Countless sequels to popular franchises seems to be a staple of the horror genre, not a good one, but whacha gonna do? It’s wedged in there and it always will be. So what franchises come to mind? Well there’s Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre to name a few, and then there’s others like Leprechaun. What separates Leprechaun from these other films? Maybe it’s the fact that not even the first installment of this franchise is good. I just recently watched this tragedy of a film and was stunned to learn there are now six installments of this series. Seriously? What is the appeal of this film? I don’t know! I guess They are probably cheap, no one’s gonna care if they are bad or good, and Warwick Davis is a nice guy so he’ll probably take the paycheck most days of the week I mean there’s only so many roles for dwarf actors. I suppose most Leprechaun fans (if that’s a real thing) come back for Warwick. It’s by no means a well written character but he clearly has fun playing this limerick spewing little shit. Maybe they just want to see how far they can take it? I mean he’s been to Vegas, space, and the hood (twice!) Though enough of me trying to grasp this madness I’m just here to talk about the first one.
The film opens with a man who’s returned to his wife claiming to have caught a leprechaun. Naturally she doesn’t believe him (as any rational person should) but he says he got one and he’s locked him up in a suitcase. So the woman opens it, the Leprechaun gets out, the Leprechaun kills the woman and the man locks him up again. Honestly I think you could of cut out this whole scene and no one would care, it goes on far too long and is not in anyway exciting. Ten years later we are introduced to J.D. Redding (John Sanderford) and his daughter Torry (Jennifer Aniston, everyone has to start somewhere) as they’re moving to some crappy farmhouse to the summer. Torry complains about going to some crappy place in “New Mexico” to which her father corrects her by saying “It’s North Dakota.” Now I get it she’s supposed to be snooty, she doesn’t know about anything about the rest of the country but come on, those places are nowhere near each other. It’s with lines like this that we begin to prepare for an endless series of jokes in the script that also misfire spectacularly.
On the farm we are introduced to some painters, including Torry’s strapping young love interest Nathan (Ken Olandt), his wisecracking kid brother Alex (Robert Gorman) and their mentally challenged friend Ozzie (Mark Holton from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure). Maybe it’s just me but I find the inclusion of this kid and his retarded friend to be very strange for a horror movie. The two seem to share a kind Of Mice and Men relationship and often make me forget I’m watching a horror movie. Combined with the cartoonish premise Leprechaun feels more like a Disney Channel original movie (with some blood and occasional profanity) than anything else.
So how does the Leprechaun come into play with these characters? Well the retarded guy finds the chest the Leprechaun was sealed in and releases him. Upon his release the Leprechaun is relentless in the search for his gold which somehow the retarded guy has already found following a rainbow. So it’s a search for gold complete with terrible Lucky Charms jokes! This sounds like it could be hilarious but most of the kills are surprisingly bland and nothing really funny or interesting happens, it’s just a big unlucky failure pile. Son that note I’ll see ya again tomorrow, if I haven’t already blown my brains out after digesting this travesty.
There is only one occasion I will break out in song, and that is if there is an African American woman named betty in the same room as me.
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