Leprechaun

A really enjoyable low-budget horror comedy romp that gets a big kick in the pants from a delightfully robust central performance by Warwick Davis as the titular evil and ugly Irish gnome: Davis is clearly having the time of his life as this nasty little bugger who kills folks with merry sadistic glee and makes lots of choice campy quips while he's at it. Jennifer Aniston likewise does well as a spunky young gal in peril. Writer/director Mark Jones keeps the inane, but still entertaining story zipping along at a continual pace, generates a good deal of tension and creepy atmosphere, delivers some gnarly bits of gore, and further spices things up with an amusing sense of twisted dark humor. A huge hit on home video, this was followed by a decidedly mixed bag of sequels.

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. I like watching “Leprechaun” on St. Patrick’s Day, but not because it’s a good movie. You’d have a more frightening experience pouring expired milk in a bowl of Lucky Charms, and the lame jokes printed on the back of the box will probably deliver more intentional laughs than this script. However, under the correct circumstances you can have a good time with this ridiculous horror film.

The premise? Well, it’s a one-word title that refers to a holiday, and you know that probably means it’s a horror movie. You’re half right. This is a horror comedy about a family that moves into a new house and that discovers a killer leprechaun (Warwick Davis) in the basement. He wants his gold, Tory (Jennifer Aniston), her father (John Sanderford) and the three hired helps contracted to fix up the place, Nathan (Ken Olandt), Ozzie (Mark Holton) and Alex (Robert Hy Gorman) just want to make it out alive.

This movie needed to happen. I mean we’ve got a movie with a killer snowman (“Jack Frost”), a killer Tooth Fairy (“Darkness Falls”) and even a killer Pinocchio (“Pinocchio’s Revenge”) In fact this film is a two-fer by also giving us a St. Patrick’s Day-themed picture. To be honest, the movie doesn’t really have much going for it besides for the fact that it’s about a killer leprechaun. There are a few things here and there that redeem it slightly, even if you’re not into watching horror films ironically. Warwick Davis is having a lot of fun with the role and the makeup effects to make him look like a sinister fairy-folk are also good. There are also some moments throughout that are simply so outrageous you can’t help yourself from laughing, like when a pogo stick is used to murder a man. I also like that the movie is clearly not taking itself too seriously. When one of your villains’ major weaknesses is a shoe, it’s obvious that the objective wasn’t to frighten the audience.

Another element that slightly redeems this movie, for me at least is the fact that Jennifer Aniston is in it. It’s her first major role, and I always enjoy seeing people’s humble beginnings, particularly when it’s in a horror movie (Kevin Bacon in “Friday the 13th”, Jamie Lee Curtis in “Halloween”, Johnny Depp in “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, etc.) I like to think of it as an inspiration for all the up-and-coming actors and actresses out there. It’s ok to be in a bad movie early in your career. Aniston herself fares all right. Her dialogue is pretty bad at times, but she’s good in the role and you can see that she rises above the material that she’s given (as much as humanly possible anyway.)

That’s all the praise I can give. Otherwise this film is pretty terrible all around. I think if I had to point to the one worst thing about “Leprechaun” (and I refuse to say that it’s the concept) I’d say it’s the overall story. It’s a messy plot. There are odd gaps in time, characters are introduced and dropped throughout, the Leprechaun’s powers are really vague, our heroes behave awkwardly and the conclusion comes out of nowhere. I’d seen this movie before and somehow it never occurred to me until now, but that ending is absolutely ludicrous. Let’s say you were trying to stop a mind-controlled Superman. You contact his greatest enemy, Lex Luthor for advice. What does he do? He advises you to build a gun that emits red sun radiation. You’d be furious because that’s just lousy advice, no matter how effective it would be! And no, the fact that our heroes manage to find a way to exploit the incredibly useless information they’re given doesn’t make it any more legitimate. I don’t want to say what happens at the end of the movie, but what takes these characters just a few minutes to do I’ve been trying to do for 27 years (not actively I’ll admit) and I still haven’t had any luck.

“Leprechaun” could have used more gold from its pot because it is cheap and you can tell. There’s a shot where Tory tears a phone off the wall, and it’s obvious that it’s a prop. There’s no phone jack behind it and no cable either. There are numerous shots where it feels like frames are missing because characters suddenly have injuries. You can also tell that the costume designer had no desire to add this film to their curriculum vitae. Check out those paint stains on the characters, yeesh! I was also not particularly impressed with the writing. I’d say that maybe 1 out of 5 jokes hit the mark. I laughed plenty, but mostly because the dialogue was so atrocious I couldn’t help myself.

It’s not particularly creative, the characters are lame (and stupid too), the villain is ridiculous, the gore pretty sparse and the special effects come in at about 50/50. I bet everyone except Warwick Davis wish this film had gone direct-to-video and been as forgotten as “Elves”, the movie about the killer Nazi Christmas Elves. It’s only watchable for those horror fanatics that will watch absolutely anything or the morbidly curious with a passion for schlock. That’s me to a tee, so I recommend it if you see the cover and you tell yourself “Yes, I think this will be fun”. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Maybe if you get sloshed you will be able to make it through the 92 minute running time. (Full screen version on DVD, March 14, 2015)

The stupidest movie ever, don't watch it, a complete waist of time. Aniston acted not bad, but the leprechaun was terrible. Classic crapy cheesy movie, thumbs down!!!