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Striving to offend as many minorities as possible without so much as a hint of subtlety, the Seth Rogen masterminded 'Sausage Party' is a razor-sharp animated feature that proudly competes with 'South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut' for the title of most distasteful R-rated cartoon. Everything from homosexuality to the Holocaust is targeted in this unashamedly disrespectful, though at times somewhat profound, mockery of Disney and Pixar's finest.

Likely originating from the dulled neurons of a particularly stoned Hollywood actor, this film wears its influences proudly with its constant riff on the animation format, right down to the Alan Menken musical number. The result is a bizarre, surreal experience that somehow manages to exist as both a racial commentary and a religious allegory.

Much like Pixar are consistently able to get so much mileage out of a single premise, 'Sausage Party' wastes no time in reeling out pun after pun, meaning that for every joke that doesn't impress, there is one mere seconds away that is bound to stick the landing. There are far too many visual gags to appreciate in one sitting, and chances are you'll be laughing so much that you'll miss many a good line.

Rogen's associated acts, as per usual, are on board either as an effort to establish a stellar billing or merely because its convenient, and this reviewer is inclined to believe that it's the latter. Ultimately there is no real charm to the casting; whereas the relaxed nature of these performers essentially playing themselves worked in 'This Is The End', here it is more of a distraction. It speaks volumes that, apart from Edward Norton's standout as a Jewish bagel, the only other player seemingly having fun with their role is one of the storyboard artists.

In a bold effort to be thoroughly crude and overly offensive, 'Sausage Party' succeeds in abundance by throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the wall and watching what sticks. The end product is the most unorthodox comedy in recent history - a simple barrel of laughs that still manages to leave you scratching your head at the end - but it's also some of the best work that Rogen and his contemporaries have ever put out.

Centred on the concept of an annual twelve-hour window in which all crime, including murder, is legal, The Purge is one of those rare franchise starters, like Saw or Final Destination, that takes a seemingly simple scenario which then captivates the imaginations of the movie-going public. What if our lives and our homes were defenceless for one whole night, and worse, what if it was encouraged by the state? What if you couldn't afford to install a high-tech security system to protect your family? What if you were homeless, or in need of emergency medical care when, by law, there was none available?

The Purge fails to do anything other than briefly consider the implications of these issues, and for that it is a massive waste of an opportunity. Although our main characters are an affluent family who have made a small fortune by selling vital security mechanisms for The Purge, the ethics of such are barely argued. What follows instead is a familiar home invasion narrative that borders on nonsensical, as a family of four manage to lose track of one another within a relatively small suburban household as they come under threat from the 'Purgers' threatening to invade their residence.

The core conflict of how a pacifist chooses to act in the face of a life-threatening situation is certainly gripping, but the film subsequently aims to distract you from thinking about it too much. The Purge is a film that has much to say about the politics, economics and morality of such a situation, but mistakenly assumes that the audience would rather ignore them in favour of watching a cliché game of cat and mouse unfold. A damning consequence of this miscalculation is that the drama is then confined to a limited setting while we are left to picture what horrors are most certainly occurring outside, beyond the walls.

Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey portray the social ambiguity of their idyllic married couple well, but by the end they are anticipating the end of The Purge just as eagerly as the audience is anticipating the end of the film.

Prison Break's Sarah Wayne Callies carries this British-Indian horror production with the same demeanour as her more familiar role; maternal enough to sell the film's major theme, yet strong enough to carry the entire feature. This, after all, is what Callies is tasked with, as the grieving mother she portrays invites her dead son's spirit back to the world of the living with inevitably chilling consequences.

While the majority of studio horror nowadays is bound by so many stipulations - the jump scares, the teenage cast demographics - that ultimately render it generic, The Other Side of the Door benefits from a refreshing change of setting in its Indian locale. As a result, not only does the film look elegantly beautiful with its colours and scenery, but its plot also benefits from a less familiar cultural angle than most supernatural thrillers are afforded. The central menace here - a temple doorway through which the living can contact the dead - is so far removed from Western ideology and the recurring origins of its horror movie monsters that the film undeniably offers something that is at least different, if not completely new. The second act, where things go bump in the night as Maria questions the nature of the spirit she's allowed back into her home, is admittedly routine, but that's not the issue with modern horror; the issue is whether or not it can at least try to overcome this mundane narrative.

This is where the screenplay's wider themes come in to sharper focus, as the audience encourages Maria to make the right choices while sympathising with her fragile state of mind. The horror isn't simply limited to creepy children and unseen entities, but also the lengths a parent is compelled to go to in order to be reunited with a lost child. It's most certainly enough to make the more pedestrian scares forgivable as you witness a family being torn further apart by their loss just as much they are the shadows that lurk around them.

The Other Side of the Door won't terrify you any more than any other supernatural horror released this year, and that's because, by now, genre aficionados really have seen it all. What it will do, however, is linger with you much longer as you place yourselves in the shoes of an emotionally drained mother who, you understand, would do anything to see her son again.