What actually happens
Everyone in the house gets a different haunting
Sixteen-year-old Alice Palmer disappears during a family swim at a dam in Ararat, Australia, and her body turns up a few days afterward in a stormwater drainage basin. Her father, Russell, identifies the body, but her mother, June, refuses to look at it. Ten days after the funeral, her brother Mathew develops bruises on his torso, and the family starts hearing noises around the house. Russell describes a single time an apparition confronted him aggressively. June describes recurring nightmares about Alice's drenched body. Mathew takes up photography and seems to capture a figure of Alice in the backyard, and again in a photo from the lake.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
A seance that explains nothing
The Palmers wonder whether Alice might still be alive, so they ask for an exhumation and a DNA test, which confirms the body is hers. Mathew sets up cameras around the house, and they seem to capture Alice. June consults a self-proclaimed psychic, Ray Kemeney, who holds a seance but cannot explain what is happening. Months later, Mathew admits that he faked the ghost photos and videos. He hoped to push the family into the exhumation, which gave June a second chance to see Alice's body and find some closure.
The neighbor and the videotape
A home video recorded while the family is out seems to show Alice's apparition, and it also catches their neighbor, Brett Toohey, searching her bedroom. June then finds a hidden videotape of Alice with Brett and his wife, Marissa, in a sexual encounter. Russell concludes that Brett wanted the tape back once he heard Alice was dead. The Tooheys sell their house and disappear, and the Palmers are told that any legal action would probably end in a suspended sentence, since the encounter would be treated as consensual. Ray later says that Alice visited him months before she died and told him about recurring dreams of drowning and of her mother being unable to see her. She wrote those fears in her journal too.
The phone buried under a tree
Alice's boyfriend, Jason Whittle, has phone video from a school visit to Lake Mungo, where Alice is seen burying something under a tree. The Palmers travel to the spot and dig up her phone. This is the scene people dread, and it comes near the end. On the video, Alice walks beside the water at night and runs into a bloated, disfigured version of herself that looks like the body found at the dam. The figure floats slowly toward her.
The ending, explained
The Palmers come to think that Alice wanted them to see what she had gone through, though they disagree on whether the encounter at Lake Mungo led to her death. They feel the haunting is over and move out of the house. When June takes a final look into Alice's room, audio plays of Alice's interview with Ray, in which she says her mother cannot see her. Alice can be heard saying "she's gone" while June walks out. A photograph taken as the family drives away catches a dim shape that is Alice, standing at a window. The credits replay footage, Mathew's faked photos among it, and she turns up elsewhere in the background of scenes we already saw.
The post-credits ruling
Yes, stay for the credits. They show where Alice's ghost was in the background of earlier footage, and a final scene shows her ghost at Lake Mungo during a thunderstorm.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Lake Mungo scary?
Yes. Lake Mungo is a 6 out of 10 with high dread: a slow, sad ghost story with very little gore, and a few images that people remember for days.
How does Lake Mungo end?
The Palmers find Alice's phone, watch her last footage at the lake, and move out of the house. A photograph taken as they leave shows Alice in a window, and a final scene shows her ghost back at Lake Mungo.
Does the dog die in Lake Mungo?
No dog dies in Lake Mungo.
Is there a post-credits scene in Lake Mungo?
Yes. Footage shown during the credits reveals where Alice's ghost was hiding in earlier scenes, and a last scene shows her ghost at Lake Mungo during a thunderstorm.
Why does Mathew fake the ghost photos in Lake Mungo?
He hopes it will push the family to exhume Alice's body, which gives his mother a second chance to see it and find closure. He admits it months later.
