Nokia sixty six hundred, which was
released in June two thousand and three, so time accurate phone.
The graffiti Bouldest scene at six forty eight minutes is
a real location in Victoria, Australia called Sister Rocks, was
named after the three Levis sisters, who are among the

(01:27:01):
area's first settlers during the mid eighteen hundreds gold Rush.
Opinions are divided over the graffiti. Some say or did
you remember this?

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
No, and I don't like it? Oh way woman?

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
But yes, so that was a shot of Alice's last moments.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
I think I believe it was getting closer.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
Yeah, it is, and I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
I do not like it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
The graffiti Boulder scene at six forty eight minutes is
a real location of Victoria called the Sister Rocks. Some
say the painted graffiti has ruined the natural beauty of
the rocks, while others insist that the art serves there's
a unique guest book and only enhances the attraction of
the popular spot. Some of the graffiti dates back to
the nineteenth century. The film's poster has a tagline that

(01:27:50):
says Alice died in two thousand and eight, but in
the final film, she actually died in two thousand and five.
So yeah, that was Lake Mungo. I hope you've enjoyed that.
Please go watch the movie. If you've just listened to
this commentary and uh, you're intrigued, I hope you didn't

(01:28:13):
experience it this way. I hope that you actually.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
Have no over a film role. I reckon that even
if you listen to us give it away as we listen,
I still reckon watching it is still going to give
this percent. I don't think that it's going to change.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
All it is is we're just sitting in a room
with you. Yeah, because what I did is as the
surprises happened, I try and you know, aim the commentary
for the reveals. So maybe you do need to watch
it with some friends. Maybe it is that creepy. I
happen to think it's a great film. It's a great
piece of Australian film history, and I wish more people
will watch it. Yeah, it is so fucking clever, It

(01:28:53):
is so well built it is so well written and
is so fucking clever, and as Holly said, my echo
these statements you wish you could write that. Well, well
that's us for another episode of Weird Crap in Australia.
Thank you so much for joining us. We hope you're
enjoying these commentaries. A couple of housekeeping things before we
do go, First and foremost, head to our Facebook page

(01:29:16):
if you would like to have a chat with us.
Maybe you've been scared by this move and you hate me.
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If you'd like to help out the show, you can
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you can help support us and get yourself access to

(01:29:38):
some free minisodes. Well not free, you're paying for them,
but some minisodes as well as these episodes uncut and
released to you completely add free. Actually, I think listening
to this with the like a different streaming service is
probably going to actually prolong the commentary a little bit
because of the ads. Probably shall warn you at the start.

(01:30:00):
Probably should get through the ad so that the movie
pairs up with the commentary.

Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
Especially because this time Matthew didn't go one, two three,
He's just like, all right, we're going and play how
Welcome to the Weird Crap in Australia pocut.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
Yeah I didn't, I didn't do that. Sorry, this is
my third commentary and kind of fucked that up. So yeah,
you can give us money so I don't fuck it up.
I suppoverish, So yeah, more often you can also grab
yourself the Weird Crap in Australia book series, where we
talk about some stories like ghostly apparitions that are featured
in this Lots of spooky, scary stories about Australia in

(01:30:36):
that book series, Volume one, two six are available from
our great mates that Impact Comics currently running low on stocks,
so we're going to have to do a race stock here,
very very surely make sure if you want those books
for great Christmas presents, for your friends, for your family,
who likes historical anthologies, who you can creep out, who
loves their local history, all of that's in those volumes.

(01:30:59):
So Impact Comics dot com dot AU if you're living
here in Australia for the books if you're living overseaslow
lu dot com. That's our pronound demand service and if
you prefer digital, you can pick it up from the
Kindles store. Last, but not least, if you want a
weird crap In Australia T shirt, we should do a
Lake Mungo inspired T shirt. Man figure one out, maybe
like I don't know that creepy background and then like

(01:31:20):
you and me looking at like ourselves in some sort
of creepy fashions and so perspective there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
But if if you're an alien and almal monster.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
But if you like your weed crap in Australia T
shirt or mug or any other piece of merchandise, you
can pick that up from our Tea Public and Red
Bubble stores. Just like the social media. Just type in
weird crap in Australia into that search bar. Otherwise, ladies
and gentlemen, we will leave you there. Have a spooky
wookie Halloween if you decide to indulge like me and

(01:31:49):
Holly do, or over.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
If you are not into Halloween at least put on
Lake Mungo. You know the thirty first, which is a
Friday this year, which is exciting. You can do Halloween
on Friday. And for all those people who do get
angry and say Halloween is an American tradition, I would
say that we are more interested in the Selwyn side Salmae.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
Solwayne Solwayne Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
Side, which is me being a pretentious asshole. That's the
origins of Halloween, which started in Ireland, moved across into
England and then from England over to America because America
had quite a substantial amount of Irish settlers and it's
and people looking for a new life. And my family

(01:32:40):
is Chocoblock would be Irish, as is Holly. So we're
just we're just embracing our Irish heretice.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
Go on back to the roots man.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
Yeah, so yes. I hope you enjoy Lake Manger if
you do see it, if you do watch it because
of this commentary, I would love to talk about it.
So please get in touch with me me an email.
Have I creaked you the fuck out with this ife?
I'd love to know. We Crapanaustralia gmail dot com. Otherwiseladies
and gentlemen, please stay safe, be kind to each other,

(01:33:11):
and always keep in mind those different perspectives.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Don't let the focus be pulled see.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
You next time. Ladies and gentlemen,

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Weird Crap Movie Commentary 2 - Lake Mungo (2008)

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