| Leprechaun Released: 1993 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Supernatural Nuts and Bolts: A six hundred year old Leprechaun appears in a small Midwestern American town in search of his pot of gold. He’s not very discriminate when it comes to the means by which he plans on acquiring it. BLIMEY! Summary: Dan O’Grady has returned home from burying his mother in Ireland. Arriving drunk on the doorstep of his North Dakota farmhouse, he clamors to his wife that they are ‘Rich’. When questioned about this newfound wealth, he replies that he had stolen a bag of gold from a leprechaun. Mrs. O’Grady thinks he’s off his rocker and goes back inside. While she’s puttering about the house, Dan goes off to hide his bag of gold inside of an old pick-up truck. Little did Mrs. O’Grady know however, but the grotesque little leprechaun had hitched a ride to the states inside of Dan’s suitcase. Bursting from the luggage, he attacks Mrs. O’Grady sending her toppling down the steps into the cellar. The old lady breaks her neck between the fourth and sixth step. Dan discovers this and chucks the little fucker into a big wooden crate. He keeps him at bay by means of a four-leaf clover, which he holds like Doctor Van Helsing holding onto a crucifix. He nails the lid down to the crate and leaves the clover on top of it. This effectively traps the leprechaun. Dousing the crate in gasoline, he tries to burn it up but suffers a stroke before he can light a match. It doesn’t really matter though because the Lep is still stuck inside the crate. He sits there for the next ten years. Now we come to 1993. J.D. Reding and his daughter Tory (Jennifer Anniston) have moved from Los Angeles to North Dakota. J.D. has purchased the old O’Grady farmhouse and plans on renovating it. Tory hates it and makes her feelings known as she shambles around cobwebs and tarantulas. Walking outside of the house, she meets Nathan. Nathan, his little brother Alex and their retarded friend Ozzie own a business called Three Guys That Paint. Pretty creative huh? Nathan’s your typical stud type of character and he takes an instant shine to Tory. Tory accidentally knocks over his can of paint thinner, and Nate takes this opportunity to hit on her. She’s kind of turned on by him and decides to give the house a second chance. While all this is going on, Alex drops a can of blue paint on the retard. Ozzie is pretty pissed and has to go inside to clean up. After washing his face, he hears a faint voice crying “Please let me out” from down in the basement. He goes downstairs and finds the crate. Unwittingly, he knocks the four-leaf clover off of the lid allowing the leprechaun enough power to break free. He tackles Ozzie and claims that he wants his crock of gold. Ozzie manages to escape, but only because Leppy’s powers are too weak to stop him. Running outside, he tells Nathan, Alex and Tory that a leprechaun attacked him. Naturally, the group doesn’t believe him. He then sees a bright rainbow in the sky and takes off after it, believing that he might find a pot of gold at the end of it. Alex takes off after him in order to bring him back. The two reach the end of the rainbow where they find an old battered rusted piece of shit Fred Sanford-mobile. Inside the cab of the truck is a brown leather satchel containing 100 gold pieces. The two are elated and wonder if the gold coins are genuine. Testing their authenticity, Ozzie bites down on one of the coins. Idiot that he is, he swallows the damn thing. Returning back to the house, they decide to hide the gold in the old O’Grady water well. They don’t plan on telling the others about their find. Meanwhile, Tory is standing next to the painters’ truck when something claws at her legs. Her father thinks that it’s a cat and goes off to find it. He reaches his hand into the hollowed remains of an old tree trunk where the leprechaun is waiting. Leppy takes a big ole bite out of his hand and pop has to be rushed to the hospital. At this point, the others still believe that it was a cat that bit him. After dropping J.D. off, Nathan and Tory decide to get lunch at a local diner. Alex and Ozzie take one of their coins down to an antiques shop to have it appraised. They leave it in the care of the proprietor and meet back up with Nathan and Tory. The proprietor decides to lock the coin in his safe. When he opens the safe, the leprechaun leaps out at him and bites him on the knee. As the guy falls back reeling in pain, Leppy takes an old pogo stick and begins hopping about on the guys face and chest until he dies. (Silly, but kind of cool.) He then steals a toy car and takes off down the highway in it. Believe it or not, a local deputy ACTUALLY pulls him over. (I would love to know what the charge was. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t speeding.) Anyway, Quickdraw McGraw doesn’t believe that it’s an actual leprechaun until he starts clawing at his face. The guy runs into the woods terrified. After playing cat-n-mouse for a bit, Leppy jumps down on top of him and snaps the poor boy’s neck. He takes the deputy back to the cop car. He returns to the farmhouse and begins rummaging around for his crock of gold. He pretty much makes a mess of everything, except for a few pairs of shoes, which he feels obligated to polish. The Scooby gang eventually returns, but the Leprechaun is nowhere to be seen. Instead they hear this strange tingling sound reminiscent of a bell from a tricycle. (Yes, the little fucker actually road a tricycle earlier in the film.) Stud-muffin Nathan goes outside to investigate. While trying to figure out what number comes after 4, he walks into a bear trap. Dropping to the ground like a fat oily shit, he begins howling in pain. This attracts the attention of the leprechaun. Leppy bites down on his already wounded leg, forcing Nathan to waffle the shit out of him with mag-light. He drives the midget back far enough so that he can blast him away with a shotgun. This doesn’t kill him of course, but this dumb dick doesn’t know that. Ozzie runs inside to call the cops. This is the part of the movie where you blink wide-eyed and wonder why they sent the retard (of all people) into the house to call the police. Don’t they KNOW that he’s going to fuck the whole thing up? And as predictable as the climax to Titanic, Ozzie tells the cops that a vicious man-eating leprechaun is attacking them. Sheriff Cronin more or less ignores the call, believing it to be another one of ‘crazy’ Ozzie’s stories. Ozzie comes back out and the whole gang pile into Nathan’s truck to try and escape. In the most ludicrous scene ever, the leprechaun steals a go-cart from a nearby barn. He rams the go-cart into the truck, KNOCKING it over into a ravine. What the hell kind of engine did they put IN to that go-cart? Since their escape route is now totaled, they have little choice but to return to the farmhouse. Tory slams the leprechaun’s hand in the doorway cutting it off at the wrist. He picks it up and quickly re-adheres it to his stump. He leaves soon after. Now is the point, where Tory learns about Alex’s and Ozzie’s little secret. Realizing that the little green shit only wants his frigging gold back, she forces the boys to tell where they hid it. Alex reveals that it’s in the well. Tory runs outside and manages to retrieve the sack of gold before the leprechaun can attack her. She hurriedly gives him the cash and runs back into the house. Happier than a pig in shit, Leppy goes back to the old rusted truck to count his money. There’s one missing. (Remember, Tons-o-Fun ate a gold coin in the beginning of the flick.) Now he’s REALLY pissed off. He races back to the farmhouse to get his last coin. The Scoobies run around the house for a bit trying to shoot the leprechaun before racing back outside. Nathan keeps him at bay by throwing shoes at him. Now, this may sound silly but it actually works. The leprechaun is obliged to polish every shoe before continuing on his way. Tory decides to find old Dan O’Grady to figure out how he first defeated the leprechaun. She takes her father’s truck and goes to an old age home. She finds O’Grady who tells her that only a four-leaf clover will stop him. The leprechaun tracks her to the old age home and kills O’Grady. He chases after Tory in a wheelchair (for some reason), but the girl manages to get away. She hops in her truck and heads back towards the O’Grady farm. Along the way, Tory finds a cop car. She runs up begging for help before discovering that this guy is likewise a victim of the leprechaun. Leppy attacks her but she defends herself with the deputy’s nightstick. She slams the thing right into Leppy’s right eye and runs away. The leprechaun needs to replace his eye now, so he scoops out the fleshy orb from the dead cop’s skull and plunks it into his own empty socket. He then begins to chase her back to the farm. Finally getting back to the farm, Tory begins scrounging through a patch of green grass in search of a four-leaf clover. This is where the film jumps from being stupid to being REALLY stupid. As she becomes more and more frustrated in her search, Ozzie tells her that she has to have ‘faith’ in order to find the magic clover. And lo and behold, a fancy shmancy little four-leafed clover begins to glow in the palm of her hand. Christ, why didn’t she just click her fucking heels and squeal, “There’s no place like home!” five or six times. Anyway, the leprechaun arrives and begins attacking Ozzie. He knows now that Ozzie is the one who swallowed his coin. He begins ripping his face up with the sharp edge of his shoe buckle. Meanwhile, Alex gets a hold of the clover and wraps it around a pellet. He puts the pellet in his slingshot and launches it at the leprechaun. The midget flies backwards into the water well. Apparently the old man lied to Tory, because the clover didn’t seem to accomplish fuck all except for making the leprechaun even uglier than he already was. Nathan goes over to the well just as Leppy is scampering his ugly ass out. He beats him back down with the butt of a shotgun and then pours a gallon of gasoline into the well. Lighting a match, he tosses it inside and the whole thing blows up. Acting/Dialogue: The acting isn’t too bad. Jennifer Anniston bimbos her way through every scene just like she does on Friends. Warwick Davis plays the leprechaun, but to be honest, I’m not really sure he had a good handle of the role he was playing. There are some scenes, where he belts out some of most over-accentuated Irish brogue dialogue I’ve ever heard, and others where he doesn’t even have an accent at all. His dialogue is the true harbinger of this film. I suppose his lines were meant to be humorous, but if they were, I sure didn’t get the joke. Just about everything he says consists of: “By the luck o’ the Irish” and “It’s not nice to tease a leprechaun” and “Where’s me pot o’gold?” and “Blimey”. Are there any stereotypical Irish colloquialisms that I may have forgotten? Chances are he said them. And if he didn’t…give him time. There are three sequels after this one. Gore: There’s a little bit of gore, but not a great deal. The most gruesome scenes occur when Leppy gets his hand chopped off and when he pogo stomps the antiques dealer. Guilty Pleasures: None. Although I always got a kick out of the afore-mentioned pogo-stick stomp. The Good: When I think of Leprechaun, I think of what it would be like to watch someone throw a baby off of the top of the Empire State Building. You don’t really WANT to watch it, but some perverse curiosity prevents you from tearing your eyes away. And no matter how distasteful it may seem, your gaze remains focused even as the little diaper swathed gurgling infant splatters into a big red greasy smear on the pavement. I believe watching Leprechaun is very similar to that. At least director Mark Jones did us the courtesy by IMMEDIATELY showing us that this was going to be a dumb movie. In the first thirty seconds we see the leprechaun singing some dumb-ass limerick about killing whoever steals his pot of gold. The remainder of the film really just becomes a curio case where we sit and wonder, “Just how dumb can it REALLY get? With each moment of inanity, we laugh at the realization that we likely paid full price to rent this. I’ve brought it up several times already, but I just really LOVE the scene where Leppy stomps on dude with the pogo stick. He sings some corny-ass song while doing it, but it’s a gas watching the thing come crunching down on the guy’s face. Maybe if the antiques dealer were in a bit better shape, he could have fought the little fucker off. Another cool scene involved the eyeball. It was predictable as hell, but I always like seeing people steal other people’s body parts. I mean…why not? They’re not using them anymore right? It only makes sense for the Leprechaun to partake of that which he needs. Anything else is just wasteful. There is one other detail that I actually genuinely enjoyed. While trying to escape, the Scoobies throw a bunch of shoes at the leprechaun. What made them think this would prove effective is beyond me. Nevertheless it worked. Just like a medieval folklore, Leppy stops and feels compelled to polish every single shoe before chasing after his would-be victims. I don’t know if this is actually part of Irish lore, but it sounds like something that we would find in those old fairy tales. Ultimately, if you rented Leprechaun and expected something OTHER than a completely cheese-filled penis, then shame on you. Your ass should of known better! The Bad: If you made it this far into the review then you should know by now that this is movie is dumber than dog shit. There is no real direction at all here. No plot for that matter either. It’s pretty much just the Leprechaun trying to get his gold back. In any other slasher flick, there’s usually some other element occurring that creates at least the semblance of a plot. But here there’s none. What makes this film lack direction is the fact that you really have no idea what the director was aiming for. Was this supposed to be a scary movie? It wasn’t. Was this supposed to a funny movie? It wasn’t. Was this supposed to be the next Citizen Kane? Well…maybe. If Mark Jones had actually taken five minutes to think about exactly what he wanted this film to be, it probably could have at least warranted nomination in the ‘so bad its good’ category. But as it stands, it will forever be just another dumb movie in the long history of dumb movies. The worst element has to come from the living anachronisms (Namely the cast). This movie was made in 1993, but you wouldn’t know it to look at the clothing and hairstyles. Ken Olandt (Nathan) looks as if he went to the Sean Cassidy School of hair design. Alex wears this blisteringly painful yellow and red long-sleeved shirt. As I watch him, I can only imagine that somewhere in America we will find Ronald McDonald lying naked, bleeding in an alley wondering who in the fuck stole his clothes but left his silly-shoes. Even Jennifer Aniston is a throwback to the 80s, with her iron-on patchwork daisy-dukes and her L.A. Gear sneakers. The most disappointing facet of this film is that we just simply don’t give a fuck about this leprechaun. I guess we’re supposed to think he’s funny, but his dialogue is so blandly retarded that I just can’t simply muster the energy to care one iota about him. He doesn’t even register on the ‘annoying as hell’ scale. There’s one scene that I brought up during the summary that is so dumb that it needs to be mentioned twice. I’m talking about the go-cart scene. It’s a good scene for no other reason than it serves to jar the viewer out of the hypnotic malaise that they likely fell into. This moment is so universally stupid that it doesn’t even come off as funny. The go-cart knocks the pick-up truck into the ravine. I’ve driven go-carts. They pretty much operate off of lawn mower engines. I don’t care if the thing is being driven by a pissed off leprechaun or not, there is NO way it could ever knock a pick-up truck over. And what’s more…the character’s run BACK in to the house. I guess they forgot that there’s another pick-up truck parked right behind the last one. Maybe they were afraid that Leppy would body check that one as well. And now for the climax. This whole ‘faith’ moment where Tory finds the magic clover is just retarded with a capital Tart. These are scenes that I like to refer to as the ANTI-MENSA. I guess the director thought he was being funny. Aww…hell, I have no IDEA what the director was doing. It was just dumb. I have to stop. I can’t talk about this anymore. I feel as if my IQ has actually lowered by a few points just talking about this ridiculous piece of shit. Believe it or not, this turkey actually spawned three sequels. Remember folks. Blarney is Irish for Bullshit. Great Lines: “Fuck you Lucky Charms.” --Alex says this just before he slingshots the clover-wrapped rock into munchkin’s face. Overall Rating: 3 out of 10 four-leaf clovers. Blimey! |
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| Back to me Blarney Stone! Back to me Shamrock! Back to me Lucky Charms! |
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