" I need to find a name of a movie. Where people believe there is a
monster in a lake , but it is really an old steam shovel.

Hello.

This very same question was posed on a web page called "Name That
Movie."
"I remember watching a film on daytime television which concerned a
group of kids who uncovered a secret at a lake close to where they
lived. They believed that a monster lived in the lake... At the very
end of the film, it is revealed that the monster is in fact just a
piece of machinery, kind of like a dirt digger, and that the whole
thing is a hoax to keep people away from some human crime plot."
http://homepages.tesco.net/~intruder/namethat.htm

The suggestion on that page is that the movie is "Hector's Bunyip."
 
Here is the description of "Hector's Bunyip" from Yahoo shoppping:
"A poor but happy Australian family fights to keep one of their foster
children. When a greedy land developer, wanting back taxes, lies and
reports that the foster children are not being properly cared for the
family hides the boy in a cave. They claim he was taken by a 'Bunyip'
creature - actually a product of their imagination."
http://shopping.yahoo.com/shop?d=v&id=1800150201&clink=dmpr-hm-rp/v

Another description, on a web page called Legbrace Films and Videos,
confirms that the "monster" in question inhabits a lake (or pond):
"Hector's Bunyip.
Australian children's film about a young boy with a full-length
caliper on one leg, who is fostered by a family in a country town
where there are stories of the bunyip, a creature in Aboriginal legend
who inhabits ponds."
http://www.geocities.com/legcaliper/film.htm

search strategy: movie, "that a monster," lake

I hope this is the right film.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by bobkat-ga on 05 Oct 2002 10:33 PDT

In this movie, I am talking about one child get stuck in the shovel.
Also the monster(steam shovel) shows itself when enough (air)gas is
built up in it's shovel from the Bac. growing on it.   Do you remember
it that way.

---

Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 05 Oct 2002 11:12 PDT

Well, that certainly sounds the same.

On the "Name that Movie" web page, they describe the "neck and head"
occasionally bobbing in the pond:

"and occasionally we got to see a slimy, weed-covered shape stirring
out of the water in very frightening (for a child) moments, complete
with an apparent body and a long neck and head."
http://homepages.tesco.net/~intruder/namethat.htm

Did you see this film on television? From what I understand, "Hector's
Bunyip" aired quite a few times on PBS and cable in the US in the late
1980s and early 1990s.

I'd be surprised if there are two different family movies involving a
monster-like steamshovel in a lake.

I want to thank you. I don't remember when and where I saw it. I tried
to explain this movie to a friend and that his family should see it.
Thanks again. Now I can tell my friend the name of the movie.

I think the film you mean is called   FROG DREAMING.
A nice film staring an American boy living in Australia.

,

;=}