Offering up serviceable (if more than a tad messy) family fun, Haunted Mansion comes close to recapturing Disney's straight to home video glory, complete with a dance party finale.

Melbourne International Film Festival has officially wrapped up, having boasted its 71st edition. After weeks of browsing through the program, swapping sessions, making and re-making calendars, and watching screeners, Eli Robinson would like to think he has a decent handle on some pretty cool short films.

Though it shoots well above its budget in terms of its production value, and features potentially star-making turns from its central actors, You'll Never Find Me winds up feeling more like a sheep in wolf's clothing, fizzling out before it can attempt to wow you with its hypnotic but overlong conclusion.

Featuring Argento at his most feverishly creative, Phenomena lives up to its title, providing an experience that's as difficult to rationalise as it is rare to come by.

Voyage of the Demeter's real problem is that the audience already knows where the map leads, and the film does little in its way to add any bite.

For all of its idiosyncrasies, Asteroid City is an out-of-this-world homerun for its director, ranking up there with Wes' very best.

Offering up a gold rush of entertaining action and ridiculous predicaments for its masochistically macho protagonist to fight through, Sisu mostly sticks the landing in delivering a satisfying and fist-pumping cinematic experience.

Talk to Me is another solid addition in the outback horror canon - a beating heart, pumping with fresh blood.

It might appeal to die-hard fans who want to see how it all ends, but for casual viewers who are looking for a fresh and exciting horror experience, it winds up feeling more like this door could've stayed shut.

Grab your popcorn folks, 'cos the Ezra express is about to hit the speed force.

The Boogeyman is a decent horror film that delivers on the prerequisite jumps and jolts, despite sometimes falling into the trappings that come with elaborating on succinct source material.

EO is a bold and bray-ve exploration of modern Europe through the eyes of a circus donkey who embarks on a long and lonely journey.

Beau Is Afraid is far from a perfect cinema-going experience, but it's nevertheless a fascinating and original one.

I felt like I was losing my mamma mia-mind.

While The Pope's Exorcist won't be everyone's cup of tea, for horror fans willing to drop their guard a little bit and embrace a film that's more silly than scary, it's just good, dumb fun.

Beaten to Death is an uncompromising and particularly nasty slice of Ozploitation that mostly delivers on the bluntness of its title, with a few neat cinematic tricks up its sleeve.

The Outwaters is a found-footage horror film that takes the genre to new extremes of experimentation.

Lee Cronin's latest stab Evil Dead Rise carves out new horizons for the horror franchise, while still boasting enough of the strengths of what came before.

Fantastic Film Festival Australia is back in town, promising cinema without restraints.

We've gotten particularly nasty Ghostfaces two years in a row, but since their creator's passing, the actual films seem trapped in a creative rut, doomed to sacrifice the slick edge that the series was once celebrated for in service of broad appeal.