#alice palmer

[inthedarktrees]

Alice kept secrets.

Lake Mungo (2008) dir. Joel Anderson

[alexcabotgf]

I am convinced that Alice knew she was going to die. I’m convinced of that. I think the figure at Lake Mungo was an omen for her. I think Ali saw a ghost. But she wasn’t to know it was her own. I believe she recorded the future coming to get her.

LAKE MUNGO 2008 dir. Joel Anderson

[birchblood]

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me / Lake Mungo

[juniperhillpatient]

I’ve always been fascinated by female characters that are defined specifically by what they mean to the (mostly male) characters around them in an objectifying way but I don’t mean misogynistic writing because I fully believe the narrative can be aware of the tragedy of never belonging to yourself or being allowed to have any agency in your own life. The mysterious dead girl who is the object of everyone’s curiosity or grief whose relationship with the men in her life is the focus of the investigation. Like…. The horror of having no agency within your own identity & no power to change that or take control of your own narrative.

[deciduousangel]

whatever you do don’t think about how alice palmer is still in that house and will always be in that house reaching for her mother’s hand

[toxxictrait]

LAKE MUNGO (2008)

popular girlblogger movie recs masterposts on tumblr are totally missing out on this gem btw i believe Lake Mungo made me feel comforted and understood in my experience of teenage loneliness, and captured the grief that comes with losing the connection we build with our families and life itself. if you enjoyed the haunting of hill house (nell's plotline specifically), or donnie darko, this is for you "I feel like something bad is going to happen to me. I feel like something bad has happened. It hasn't reached me yet but it's on its way. And it's getting closer. And I don't feel ready. I feel like I can't do anything."

[tvmilfs]

[staghunters]

Lake Mungo (2008) // Watching You Without Me - Kate Bush

[i-hear-a-sound]

they never saw her when she was alive and they never saw her when she was dead

[inthedarktrees]

Would you like to tell me about what happens in these dreams?

Lake Mungo (2008) dir. Joel Anderson

[cl0wnb0yyy]

it hasn't reached me yet but it's on its way

[saintxfile]

[juniperhillpatient]

to expand on that last post a little because Yellowjackets has a really interesting take on the idea of “ghosts” & their narrative use as processing grief. I think Jackie represents a type of ghost that’s much scarier than the literal idea of a ghost of a loved one simply watching you from beyond the grave, & there’s not too many examples of this type of “ghost” but the ones I can think of are super interesting.

I would say Norma Bates fits the criteria & the Yellowjackets writers clearly know that, having Shauna holed up chatting with a corpse & doing her makeup, arguing with her & gossiping with her is a pretty direct reference to Norman Bates living with his mothers corpse & treating her like a living person in Psycho.

Much like Norma, Jackie isn’t actually present & while Norman & Shauna remember Norma/Jackies personalities & mannerisms, the “ghosts” are slightly off, not quite acting exactly how they acted when they were alive. (Granted this is more implied in Psycho unless we’re talking about Bates Motel given we don’t meet Norma when she’s alive but I think it can be inferred either way). They’re saying the things that exist as a manifestation of someone else’s consciousness.

And that, really, is a horrifying prospect.

Imagine being violated like that & misrepresented even in death. It’s a total loss of autonomy for the “ghost.” Jackie was consumed in more ways than one by Shauna.

Norma is more uncertain in terms of truly labeling her a victim but similarly she was flawed in life & she became those flaws & nothing else in death.

An adjacent example that I just think is fun to bring up in this context is Alice Palmer in Lake Mungo. Shes pretty different to the above examples because there is an undoubtable supernatural element in her story & an actual ghost but the horror doesn’t stem from the ghost herself but the idea of an evil misrepresentation of a dead girl. The first twist in the story is that Alice’s ghost isn’t Alice & her brother was faking a haunting. To be clear he was grieving & desperate to have her back & I don’t think he’s evil for coping in a weird way but it is horrific from the perspective of Alice, never truly able to be seen as herself. Her story is only ever told by other people. The most haunting moment of Lake Mungo is often attributed to the recording on Alice’s phone where we see the vision of her death but to me it’s the ending. The family tells themselves & everyone else that Alice has found peace to comfort themselves but in reality she has not & probably never will. What a horrifying concept! Everyone in your life has moved on & made up a story about you that isn’t accurate at all, & you’re trapped forever, the only one able to perceive your true self ever again, forever alone.

Jackie is shown on a huge projector while an announcer from the class says she would want Shauna & Jeff to dance together (Jackie would be FURIOUS). Shauna says Jackie would want the girls to eat her (the fuck she would) & Jackie’s ghost mocks Shauna with things the real Jackie never would’ve said with a mean girl demeanor that has nothing to do with the real Jackie only Shauna’s own insecurities.

Norma Bates may have been a cruel & overbearing mother & she may have intentionally or not been emotionally incestuous toward her son but that’s all we’ll ever know about her - how she impacted her son, how HE was fucked up by her. Her own agency in the story is totally lacking & she becomes a symbol more so than a person.

I’ll lastly bring up another example that came to mind when I was ending this post. Billy Loomis haunting Sam Carpenter through hallucinations in Scream. It’s an interesting example because the new Scream movies get some crap from original fans for the “anti heroification” of Billy Loomis but you gotta remember - he’s not ACTUALLY a ghost. Scream 3 also uses the idea of ghosts that aren’t actually ghosts with Sidney thinking she’s being haunted by her mother (in reality there is no ghost & Sidney is struggling to accept the person her mother was rather than the saintly woman on a pedestal in her mind).

Billy is Sam’s subconscious. Sam was destroyed by the knowledge that her father was a serial killer. That & the idea that her mother cheated. The events of Scream 5 in a lot of ways allow her to take some of that power back. The real Billy Loomis was a deeply disturbed teenage boy with crippling mommy issues, not some badass supervillain who would’ve supported his daughter in taking down his predecessors. But that doesn’t matter as much as the way SAM perceives the ghost. And Billy’s “ghost” ends up helping Sam survive & come into her power as a new kind of final girl. This one is super interesting because it’s a spin I don’t think I’ve seen before on this type of “ghost” & a really interesting one, having this mocking ghost of someone long gone distorted into something that doesn’t represent the person they were used in a way that is viewed somewhat positively by the narrative.

I just think ghosts as a manifestation of grief & a way to “remember” someone dead while actually masking the “true” memory of the real person & massacring them in death by distorting them into something they never were is such an interesting brand of horror & narrative use of “ghosts” with sooo much potential.

[rassilon-imprimatur]

"I feel like something bad is going to happen to me. I feel like something bad has happened. It hasn't reached me yet but it's on its way."

Mary Henry - Carnival of Souls // Laura Palmer - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me // Alice Palmer - Lake Mungo // Nellie Crain - The Haunting of Hill House 

[usercannibal]

quitting my job to focus on the things that really matter: girls haunting the narrative

[bymine]

Class of 2013 / Last Words of a Shooting Star / Should’ve Been Me / A Pearl / Why Didn’t You Stop Me? / Remember My Name / Fireworks // Mitski

Lake Mungo (2008) // Joel Anderson