One of the intriguing blocks of short films at this year’s Dark Nights Film Fest was the Aussie Shorts Showcase. The Sydney festival featured nine impressive slices of Australian fright-fare cinema, five of which I presented in part 1 and the remaining 4 happily discussed here.
In a Place Like This
Official synopsis: A day in the life of Horace, an outback isolationist who holds within him a dark and violent secret. This non-conventional approach to the slasher sub-genre offers a new perspective. Set against the backdrop of the Australian bush, In a Place Like This aims to deliver a visually captivating experience, appealing to both genre aficionados and casual viewers alike.
Yet another fine display of ensemble cast work in Dark Nights Film Fest’s Aussie Shorts Showcase, writer/director Shannon Glover delivers surprises and shocks with In a Place Like This. Shane Emmett portrays lead character Horace, whose quiet life in the Australian Bush is interrupted by a support group on a camping trip. The short is a unique take on the slasher cinema that devotees of the genre should find much to their liking in both storytelling and bloodletting.
Wombo
Official synopsis: Molly and Dave argue their way through a night out camping when a deranged bush wandering madman alerts them to the incoming man-eating marsupial, “the Wombo.”
Australia already has the Yowie, the Bunyip, Yara-ma-yha-who, and the drop bear, among others, and now a newer cryptid arrives in writer/director Angus Lowe’s Wombo. The three-hander cast of Georgie Dula and Yarno Rohling as a young camping couple and Bryan Lennard Smith as the always-welcome possibly insane local warning of danger is a delight. There’s plenty of grue and the red stuff on display in this entertaining creature feature.
An Artist’s Curse
Official synopsis: When a malevolent creature resides inside the artwork of a 10 year old girl, fate is sealed, with trauma from her childhood echoing across her life. Art and horror collide when the girl becomes a Mother and desperately tries to come to terms with her delusions and the shocking truth of her daughter.
Georgia Eyers gives a riveting lead performance as troubled young woman Sonya, who is grieving the loss of her missing daughter in An Artist’s Curse. Writer/director Steven J. Mihaljevich invests his short with a highly unreliable narrator and a looming sense of dread and despair, making this a mesmerizing, emotional watch.
Guardian Angel
Official synopsis: Guardian Angel is a gripping 10-minute crime thriller about a young doctor in a dangerous world, performing emergency surgery on bullet wounded gangsters in her garage.
Writer/director Charles Olsen’s Guardian Angel is a suspenseful thriller with terrific pacing and excellent performances from its ensemble cast, led by Rebecca Montalti as a doctor placed in a do-it-or-die situation. The short is tense, gripping, and blood-soaked.
The shorts reviewed here screened as part of Dark Nights Film Fest, which ran October 9-12, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. For more information, visit https://www.darknightsfilmfest.com/.
