A Leprechaun Retrospective: Introduction and Leprechaun (1993)

Welcome to part one of a seven-part retrospective about a movie series about a serial killer leprechaun. I've wanted to do this for a while, and since it's now October, what better time to get into some of the cheesiest B movie "horror" films I know? I'll be mucking about with the format just a bit, but never you fear, this is going to still be Movie Russian Roulette. Just maybe with more depth than usual. Or not. This is still my haphazard style, after all.

Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex watches Jennifer Aniston suffer for a paycheck before she got famous. As usual, the trailer is lulzy.

actors gotta eat, man

Overview: Tory, your typical self-obsessed girl from Los Angeles, is in the Dakotas for the summer with her dad. As so often happens in the north, ancient magic unleashes a killer leprechaun on her and her friends, and only the power of a four-leaf clover can kill this unstoppable terror. (More after the break.)

He can smell your fear

Tory is accompanied on her night of terror by three young men working to renovate the haunted house where the leprechaun is sealed: Nathan, the personality-free hunk; Ozzy, the fat idiot; and Alex, the sarcastic asshole who's also nine years old. Through their various skills, they try to survive the leprechaun's rampage. All he wants is his gold... and he'll spill any amount of blood to get it back.

Notable moments/quotes: As much of the movie's charm comes from seeing a serial killer leprechaun dick with your average slasher movie victims, this section might be a little on the long side.

In the movie's opener, we see the original owner of the house, Dan O'Leary, fend off the leprechaun by using a four-leaf clover to hold him at bay, much like holding a cross to a vampire in most portrayals. It's obvious this somehow causes the leprechaun pain. Why? Who knows!

Tory's dad, referring to the old house: "Don't judge a book by its cover, honey."
Tory: "Dad, this book doesn't even have a cover!"

Tory bumps into Nathan, causing him to spill some paint. She immediately pulls out money to pay for the paint, but all Nathan wanted was an apology. Even after Nathan outright says "a 'sorry' would have been nice" she keeps pulling out money. HUR HUR CITY PEOPLE RITE

Tory: "Women are treated equal."
Nathan snorts in response.

Nine year old: "Boy, I could go for a beer right now."

When one of the cast finally runs into the leprechaun in the basement, he uses bad special effects to shut the door behind poor Ozzy, blocking his exit. In an unusual display of logic for movies like this, he simply opens the door again and flees.

Ozzy, after seeing a rainbow: "Leprechauns and rainbows. It's a sign!"
Commander Painter: "Ya, a sign it's time to get back to painting."
Ozzy runs off anyway and does indeed find gold.

Alex, to Ozzy: "You know what this means? We can get you an operation, to make you smart!"
The movie is hazy on if this is supposed to be a joke or not.

Tory, after the leprechaun hiding under a truck rubs her leg like a creeper: "I thought that was [Nathan] rubbing my leg!"
Nathan: "And you let me?"

Tory: "Dad, that was not an animal! I know what it feels like when a man caresses my leg!"
Suddenly Concerned Father: "You do?"

A tricycle using a lame film speed-up effect is the leprechaun's preferred mode of pursuit when the cast flees in a truck.

did I mention this movie is incredibly fuckin silly?

After Alex and Ozzy take some of the leprechaun's gold to a specialist to have it appraised, the leprechaun somehow teleports inside a safe in the shop. He then pops out and kills the shopkeep by jumping on him with a pogo stick. After, he animates a toy car... somehow, and drives into the night.

At this point in the movie, only Ozzy knows about the leprechaun, yet the three guys are staying the night at the house rather than going home. Mind you, Tory's dad isn't there at the time due to an "accidental" injury, so it's just a hunk, an idiot, and a little kid sleeping over at the same house as a pretty, naive city girl. HMMM...

Alex: "Ozzy, you can kill anything! You just gotta know how."

Once the leprechaun does appear to everyone, the cast do call the cops, whose response can be summarized as "lol, leprechaun" and don't come.

Nathan unloads six shotgun shells into the leprechaun at close range. The little bastard gets up moments later, completely fine.

Later, Tory calls the cops on her giant 90s cell phone and makes a more reasonable request for help. They do dispatch someone, but secretly the leprechaun is there imitating the voice of the officer so well he fools the sheriff... somehow.

"Fuck the po-lice"

Tory: "You can't fix Ozzy's brain!"
Alex: "I know that, but he doesn't."

Nathan: "Ever work [a shotgun] before?"
Tory, after a dramatic gun cock: "Nope."

In another stunning, unexpected display of logic for a B movie, the teenagers do give the little guy his gold back rather than keep trying to fight him. This fails, as earlier Ozzy swallowed a coin by accident, and naturally the leprechaun wants all his gold back.

In a scene straight out of Scooby Doo, the leprechaun hides in a kitchen cabinet, only to teleport between them inexplicably when the gang opens the ones they saw him go into.

After the phone has been ripped from the wall, it rings. Like an idiot, Tory answers, and it's the leprechaun on the other end, who reaches his hand thru the receiver to troll her.

To distract the leprechaun so Tory can go consult the town's folklore expert, the gang throws a box of shoes at the leprechaun, who immediately forgets about murder and starts polishing them all.

At the movie's climax, the entire cast of heroes gets down to business... to look for a four-leaf clover.

Once they do find one, Alex comes up with an igneious way to get it to touch the leprechaun and kill him: he sticks the clover onto a ball of gum and uses his slingshot to shoot it at him.

Alex, pre-killing blow: "Fuck you, Lucky Charms."

a true BAMF for the 90s

Alex makes the shot into the leprechaun's mouth, which causes Michael Bay to travel through time and direct the movie for a few moments.

My thoughts: This is actually the first time I've reviewed a movie for the blog that I've seen before. I've held to an unofficial rule that these movies are ones I'm seeing for the first time, figuring that first impressions fuel more extreme reactions and, hopefully, comedy. So this is something of a first.

I discovered this franchise in an odd way. My friend Amy and I happened to be scouring garage sales for cheap things, because we were college students. I found a movie box and thought, hey, maybe I could find something good in here. I discovered Leprechaun 4: In Space on DVD, thought "Wait, a movie about a killer leprechaun? Haha, what?", bought it, and then on I was hooked. Later, I would pick up the other movies in the series, and my reaction was, well...

In any case, this movie is the first in a series of six + a reboot. The movies care nothing about continuity and have only one constant: a killer leprechaun who likes to fuck around with his victims. This gets more and more pronounced as the movies go on, but it gets a strong start in this flick.

This movie actually does a lot of things right. On the whole, it's a thoroughly terrible movie, but there are enough little moments of thoughtfulness that apparently this warranted five sequels. I'll freely admit this movie is a lot better than most movies I watch on here, mostly thanks to pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston.

"People still remember this movie? Oh, hell."

Good ol' Jen is trying her damnedest in this flick, clearly thanking her lucky stars that she's managed to claw her way to a lead role after starting out as an extra in the disastrous Mac and Me. Unfortunately, she and the rest of the cast take everything completely seriously, undercutting the horror/comedy vibe this and so many other movies have tried to hit and failed. (I will note that a couple movies, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and Cabin in the Woods, have done this right, in my opinion.)

However, the writing scores a few points as well. More than a few things that play a pivotal role later in the film get at least a few moments of setup. In example, early in the movie the painters' truck dies, and the kid has to hop out and bang on a section of the engine. Later in the movie when the gang is trying to flee, lo and behold, the truck won't start! Likewise, we also get to see Alex practicing with his slingshot, setting up his heroism at the end.

The movie also spends a decent amount of time taking a page out of 60s and 70s filmmaking for horror movies and really lets us get to know our characters. True, there's not much to know about their personalities, particularly Nathan, who's just a bland, good-looking guy, but even the most cynical among its viewers should feel something as the leprechaun holds a child's face close to a waiting bear trap. A lot of movies in this vein don't really bother with letting us get to know the characters, opting for high-intensity chases or jumpscares, so this was a little refreshing that the movie gave its characters some room to breathe.

However, don't get me wrong: this is a bad movie. Warwick Davis is giving his all as the titular leprechaun, and every time he's on screen, the movie shines. The movie knows its strength, and after it gets its hamfisted attempts at establishing characters out of the way, gives every second of screen time it can to its gleefully sadistic villain. After all, if someone makes a movie that bills itself on "crazy leprechaun tries to kill people" it almost certainly was greenlit on the strength of that premise and better damn well deliver on it.

However, when the leprechaun isn't present, things are pretty bland. Around half of the film's running time is devoted to Tory and the supporting cast, and they can't really hold a scene. They go for slow father-daughter bonding and fail, sexual tension with Nathan and Tory and mostly fail, and some kind of weird surrogate/actual brotherhood (never really made clear) with Ozzy and Alex that falls apart moments after it's introduced. The acting is hokey, dialogue often awkward, and the situations contrived. Hell, not even the minor points this turkey won with me for momentarily remembering North and South Dakota existed were enough to keep it going for long.

One of the big problems in this movie is one that persisted through the series: if our bad guy has magical powers, how do we stop him from being unkillable? In this movie (but no other, mind) he has the weakness to four-leaf clovers, but even that's inconsistent. In the movie's opening, the mere presence of a clover makes him cower when Mr. O'Leary brandishes it and putting a four-leaf clover on top of a crate stops the leprechaun from escaping, but later when Tory has a clover, the leprechaun runs right by her. Atop that, right next to the house where all the action takes place is a fucking clover field! If the movie played by its own rules, the leprechaun wouldn't have been able to so much as come near the place, because the movie shows us that at least one four-leaf clover was growing in there. So, the bad guy's weakness is inconsistent. At least his powers have to be cool, right? Well...

The leprechaun's magics are all over the place as well. In one scene, it's implied he straight up Death Notes Mr. O'Leary into having a heart attack, but in other scenes all he can do is some minor telekinesis or animating inanimate objects. The movie just kind of waves it off as "eh, leprechauns," which... sure, I guess, but... what's the point in making the bad guy a leprechaun if the only special things about him are going to be a weakness to four-leaf clovers and wanting his gold? Later movies don't even bother with the first bit. Now, I don't want the movie to go into great detail about why leprechauns are like this, but at least a little explanation about why he has his powers/magic wouldn't go amiss. Are they fueled by his gold coins? Is he limited to causing good or bad luck to people? Does he need to possess gold to use them? Why can he teleport, and since he can, why doesn't he use this power more to warp inside the house when the kids hide in there from him? Little questions like these always seem to stack up in these sorts of movies for me, and they always ruin it for me, no matter how ridiculous the surrounding movie is.

Well, most of the time. But that's for another installment.

In summary, this movie is worth a watch if only to see Jennifer Aniston try to act serious in a wacky, campy B horror flick. If you don't go in expecting much, you might walk away pleasantly surprised, but this is just the beginning. Later films in the series built on this stepping stone to get more and more ridiculous, and I can't wait to share the rest with you.

I give this movie a Nic Cage Ponders Life and Tartar Sauce out of five. My Facebook page is still ronery, and I'm still begging for nickels.