LAKE MUNGO (2008) Ending Explained

[Music] hey how's it going folks and welcome to fountain flicks on this thing explained we're looking at the especially spooky lake mungo following a family who suffers a tragedy when their daughter drowns soon after they started experiencing inexplicable potentially supernatural things in their home and began unraveling many surprising mysteries regarding alice i honestly feel like this movie is extremely underrated even though it does frequently show up on many scariest movies of all times list alongside other heavy hitters like the exorcist and texas chainsaw massacre so maybe the question is does this deserve to stand along with those other titans of the genre to me absolutely there's a way that this film really gets under your skin that is especially unsettling it also stands out as being very unique amongst the sea of similar found footage concepts now this actually isn't technically found footage but more like a faux documentary it's very committed to its naturalistic style and i think that's a lot of what makes it so successful it unfolds more like a true crime documentary than a typical horror movie that is until the possibilities of the supernatural start seeping in it just feels very real and again i feel that really helps to sell the whole thing it also winds up being a surprisingly complex overall experience interweaving the difficulty of a family suddenly losing a loved one just what happens after we die as well as exploring the philosophical concept of a simulacrum the actual story itself also does leave us with many questions and we'll dive into all of that as well so let's take a trip to lake mungo breaking down the story and its surprising twist along with the greater meaning of the movie and explaining the ending that gives us one last surprise right out of the gate there are several countering concepts at play over old spirit photography photos which are known to be hoaxes nowadays we hear the voice of a frightened alice saying she feels something bad is going to happen to her as alice's boyfriend dismisses the entire concept of ghosts assuming it must be to help people deal with loss but he doesn't understand why exactly her friend kim reveals that no one knew the true alice as she was full of secrets it was during a nice family trip to the dam where teenage alice disappeared mysteriously the authorities are dispatched and the news reports on the missing girl and panicking family rescue divers are sent in to search the waters but nothing turns up from what her brother matt can remember the two were out swimming and as the water was getting cold he decided to head to shore alice did not join him and a few minutes later his dad russell asked about his sister they looked out noticing the water was eerily still and they checked in the bushland behind the water as well matt noticed that her towel was left on the ground meaning that she most likely never got out of the water and that was the last time he saw her in home video footage recorded that day there appears to be nothing suspicious at all and the family looks happy having a great time inevitably they are told to go home and tell something turns up in the search and mom remembers how strange it was driving home with an empty seat she was there one minute and then just gone jun's parents came to stay with him and all they could do was wait for assumedly bad news there seems to be some distance between the mother and daughter jun feeling it weird that she's here and it didn't feel right over the night alice's phone went off a few times but she never answered and she remembered just how neat everything looked alice's friends were both in disbelief hearing the news jason even calling her phone thinking that it had to be a joke kim was in shock as well not thinking it could be real she finds it odd everything was the same as always but she had drowned asking russell what he recalls from that night he knows that he left the porsche light on and leaves it on still just in case he chuckles when asked why he blubbers that she still might come home seeing the pain and sadness in his face it's the not knowing that he still struggles with there's still that slim chance that this could all just go away though the writing is on the wall when a police video on christmas eve shows divers discovering her body russell remembers getting a call feeling that it was all very official and formal him having to sign a form of identification for his daughter june elected to stay in the car which he thinks might have been a mistake as she didn't get the same closure that he did but she says she couldn't bring herself to see alice that way and didn't want to remember her in that state sometime later the news covers her funeral everyone gathering to pay their respects kim remembers alice as a happy fun-loving girl with a zest for life yet as heartbreaking as all this might be their friend georgie limits that things were only going to get so much worse 10 days after the funeral russell kept hearing noises around the house and from outside the windows along with the door to alice's room moving on its own so he re-hung the door and got a pest guy to check things out but it didn't stop the strange occurrences from continuing the door kept slamming and the noises kept happening then june started having nightmares including a recurring one featuring alice she would come down the hall still drooping from the water and just stand at the foot of the bed staring at them she found this quite terrifying and the nightmares only got worse to the point that she would go on long walks late at night to avoid sleep as long as possible strangely she would also randomly walk into people's houses not with any ill intent but just because she wanted to be inside someone else's life for a while as for russell he dealt with things by diving into work he did feel guilty but he just wanted to get on with his life according to his longtime co-worker frederick he never actually brought up what happened once which he found to be a bit troubling but he also knows people all grieve in their own ways and it is not his place to tell him what to feel moving on will prove harder than he thought as one night russell has a seemingly supernatural encounter with his daughter hearing noises coming from a room he says he found himself taking a seat there and before he could work out why she walked in and did some general stuff not seeming to notice him then he made a noise of some kind and she went rigid him knowing now that she is aware he is there he looked right into his eye for what felt like forever and then shouted to get out they asked fred about what he saw and he believes that he did see something as russ is not the kind of guy to make something like that up so he believes he definitely saw something whether it's a real ghost or something else entirely georgie had hoped to get them help from the church but the palmers aren't religious so they couldn't really do much thanks church she becomes more worried about matt in particular as he spent so much time with his sister strangely he discovered at one point that he had unusual bruises all over his body the doc tested him for all kinds of stuff but was unable to come to any real conclusion even strangers several weeks later all the bruises vanished without a trace a band bandmate of mats and his best friend steve did notice that he became quieter after alice but nothing really set off any alarms he did start pursuing his photography hobby with more passion and even met up with a professional in the field clive there he learned all kinds of stuff from equipment to lighting and techniques leading to clive even offering him a job at the studio we learned matt has been doing a kind of series of photos over time taking pictures of his backyard in the same spot every few months for the past several years then in one he spotted something surprising amongst the same overall shot appears to be a ghostly alice standing against the fence they zoom in closer on her face and for some reason every time they do this gimmick it gives me the heebie-jeebies it's creepy the interviewer asks about the family's reaction to this development and matt wouldn't call the mood necessarily good but at least was better than before they had hope for a change there's more potential evidence discovered by a man who was down by the dam and it appears that he too caught a glimpse of alice amongst the brush jun was especially floored by this and there became enough reasonable doubt for her to start thinking alice could possibly be alive russ while admitting that he couldn't explain the pictures knew something his wife didn't he had seen alice's body there is no way she could be alive but june became so convinced that even he started having doubts thanks to the overwhelmingly compelling circumstances this led to the family asking for alice's body to be exhumed and a dna test to be performed so there is no question as to the body's identity the test confirmed that it is indeed alice's body and after this russ came to realize just how much he wanted it to not be her that he had made some kind of mistake anybody else as long as it wasn't alice well so we know for sure that alice is dead but there's still the question of those pictures matt continued hearing noises at the house and decided to set up a camera to try to see anything then on the night of june 13th he did catch something a shadowy figure passes by the frame and again we zoom in on the creepy dark visage these strange events are enough for june to try to reach out for a different kind of help from psychic consultant ray he explains most of what he actually does is dealing with the sick or dying and allowing them to think that death is not the bitter end it's a consolation to give them he says and besides we don't know what happens after we die that's a big theme of the whole movie here obviously june acknowledges that public opinion on his authenticity is divided but when meeting him she liked him right away sensing nothing fake or spooky about him rey records their meeting and kind of hypnotizes her to imagine herself outside of her house and describe what she sees she enters the front door going towards alice's room he beckons her to enter the room and she sees alice sitting in a chair at the end of her bed looking sad she says it's clear that june is the one pushing the psychic angle and it was suggested by rey to try a seance russell initially refused until matt convinced him otherwise and also suggested to film it rey does say he feels a strong presence in the house but they ultimately didn't make any connections and called it quits after about an hour though when reviewing the footage they discover another image of alice there right when rey asks the presents to make itself known for the skeptical russell this new footage is different than before it's more detailed and less ambiguous less impossible to dismiss as digital noise and shadow play even he is now convinced there is something inexplicable in their house for ray this is unfamiliar territory and he teams up with matt to set up time-lapse cameras all around the house on 24 hours a day there was some speculation around town as to what rays and tinges were with the family but it was more about not knowing anything that led to more gossip he defends himself as not out to make a quick buck and honestly thought that he could help a struggling mat in particular it's not long before they seem to capture more haunting images around the house spotting her in a mirror in a room and then in another out in the hall before the family can even process these latest startling developments things go into an unexpected entirely new direction as we remember the guy that caught alice in a photo at the damn it turns out there was also a dude out there with a video camera that day well pretty busy at the damn and he caught the same figure but when he looked in closer what was thought to be a female figure was neither a female or alice but in fact actually matthew he brushes off the appearance sure he was wearing alice's jacket and wandering around the bush it's not strange at all when his dad asked if he had done anything else he spills that he had quite a hand in things up to this point he basically faked everything we've been seeing regarding the spirit of alice appearing using classic spirit photo techniques to superimpose two images together when it comes to the video that is a bit more complicated he set up old home video footage of alice and recorded it in the mirror that helped to cover up the screen so it was actually alice but her on a tv here we are seeing that same idea of the footage taking on new meaning he's repurposing old home video footage and shooting it creating something else entirely so that is a pretty big surprise i definitely remember watching this the first time and was pissed i was like what do you mean there's no ghosts they convinced me of that all the way up to this point but now i realize that's the actual point it's about how what we believe in an image can turn out later to be a lie it's a definite manipulation from the filmmakers and this is actually pushed even further as they even change the footage the first time we see the spirit it is definitely the actress that plays alice there and yet after the reveal of matt being behind it it is now him in her place pretty smart actually and guess what this is not the last time they pull a fast one on us although at least for now anything supernatural seems to be off the table though we still don't know what happened to alice matt defends his actions saying that he did not try to trick anyone but thought that something is better than nothing reminding us of that opening quote about people creating ghosts to give them a kind of hope again death isn't really the end in all act when asked if his actions made things worse for his mom he admits that they probably did but still says that wasn't his intention yeah it did make them dig up his sister's body but that only confirmed what was already pretty obvious after this the public eye turned to their curious case however they thought it was most important to protect mata and the family along with alice's memories and they do find it admittedly strange for something so personal to them being thrust into the world's view june was devastated at finally having to let go of alice yet they also acknowledged that she would never actually admit to this as there was a kind of guarded or private nature to june that seemed to carry over to alice fred didn't think that they got along too well but believes that it was actually because they were so similar it became especially clear after alice's death that they both shared a sense of privacy even having private lives which they chose to share or not it appears that this goes back even further in the family as iris june's mom admits that she had doubts as a mother and felt that she was never able to fully give herself over to her kid well sounds like that ended up rolling down the generations to alice and having those walls up did play some role in her untimely demise rey and matt's friendship grow stronger as they pair up to do some consultations out on the road it's only now that he realized just how much he missed alice and even in a way feels as though he's one of rey's clients wanting to make contact with someone lost after they left they kept two cameras set up still certain there is something in the house and wound up afterwards with a day and a half worth of footage after pouring over it they see what looks like alice but this time matt wasn't around so he could not have faked it again casting doubt on what's really going on here as a result they went back through all of the old footage taken and noticed something new amongst the images again re-examining the meaning of them entirely they notice a second figure not matthew squatting in the dark in alice's room they realized that it was actually their neighbor brett wondering what the heck he was doing in their daughter's room six months after her death here we start peeling back a bit of the layers to that secret life of alice alluded to when jun pilfers through her save there she finds a tape and she knows that this must have been what brett was looking for she details how they met alice acting as a babysitter for their two younger boys and then they understand what they have is a sex tape between her and the couple and it doesn't appear that she is quite into it yikes well definitely got some secrets eh alice as for russell seeing this makes him feel in a way more complicit in her death tying back to that privacy thing down the generations if she hadn't felt the burden of that secret or felt so isolated she would have been able to talk to them about it and potentially prevented this from ever happening alice's friends remembered brett as being nice and they used to swim there during the summer which takes on a pretty gross connotation in retrospect they were completely shocked once more about alice not even knowing she had been with somebody but alone doing something like that there is a kind of power in the tape especially inner death they must have been living in fear of being found out they did get charges filed with the police and the sergeant was confident that they would be found yet the leads dried up and the investigation stalled so they are left with even more unanswered questions why was alice involved was she in love with either of them they will likely never know as the family moves soon after brett try to ransack alice's room kim considers the level of secrets alice kept as though there were all these different versions of her the one around her friends or around her mom and on her own she honestly feels that it changes her perspective on someone when you know that they've been hiding things like this naturally that's only the tip of the iceberg for alice's secrets june coming across rey's business card in her journal turns out she actually reached out to him five months before her death having heard him on the local radio rey has asked why he didn't tell the family earlier and he says that it wasn't about keeping a secret but honoring client confidentiality besides if he had told him right off the bat he wouldn't have been able to help them now regardless of his defense on the matter the family felt betrayed especially because he failed to see alice's imminent demise i mean you're a psychic right what the heck dude jun continues reading from the diary and comes across an entry that has a strange parallel to her own nightmares regarding alice she describes waking up from a nightmare but the feeling didn't go she felt sick and confused and went to her parents in their room when watching them sleep she was overcome by sadness that turned to fear she stood there emotionless paralyzed realizing there was nothing that she could do anymore she describes feeling so utterly alone and started thinking that something must be wrong with her again this is a strange mirror of what june was describing earlier alice there is still wet and standing at the foot of the bed starting to possibly imply something else entirely going on here a kind of connection through dreams as well as across time this becomes further established when june comes across lake mungo written in the diary relaying that it was a school camping trip that alice was on for a few days back in august all they could recall of a return was her saying she had a good time but oddly she lost her mobile phone favorite bracelet and watch and that was all they knew that is brought into a whole new light when the kids divulged that they recorded some of that time on their camera phones and yes they do in fact have the dedication to film this entire chunk of the movie on absolute crap camera phones from 2006 or whatever would be quite different nowadays 4k everything kim shoots them all drinking and everyone having a good time that is except for alice who's looking quite forlorn this led june to get worried convinced something must have happened to her later that night the girls spread out and they spot alice in the footage down in the bottom of a frame kneeling under a tree only after several viewings did they figure out she was burying something out there kim only knew that she had lost her phone and was upset but it didn't seem too serious in the context at the time they're all just kids having a laugh they see her walking off by herself knowing something was distressing her so the family saddles up to visit lake mungo themselves knowing at least that she had buried something out there and they do have some idea of where to look having tracked down a tree from the video after some digging jun unearths a plastic bag containing all of her missing items the necklace ring watch and mobile phone the family is even more baffled these are her most precious things wondering why she would leave them out here we then get another peek of alice's session with rey asking if she's afraid of dying she says of course she is and it's here that she expresses her worry that something bad is going to happen it hasn't reached her yet but is on its way and getting closer after charging alice's phone they witnessed the final chilling moments recorded out in lake mungo she comes across a frightening figure that steps out towards her out of the darkness russell is immediately able to recognize the face that of which he id'd at the damn the waterlogged alice lunges at her sending her phone reeling yeah i guess what once more everything we understood is put into question after that supernatural tease earlier there is no denying what we're seeing here it's as though alice encountered a vision of her own impending death and her actions since then have been a result of knowing that her death is looming but not knowing when frantically reacting in a way to try to understand what's happening however both sides of the argument are still presented with the palmers june doesn't see any rational explanation for the footage and she fully believes alice knew that she was going to die she thinks the burying of her stuff was a kind of ritual in response to seeing that figure a kind of omen for her russell however doesn't see things the same way while he agrees that everyone has morbid thoughts he still doesn't think that alice knew she was going to die matt too believes she recorded a legitimate ghost a recording of her grim future coming to get her this reminds us of the kind of dream connection between june and alice a moment existing simultaneously across time it's important to consider just what lake mungo is tied to 40 000 years of native history along with our own current situation which is being represented on that of a cell phone camera it's a collision of so many different things occurring at once that it does stand to reason that this is what allows alice to see her own future self unlike before with matt's goof here it feels like they do go out of their way in the story to show these seemingly impossible is actually occurring out at lake mungo this has a profound impact on the family feeling their house was different when returning more calm than before they think that alice perhaps just wanted to show them more about her true self so she could move on after some time they started feeling like a real family again sure shaky and wounded but a family wants more all the same the healing continues when they decide to bury the hatchet with rey each feeling a kind of closure or sense of peace to a degree they also do acknowledge all their actions didn't actually help alice or change anything it's as though they collectively all agreed that it was simply time to move forward and also literally move out of the house to really reiterate that fresh start even june knows that it will be difficult but she is finally starting to forget that alice isn't coming back yet things aren't so cut and dry as they think leading to more of the supernatural time is interconnected thing in an extremely eerie sequence we flash back and forth between one final session with june and rey sometime after the previous one and that of the session with her daughter months before her death and it starts sounding like once more they are tied together in a way they both enter the house and june enters alice's room unlike before alice sees her mom and doesn't say anything as though she can't see her a twist on that earlier encounter with her dad as for june she doesn't see alice and she leaves the room now june clomps around the empty house as alice continues saying that her mom is leaving the room watching them pack up and drive off this makes it seem that alice in the past is kind of seeing this occurring now with her family leaving for good alice cries that they're gone now and we re-examine the family photo from the opening once more we zoom into unseen things in the background spotting alice looming in the house's window we are then represented with more footage we've already seen but is now given a whole new meaning as we see throughout the entirety of everything alice's spirit was actually there at many moments throughout no trickery for matt or anything like that it really does look like after the topsy-turvy experience and surprising rug pulls that alice's spirit was actually lingering in the house and there are supernatural activities afoot what's even more interesting to me though is that the family has been so desperate for a way to contact alice ultimately she was there right in front of them as seen in the various images but at this point they seem to have all moved on and kind of don't care anymore they collect the decision to move on as they phrased it they had grieved as much as they could and had to let go this is one very important layer of the movie it's a representation of how a family reacts when they unexpectedly lose a loved one they hold on to every kernel of hope an ounce of doubt that somehow alice isn't really gone matt taking things really far with that fake ghost thing all in the name of somehow providing them with the hope she could still be alive then of course there's all the loose ends and questions left about someone after they pass things you will never know after their exhaustive search for answers ultimately none of what they do is able to help alice as they point out it's more about the family going through their stages of grief and after everything they experience they can finally let go and move on the ghost here then more represents alice's lingering memories there is in a way a part of her that will always be tied to the house and the years that they spent there never really gone for good when it comes to ghosty things and what have you there is still some debate within the family about alice's vision out at lake mungo the ending really seals the deal that not only did she see a future of her own death but also that her spirit is still at the house as is considered throughout no one knows what happened after we die and that's what makes death scary to so many they only see it as the end but we know with alice that isn't the case after all there is at least some kind of afterlife presented which makes it kind of a bummer she has to spend it all alone without her family ah well probably healthier to move on than things turning into a predictable wacky ghost family situation then there's the even more broader meaning and motivation behind the movie the aforementioned simulacrum concept it all stems from a greek word meaning likeness or semblance and is defined as a representation or imitation of a person or thing any work of art or movie could technically classify into this category because it is an imitation a false reality up on screen with lake mungo it is presented to us as a very realistic documentary attempting to convince us as the audience that it is real this is a real case that actually happened that's the entire intention of the movie there's actually two kinds of similacra the movie plays with the first is all about creating a faithful reproduction or precise copy of the original in this case trying to be as real as possible conversely there's also intentionally distorting something in order to make the copy appear correct viewers as the idea developed over many years it evolved that simulacrum is not simply a copy of the reel but actually becomes truth in its own right the hyper reel thanks wikipedia that's where the various twists and narrative rug pulls come into play it's all essentially about tricking the viewer into believing one thing through what we see only to completely change the meaning through some development later the truth changes even with the same footage the story does this constantly always toying with us about what we believe is really going on and even at the end it's one more big rug pull and it makes us completely re-examine everything we've seen up to that point it also seems that the family doesn't actually see these many other sightings of alice it's in fact us as the viewer or thanks to whoever is making the documentary you're watching it's a very interesting game the movie plays with regarding all this and i really think it takes the movie to an even more intellectual and interesting level that brings us to the conclusion of this inning explained for lake mungo and don't forget before we go you can send me requests for any movies or tv shows you'd like to see me explain by sending them my way on any of my social media accounts at foundflix what do you think of lake mungo and its ending do you have a different interpretation to me about everything that goes down and what do you think are the scariest movies of all time leave your thoughts down in the comments below make sure to like subscribe and follow thanks for watching found flicks see you next time

Channel: FoundFlix

Views: 1,131,518

Keywords: lake mungo, lake mungo ending explained, ending explained, ending, explained, explanation, meaning, lake mungo real, true story, trailer, clip, final scene, scariest horror, scary movie, twist, review, how scary, foundflix ending explained, foundflix

Id: 98rQOxFD39c

Length: 26min 19sec (1579 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 28 2022