Los Angeles’ genre-focused Beyond Fest announced its programming today, and tucked amid all the rad-sounding premieres and revivals was a title that’s been on our minds lately thanks to Mike Flanagan: 2008 Australian horror mockumentary Lake Mungo. It cannot be coincidental that mere days after the horror director name-checked Lake Mungo as a movie that “chilled me to the bone,” Beyond Fest revealed he’d be doing a special introduction for the festival’s international premiere of its 4K restoration, but we’re OK with it: Lake Mungo is well worthy of its newly elevated profile.
It is sort of a curious choice for a 4K restoration. If you’ve seen Joel Anderson’s movie—the haunting tale of a family struggling to accept the death of a beloved teen daughter—you know its mysteries are very much intertwined with the mid-2000s technology of its era, especially the grainy capabilities of cell phone cameras. The film is also an exploration of spirit photography and the way images can be interpreted by people who’re desperate to find particular meaning in them; presumably, though, the 4K treatment won’t make Lake Mungo‘s deliberately ambiguous found footage moments any less creepy. It might even make people less likely to rewind the inevitable home version to double-check what they think they might’ve just seen.
Flanagan will also be on hand at Beyond Fest to debut the “Shush Cut” of his 2016 cult slasher Hush, which stars and was co-written by his frequent collaborator and partner Kate Siegel. It’s a special black-and-white version with a new audio mix that will be included on the film’s upcoming Blu-ray/UHD Collector’s Edition, coming soon from Shout Factory. (In other words, Beyond Fest might be your only chance to see this version on the big screen.)
You can check out the full line-up of Beyond Fest programming, which is stacked with premieres as well as a boatload of “jeez, I wish I lived in Los Angeles”-type special events, at its official site; (ticket info here) it runs September 25-October 9. We’re particularly envious of that 50th anniversary screening of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with “12 members of the original cast and crew in attendance,” according to the festival press release. As a bonus, it’s paired with a screening of Chain Reactions, the latest cinematic deep-dive from documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe, whose previous works include Lynch/Oz, Memory: The Origins of Alien, 78/52 (about Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, specifically the shower scene), and the zombie-tastic Doc of the Dead.
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