Leprechaun (1993) review

18. Leprechaun (1993)

Directed by: Mark Jones

Produced by: Jeffrey B. Mallian

Screenplay by: Mark Jones

Starring: Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton, Robert Gorman

Have you ever watched a commercial for Lucky Charms with that funny little leprechaun Lucky trying to protect his cereal of processed sugar and marshmallows from those thieving little kids and thought, “There should be a leprechaun horror movie villain”? This sounds like the start of a joke, but that’s exactly how the movie “Leprechaun” came into existence. Released in 1993, it stars Warwick Davis as Lubdan, a leprechaun who, after being locked away for 10 years, goes on a murderous rampage to retrieve his stolen gold from an old farmhouse in North Dakota, now inhabited by new residents. While it is fun to witness the leprechaun’s make-up and antics, the film is unfortunately quite bad in most other aspects, like story, editing and common sense.

The opening features a man named Dan O’Grady (Shay Duffin) returning to the house from a trip to Ireland, where he stole a pot of gold coins; but after hiding it, he discovers that Lubdan has followed him home to get it back. O’Grady uses a four-leaf clover to neutralize him before trapping him in a crate; however, he suffers a stroke before he can kill him. Cut to years later, when J.D. Redding (John Sanderford) and his teenage daughter Tory (Jennifer Aniston) are renting the house for the summer, joined by a trio of house painters: Nathan (Ken Olandt), his little brother Alex (Robert Hy Gorman) and their friend Ozzie (Mark Holton). While poking around the basement, Ozzie accidentally frees the leprechaun, who’s still hell-bent on finding the gold, no matter how many human lives get in his way.

Without a doubt, the leprechaun is the most enjoyable aspect of the movie; he’s not written well by any means, but Davis’s energy and cackling villainy is entertaining. By this time, his career had run dry after finding success playing Wicket the Ewok and the titular character in Ron Howard’s “Willow,” but this represented a bit of a revival for him, especially showcasing his ability to play against type. Clearly taking inspiration from shorter horror threats like Chucky, he’s quick with an insult and a cheesy one-liner, as the film seems to embrace how silly the concept us. You want to know how he kills Joe the pawn shop owner (John Voldstad)? He disables him by biting his kneecap, and then hops on his chest with a pogo stick; I’m dead serious. Among other things, he drives vehicles like a wheelchair, roller skates, a kid’s tricycle, and a go-kart, which is somehow able to tip over the paint guys’ pick-up truck when he rams it. Sometimes his movements are shown in fast forward, which just adds to the madcap escapades.

But the leprechaun’s abilities are also somewhat mystifying, as he can teleport, perfectly imitate other people’s voices, and manipulate machinery to an extent. Even stranger are his weaknesses; like I said, he’s repelled by four-leaf clovers, and he also has this compulsion where if there are dirty shoes around, he has to shine them. Our heroes use this to their advantage when trying to get Tory out of the house in the third act, throwing shoes all over the yard while she drives away. I guess there are odd weaknesses vampires have as well, but aside from the design, the leprechaun doesn’t feel like much of a threat to these characters; they’re usually able to easily subdue him. Oh, that reminds me; these characters all suck. The comic relief duo Ozzie and Alex is more annoying than funny, Nathan is a chauvinistic idiot, and yes, that is Jennifer Aniston in her first major film role as Tory; Aniston shows her natural charm, but the character is kind of bratty and obnoxious.

I think we’ve established by now that the movie isn’t scary at all; it’s more just an excuse for some hijinks with a killer leprechaun. But the way the story progresses is very dull, and the craft really doesn’t help spice anything up. The movie was written and directed by Mark Jones, who had mainly worked in television, which makes sense, because this is paced and edited like a low-cost TV show, with some odd camera angles and transition choices; on one occasion, there’s a weird crossfade of the same shot in the same scene. I will give credit that there’s a nice bit of stop motion when the leprechaun loses his hand in a doorway, and the hand starts crawling around on its own. But the movie also suffers from lack of tone identity in how it randomly shows blood and gore; Joe’s face bleeds even though only his chest is getting assaulted, and there’s a surprisingly gruesome neck-snapping of Deputy Tripet (David Permenter), which follows a painfully drawn-out and awkward cat-and-mouse chase scene with him and the leprechaun. The kills are sadly not that good in this; they’re either clumsy or silly.

As someone with mostly Irish blood in their veins, I knew “Leprechaun” was one I’d have to watch eventually, and I do like Davis’s performance and some of the gags; but too often, I’m just kind of tapping my foot until he shows up, and even then, his interactions with the human characters range from goofy to just plain weird. I suppose it’s fun enough as a time-killer to laugh at a bunch of morons get attacked by Lucky for 92 minutes, and to see how Aniston’s career began. Future home video releases shamelessly marketed Aniston prominently—much to her embarrassment—after the success of “Friends,” which may have helped turn this dumb little slasher into an even dumber franchise. Davis reprised the role in five sequels, which saw the leprechaun go to Las Vegas, outer space, and Compton, California—or specifically, “The Hood.” If you’re at all curious, you can do much worse than this; just have your four-leaf clovers on standby.

My rating: 4.5/10