by A common theme in the 90s was to take the most unlikely of creatures and attempt to make a horror film centered around them. This is why we have genre entries based on the likes of Rumpelstiltskin, Jack Frost, and more. This concept generally results in massive trainwrecks, but I was a kid back then and the novelty tickled my fancy. One of my favorites when I was growing up was a silly little film called Leprechaun. This is noteworthy for a few reasons. First of all despite the poor reviews it managed to spawn an entire franchise with more than six different sequels, and it was the very first movie to star Jennifer Anniston. I must have watched it a hundred times especially near Halloween; I just couldn’t get enough. I decided to give the Leprechaun another look now that I’m an adult and unfortunately it just didn’t tickle my fancy anymore. Unfortunately this one isn’t even saved by nostalgia glasses, but it’s still worth a laugh or two.
The film begins as an old man named Dan O’Grady (Shay Duffin) returns to his homestead in North Dakota after visiting Ireland to bury his mother’s ashes. His wife (Pamela Mant) is shocked to see him return stinking drunk and in a limo as he begins ranting and raving about being rich. How exactly did he become rich? He found a Leprechaun and made him fork over his gold, of course. Mrs. O’Grady, being the reasonable lady she is, doesn’t believe a word of this nonsense. She is then suddenly lured into another room by a child’s voice asking to be let out of a piece of luggage, and after obliging she is accosted by the murderous leprechaun. The little Irish fellow scares Mrs O’Grady which causes her to fall to her doom down a flight of stairs into the basement. Dan discovers the grisly scene and traps the leprechaun in a crate down below with a magical four leaf clover intending to set it aflame but fails to do so when a heart attack suddenly strikes.
Fast forward ten years. Dan O’Grady is in a resting home at the edge of town, and a new family is moving into his old homestead. J.D. Redding (John Sanderford) and his daughter Tory (Jennifer Anniston) got a great deal on this old house, and though it’s decrepit and covered in cobwebs the father is hell bent on fixing it up. He has hired a team of three painters to help him get the house in shape; Nathan (Ken Olandt), Alex (Robert Hy Gorman), and Ozzie (Mark Holton). After getting paint spilled on him the bumbling Ozzie is lured to the basement by the voice of a child calling out to him from a crate, and after he carelessly knocks the stale four leaf clover to the ground the leprechaun bursts out from his entrapment determined to track down all of his gold coins. Ozzie barely escapes and his rants and raves go ignored by the others. The story becomes all to real when he and Alex follow a rainbow leading to a bag of gold coins that belong to – you guessed it, the leprechaun. From here our little green friend terrorizes the small town on a hunt to track down the coins leaving a body count in his wake.
The first thing to understand about this film is that it’s a horror comedy. It’s not a serious effort to scare viewers and anyone expecting to be frightened will surely be disappointed here. The leprechaun character himself spouts off one-liners in almost every scene he’s featured in. Some of them hit their mark, but for the most part they’re a miss being either too cheesy or just plain not funny. Rumor has it this film began life as a scary children’s movie, and personally I think it should have stayed that way. The humor is too slapstick for adults to enjoy and the film is a bit gory and features foul language (there’s even a few f-bombs) making it inappropriate for children. The producers of this film didn’t know who to target with this release, and this leads to the whole thing being unfocused and largely inappropriate for both audiences. It’s certainly not scary in the least, but nor is it all that funny to be honest. Leprechaun is a bit of a mess and is difficult to take seriously even as a horror comedy.
Horror films live and die by their antagonist, and the leprechaun is a sinking ship in this regard. He’s simply not intimidating in the least, and Warwick Davis, although he does a wonderful job lacks a certain screen presence that all monsters need in this type of film. It certainly doesn’t help that he screams out catch phrases left and right which include “catch me if you can!” and “diddly diddly dee I’m Leprechaun me!” His powers are ill defined as well. I guess he can teleport anywhere he wants, but rarely does so in situations where it would be advantageous to taking out the main characters. He can also levitate objects and close/open doors which isn’t exactly terrifying. Leprechauns just aren’t good horror movie fodder, and they really should have stuck to the ‘scary children movie’ angle they were originally pursuing because it would be a significantly better fit than the halfway job they did here.
The Leprechaun is a pretty mediocre film. It’s caught somewhere between children’s movie and adult horror film that it feels very uneven. If the language was toned down and the more bloody sequences removed you would have a children’s film. Not a very good one, but I’m sure some kiddos would enjoy it. As it stands there’s just not enough here for adults with boring characters, an unoriginal setting and some very uninspired death sequences. It’s surprising that The Leprechaun found its audience enough to get so many sequels because this isn’t a very good movie. I give this one a solid ‘pass.’
Pros
- Funny at times
- Great ambiance
- Soundtrack
Cons
- Some of the jokes don't land right
