A Letter to Momo (2011)
Anime about the oddball friendship between a teenage girl and three goblins. Strongly reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, it becomes a film about a girl’s deep feeling for her parents that eventually ends up being greatly affecting
A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman (2012)
The death of Graham Chapman put paid to any idea of a Monty Python reunion. Not to be deterred, a group of Python fans have brought Chapman’s autobiography to life as an animated film in the absurdist Python style with most of the remaining Pythons returning to provide voice work
A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Danny Boyle eccentricity with Ewan McGregor as an inept kidnapper and Cameron Diaz as his more astute abductee. A head-scratching comedy that also throws gun-toting angels into the mix
A Little Bit of Soul (1997)
Australian black comedy about research into longevity and Satanism. The film has a great cast but hits a shrilly hysteric pitch without ever being funny
A Little Bit Zombie (2012)
Amiable Canadian entry in the oversaturated market of the zombie comedy that emerges sort of as a Judd Apatow film with zombies and produces the occasional smile if never any true laughs
A Lobster Tale (2006)
Set in a nowhere New England town, fisherman Colm Meaney discovers a miracle-healing moss. Sort of a Magical Realist version of The Shipping News
L.A. Slasher (2015)
One of the worst films I’ve seen in some time. The idea of a killer targeting all that is talentless in Hollywood has some satiric amusement but it is a plotless incoherent film delivered in a series of MTV visuals that feel like whatever was going through the director’s coke-addled mind on the day
L.A. Zombie (2010)
Whether we asked for it or not, this gives us the world’s first gay pornographic zombie film
L: Change the World (2008)
Spinoff from the Japanese Death Note films made by Ring director Hideo Nakata and featuring the character of the weird detective L. L was a scene stealer in the other films but the disappointment is the failure to come up with an interesting enough plot for him here
La Llorona (2019)
At contrast to the forgettable James Wan produced version around the same time, this Guatemalan film spins the Latin America folktale as a parable about those behind historic atrocities being haunted
Labyrinth (1986)
Stunning Jim Henson directed fantasy film set in a world of visual illusions where the Henson team’s puppetry effects are at the peak of their game to provide the creature effects
Labyrinth (2012)
Christopher (Creep, Triangle, Black Death) Smith has become one of the most underrated genre directors so I was anticipating his first venture into tv but this disappointingly feels like only a commercial project. The cross-historical quest for the Holy Grail story reads like warmed over Da Vinci Code
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
An absolute classic of Disney animation concerning two talking dogs from different walks of life who fall in together. It is impossible not to be charmed by the plaintive delights and sweetly romantic tenderness of the film
Lady and the Tramp (2019)
The Disney firesale goes on where it now seems the studio’s policy to leverage anything that was ever a success and endlessly throw it back at us. The latest iteration of this is of their animated films being rehashed in live-action. At which the best compliment you can pay this remake of the 1955 film is that it is at least better than The Lion King
Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure (2001)
Disappointing video-released sequel to the classic Disney animated film where the engaging characters of the original have become settled down parents
Lady Beware (1987)
Psycho-thriller where designer Diane Lane creates a series of sexually provocative window dressings only to be targeted by a stalker
Lady Frankenstein (1971)
One of several continental Frankenstein films of the 1970s concerning Frankenstein’s daughter. This tries to imitate Hammer Films on a lesser budget and with more liberal dashings of nudity
Lady in a Cage (1964)
Home invasion thriller where Olivia de Havilland as a wheelchair-ridden woman brutalised and tormented by three hoodlums
Lady in the Water (2006)
For all its descent into loopy ideas at time, this is a decidedly interesting M. Night Shyamalan film about myth featuring Bryce Dallas Howard as a water nymph
Lady in White (1988)
Beautifully made Coming of Age ghost story from the greatly underrated Frank LaLoggia
Lady Krampus (2018)
Misleadingly titled film that features no Krampus and is actually a low-budget Christmas slasher
Lady of Csejte (2015)
Another film about Countess Bathory, although one that returns to the historical record rather than tries to cast her as a vampire. This disappointment of the film is the choice to tell it through the eyes of two kids and to give a ridiculously tame account of Bathory’s activities
Lady Usher (2020)
A gender-flipped adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story, this is surely the equivalent of The Room among Poe adaptations and may be the worst Poe film adaptation ever
Lady, Stay Dead (1981)
An Australian psycho film that gained a fascination, being called sleazy and sordid upon its release. Which of course makes it a must see for Moria
Ladyhawke (1985)
Beautifully made Richard Donner mediaeval fantasy with two lovers suffering a curse that transforms them into animals only able to touch in person for a second at dusk and dawn each day
Lake Eerie (2016)
This seems to be shaping up to be yet another low-budget haunted house film of which the genre has been over-saturated in recent years, While never straying too far from this, the film does throw in some interestingly strange twists that divert the attention
Lake Fear (2014)
A cabin in the woods horror made with an ineptitude of execution on almost every level. This sets out to rip off The Evil Dead but becomes one shock effect after another that runs into an incomprehensible mass like a bad nightmare you can’t wake up from
Lake Fear 2: The Swamp (2018)
Slasher film in which a group of unlikeable teens on Springbreak are slaughtered by backwoods hicks in the Everglades. Sold as a sequel to Lake Fear despite neither film being connected in any way
Lake Mungo (2008)
An Australian Found Footage film about a haunting that came out just before Paranormal Activity went massive. Rather than the intense spookiness of Paranormal Activity, this is more of a mockumentary that is constantly turning what we expect is going on on its head
Lake of Dracula (1971)
The second in a trilogy of spookily eerie Japanese vampire films
Lake Placid (1999)
David E. Kelley, better known as a high-profile tv producer, turns his hand to writing a killer crocodile film, although the result never ends up satisfying either as a monster movie or the jokey tone Kelley wants to take
Lamb (2021)
Standout Icelandic film about a couple who adopt a sheep-human hybrid child
Lancelot du Lac (1974)
French director Robert Bresson’s take on the Arthurian legends, stripped of nobility and magic. I’m afraid I’m not part of the critical cult around Bresson. Films that are dull and lifeless are not about spiritual yearning, they are dull and lifeless
Land of the Dead (2005)
George Romero’s return to the zombie genre after twenty years, which he was ironically only able to make after others starting remaking and homaging his films. The result is a mixed affair. Romero still makes pungent social metaphors but the gory extremes of his earlier films seem tamed down
Land of the Lost (2009)
Big screen revival of the children’s lost world tv series that is now turned into a loud and excruciating Will Ferrell vehicle that reduces the original into lowbrow farce. A majorly unfunny bomb on every level
Land of the Minotaur (1977)
Shoddy Greek made film that imports Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence concerning a cult of minotaur worshippers
Landmine Goes Click (2015)
A film that sells its entire premise in three words. Essentially a variant on Phone Booth and the host of Conceptual Containment Thrillers that copied that, the film keeps a character trapped on a landmine unable to move for the duration and keeps piling on torturous twists from there
Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023)
A bizarrely funny deadpan satire about aliens that have invaded the Earth and turned humanity into an economic underclass
Lapsis (2020)
Wonderfully Kafka-esque film about a man who takes a job laying cable for a new internet company only to find himself in a system of nightmare rules and regulations
Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)
Visually stunning Hayao Miyazaki film about the search for a lost city of the clouds Soaring adventure in an alternate world of airship fantasies before arriving at the title location, rendered in a series of breathtaking vistas
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider (2001)
The first film adaptation of the popular videogame was a big hit. It is a film largely premised around the personality mystique of Angelina Jolie. Outside of the Jolie presence, the film is a half-baked series of plot ends and action scenes taken from better films
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
The first Tomb Raider film was empty-headed but a hit but the series was then promptly killed off by this sequel. Angelina Jolie’s performance that feels detached from human emotion and the action sequences ludicrous
Larva (2005)
Monster movie about larvae emerging from genetically engineered cattle feed and becoming giant bat-like creatures that attack humans. When a film casts Rachel Hunter as a corporate lawyer, it is not exactly aiming for high credibility stakes but this is passable formula fare
Laserblast (1978)
One of the first films to come out exploiting the success of Star Wars – an badly made teen underdog fantasy in which bullied Kim Milford takes revenge after finding an alien raygun
Last Action Hero (1993)
A big flop upon release, this is one of the most underrated films in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s oeuvre, a sophisticated and witty meta-fiction that views the cinema screen as another dimension and travels inside to allow Arnold to wittily deflate himself and the action genre
Last and First Men (2020)
An adaptation of the Olaf Stapledon novel that depicts the future evolution of humanity billions of years into the future. This defies every rule of good filmmaking and is still a spellbinding film
Last Cannibal World (1977)
The Italian cannibal film is the most extreme genre ever seen on screen. An earlier effort from the director of Cannibal Holocaust, this is from when they were still pretending to be anthropological films but delivers the gut-munching goods
Last Girl Standing (2015)
This asks the question of what happens to the final girl after a slasher film. This is less a slasher film than a work about post-traumatic stress before reaching a jaw-dropping ending
Last Journey of Paul W.R. (2020)
French film about Earth endangered by an oncoming moon and how only one man can save the world
Last Lives (1997)
B-budget action film in which C. Thomas Howell is caught up in a chase when an escaped criminal from an alternate timeline abducts his wife.
Last Night (1998)
Excellent Canadian-made End of the World film where actor/director Don McKellar eschews lavish big-budget spectacle (or even any explanations of the cause) for a wry, often haunting series of characters studies about how people meet the end
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Edgar Wright creates a dazzlingly stylish recreation of 1960s London in a work with Thomasine McKenzie as a modern girl haunted by ghosts of the era’s dark underside
Last Sentinel (2023)
Film set in a Waterworld styled drowned future aboard a mid-ocean platform between two warring sides. A film that almost entirely exists in terms of finely tuned psychological tensions
Last Shift (2014)
A ghost story that borrows more than a few touches from Assault on Precinct 13 in its tale of a haunted police station. Director Anthony DiBlasi has little time for cliche jumps and spends his time on accumulating atmosphere with considerable effetiveness
Last Year in Marienbad (1961)
Extraordinary work of the French New Wave with lovers drifting through an ornate hotel where memory and time itself seems to shift
Late Bloomer (2004)
Disturbing Japanese film about a man in a motorised wheelchair who turns serial killer
Late for Dinner (1991)
A thoughtful and well-written Cryogenic Sleepers Awake film that charts the culture shock experienced by two men who are frozen in the 1960s and then thawed out in the present day
Late Night Double Feature (2016)
In the same vein as Grindhouse, this is an anthology that consists of two longer stories, all set around the gimmick of a tv horror host playing a double-bill. A third story about the host and his assistant plays in between this along with several mocked-up parody trailers
Late Night With the Devil (2023)
This conducts a perfect simulation of a 1970s tv talkshow as a demonic possession occurs live on air
Late Phases (2014)
This is maybe the most original treatment of werewolf themes in the last decade. The film begins with the unique premise of ‘Werewolf in a Retirement Village’ and features a hero who is an aging blind man
Lathe of Heaven (2002)
The second film adaptation of conceptually ingenious Ursula Le Guin novel about a man whose dreams change reality when he wakes up
Lavalantula (2015)
In the same vein as the recent fad for gonzo killer shark films, we now have one about giant fire-breathing spiders. The film is lifted from formula by a considerable sense of humour and even peculiarly brings many of the cast of the Police Academy series out of retirement
Lavender (2016)
The director of The Last Exorcism Part II and a title that seemed to be doing as little as possible to suggest a horror film failed to enthuse me but I decided to give Lavender a shot. Alas, all we get is another ghost story that does an M. Night Shyamalan shift into an improbably contrived fugue state drama
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Vigilante film in which Gerard Butler exacts revenge against the justice system while imprisoned in a jail cell. The dispatches become entertainingly improbable to the point that Butler almost becomes a Batman villain in all but name
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)
The Lawnmower Man was far from a classic but this sequel has a computer-illiterate absurdity that pushes it into extremely bad movie stakes
Lazareth (2024)
Set in a post-pandemic future, this features Ashley Judd and daughters living on their own suddenly forced to welcome a stranger into their house
Lazareth (2024)
Set in a post-pandemic future, this features Ashley Judd and daughters living on their own suddenly forced to welcome a stranger into their house
Lazer Team (2015)
A film from the Austin, TX based comedy collective Rooster Teeth about four screw-ups who pick up power suit items from an alien spaceship only to find they are to defend Earth in a tournament. An idea more suited to a kid’s film that gets its laughs from broad, easy targets
Lazer Team 2 (2017)
Lazer Team was an easy predictable comedy about four screw-ups that accidentally obtain parts of an alien power suit. This sequel is all the same gags on rinse and repeat.
League of Gods (2016)
The growth of Chinese cinema is one of the success stories of the 2010s. This is a fantasy film that leaves anything Western fantastic cinema has made recently for dead, including epical battle scenes and a lavish sumptuousness of costuming that leaves your jaw on the floor
Leapin’ Leprechauns! (1995)
Likeable film for children from Charles Band about an American family who inherit a property in Ireland inhabited by leprechauns
Leapin’ Leprechauns! 2 (1996)
Sequel to the Charles Band produced children’s film Leapin’ Leprechauns!, this is a much superior film that gets quite darker
Leatherface (2017)
The seventh follow-up to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, supposedly a prequel that offers us a Leatherface origin story. The least Texas Chain Saw-like of all the sequels, this makes some odd storytelling choices and is eventually a far cry from the original
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
The third of the Texas Chainsaw films where the rights have been inherited by a studio and the brutality of the original promptly watered down to MPAA standards
Leave the World Behind (2023)
A strong dramatic work about a sudden catastrophe that occurs when the world’s internet and cellular system are shut off
Left Behind (2000)
Adaptation of the best-selling Christian book series about the Biblical End of the World, the coming of the Anti-Christ etc. There is a whole mini-industry of these films and, if one can take the preachiness, this is not entirely bad as the genre goes
Left Behind (2014)
Nicolas Cage takes on The Rapture in this film based on the best-selling books about the Biblical end of the world. Despite a much bigger budget than the earlier Kirk Cameron version, nothing terribly interesting happens and the film’s big drama is merely the landing of a plane
Left Behind – Vanished: Next Generation (2016)
There have been the various adaptations of the Left Behind books about the Biblical Rapture; this is an attempt to spin the same off for Young Adult audiences and is not very good
Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002)
The second of the Kirk Cameron Biblical End Times films, which leave you critically divided – on one hand, they are quite competently made B movies, on the other the fundamentalist message is unpalatable
Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist (2023)
A revival of the Kirk Cameron starring Biblical End of the World films and a sequel to the Nicolas Cage starring reboot. Directed by and starring your favourite internet troll Kevin Sorbo
Left Behind: World at War (2005)
The third of the Left Behind films with Kirk Cameron facing the Biblical End of the World and the Antichrist. This travels well down into bad movie territory
Legacy of Dracula: The Bloodthirsty Doll (1970)
The first of a trilogy of Japanese vampire films, although this does not feature Dracula despite the title and should be considered more of ghost story.
Legend (1985)
Hugely underrated Ridley Scott film that was a box-office flop. Scott attempts to reconstruct the fairytale as something dark and primal and creates moments that are superlative cinema
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010)
Zack Snyder makes an exquisite animated film for adults about talking owls that comes with a sweeping mythic arc
Legend of the Overfiend (1989)
Cult anime about a demon war on Earth that quite takes you back with extremes of violence and sexual fetishism
Legend of the Werewolf (1974)
Freddie Francis directed werewolf film from the latter days entry in the Anglo-horror cycle, which owes much to Hammer’s earlier Curse of the Werewolf
Legend of the White Horse (1986)
Christopher Lloyd and Dee Wallace star in one of the tattiest of 1980s fantasy films about a magic horse that is really a dragon
Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return (2014)
Modern would-be animated sequel to The Wizard of Oz that proved a charmless flop and seems to miss the magic and whimsy of the original by a mile. Entirely formulaic in the plotting, while the familiar characters have been run over with a gratingly flip modern sense of humour
Legion (1998)
Well-made Alien copy that seems to have been conceived as a crosshatch between The Dirty Dozen and The Thing where the creature remains mostly psychological. A particularly good cast line-up create an interesting range of characters
Legion (2010)
An absurd film where angels conduct a war on Earth amid much gunfire and creature effects
Legion of Super-Heroes (2023)
An animated film based on both the Legion of Super-Heroes and Supergirl
Lemming (2005)
Surreal very Lynchian French film in which a deranged Charlotte Rampling shoots herself and then appears to possess Laurent Lucas’s wife Charlotte Gainsbourg
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Film adaptation of the popular children’s books expends much effort on the design and look and a wildly over-acting Jim Carrey as the villain. Beyond that, the show never much goes anywhere
Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (1973)
Little seen vampire film that has gained a cult reputation. This nominally falls into the lesbian vampire fad that was popular during this era but mostly takes place on a level of dreamy suggestiveness. Not fully successful in all the parts but it certainly does something unique
Lensman (1984)
E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s space opera books are given the anime treatment, which abandons much adherence to the source material and ends up more as a copy of Star Wars
Leonard Part 6 (1987)
Bizarre flop of a gonzo spy comedy starring Bill Cosby as a retired agent forced to return to the field
Leones (2012)
Group of youths walk through the woods lost then discover why they are there in a genre twist ending you can see coming an hour before. A film that seems to have escaped being about nothing and a hackneyed ending by being slapped with the arts label
Leprechaun (1993)
The first in the popular series of films starring Warwick Davis as a malevolent leprechaun. Fairly cheesy and silly, mostly known today for featuring a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston as the heroine of the show
Leprechaun 2 (1994)
The second in the Leprechaun series with Warwick Davis delivering a series of extremely silly novelty deaths accompanied by excruciating one-liners
Leprechaun 3 (1995)
Third in the series takes Warwick Davis’s Leprechaun to Las Vegas for a series of novelty deaths that have silliness that frequently defies belief