Lake Mungo 2008

During a family outing near Ararat, 16-year-old Alice Palmer, Talia Zucker, vanishes, and when her body is later recovered from the dam, her father identifies it as Alice. Ten days after the funeral, the Palmers begin to hear unsettling noises in their home, and their older son Mathew Palmer, Martin Sharpe, discovers unexplained bruises on his body. In an effort to uncover the truth, Mathew sets up video cameras around the house and captures footage that appears to show Alice, while other images from near the lake hint at a figure that looks like her.

The family pushes for exhumation and a DNA test, which ultimately confirms that the deceased is indeed Alice. June Palmer, Natasha Herbert, seeks guidance from Ray Kemeny, a self-proclaimed psychic, and he conducts a séance in hopes of explaining the strange sights, but he cannot provide a satisfactory explanation. Months pass, and Mathew admits that he faked the ghostly photos and videos of Alice to give the family a reason to exhume her body and grant June the closure she longed for, something she regrets not pursuing before the funeral.

A later home video, captured automatically while the Palmers were away, reveals a fleeting image of Alice and also shows Brett Toohey, a neighbor whom Alice had babysat for, rifling through her bedroom. Brett and his wife Marissa Toohey, Tamara Donnellan, have since disappeared, having sold their house to avoid prosecution. Ray later reveals that Alice had confided in him about recurring dreams of drowning and being dead, notes she kept in a private journal, and that these dreams blurred with her waking life.

Alice’s boyfriend, Jason Whittle, Marcus Costello, provides mobile footage of a school trip to Lake Mungo, showing Alice burying something at the base of a tree. The Palmers travel to Lake Mungo, locate the tree, and dig up Alice’s phone. Footage on the phone shows Alice walking along the shore and encountering a corpse-like version of herself with a bloated, disfigured face—exactly as the body found in Ararat appeared.

In time, the Palmers come to believe that Alice wanted them to understand who she really was and what she had witnessed. They decide to move out, feeling that Alice’s spirit has moved on. The final image lingers on a cloudy figure of a young woman appearing in a window, while the photos Mathew had faked seem to show Alice elsewhere in the background.