{"id":7986,"date":"2024-11-02T20:19:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-03T00:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7986"},"modified":"2024-11-02T20:19:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T00:19:12","slug":"leprechaun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/02\/leprechaun\/","title":{"rendered":"Leprechaun"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Leprechaun <\/strong>(1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Trimark\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mark Jones\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mark Jones\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kevin Kiner and Robert J. Walsh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Levie Isaacks\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 8, 1993 (US) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cast: Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton, Robert Gorman, Shay Duffin, John Sanderford, John Voldstad, Pamela Mant, William Newman, David Permenter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $8.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Killer leprechaun on the loose in North Dakota\u2026. NORTH DAKOTA<\/em>?!!! It sounds like a story you\u2019d read in a trashy tabloid rag, but it\u2019s actually the premise of Leprechaun<\/strong>, a goofball horror-comedy in which a group of moronic kids are terrorized by an ugly, homicidal leprechaun looking for his stolen pot of gold. I know, it sounds like a colossally stupid movie and it is, but I expect it\u2019s intentional on the part of writer-director Mark Jones making his feature film debut. How seriously can you take a movie about a killer leprechaun? It defies sound reasoning as well as any form of logic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I went to see Leprechaun <\/strong>on opening day because I knew, I just knew, it would be a complete hoot. I even braved a snowstorm to go to that first matinee at the newly-opened 69th<\/sup> Street Theater (Upper Darby, PA). It was totally worth it! I had a blast. I laughed almost the entire time. One of the biggest laughs occurs early on when we learn that a four-leaf clover is to a leprechaun what a cross is to a vampire. I know a lot of Irishmen that would choke on their whiskey upon hearing this tidbit of info. It wouldn\u2019t be accurate to say Leprechaun <\/strong>goes downhill from here. It\u2019s more like it takes a left turn into Loonyville (Loonyville, ND, that is).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The trouble starts when a native Irishman steals a leprechaun\u2019s gold during a visit home. Leprechaun (Davis, Willow) follows him back to the States and murders his wife. He wants his gold back. The man incapacitates the evil creature with a four-leaf clover and nails him inside a crate, but suffers a severe stroke before he can burn it. Ten years later, JD Redding (Sanderford) and his teenage daughter Tory (Aniston, Friends) move into the now-dilapidated house. She\u2019s your typical spoiled teenage Beverly Hills brat; when she sees the dirt, dust, cobwebs and spiders, her first instinct is to check into a hotel. I mean, isn\u2019t it bad enough that North Dakota isn\u2019t L.A.? She changes her mind, however, when she meets Nathan (Olandt, Summer School), the guy painting her house. It\u2019s a meet-cute for the early 90s; she spills his paint thinner while gabbing on her portable phone (an ancient relic of one!). Instead of apologizing, she gives him money and keeps walking\/talking.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s simple-minded Ozzie (Holton Teen Wolf) who releases Leprechaun from his crate, stored these past ten years in the basement, dried-up four-leaf clover preventing his escape. As he\u2019s prone to making up stories about UFOs and the such, nobody believes his story of an evil leprechaun looking for his pot of gold which must lie at the end of the rainbow that magically appears in the sky even though it didn\u2019t rain. Ozzie and Nathan\u2019s preteen brother Alex (Gorman, Sometimes They Come Back) find the bag of gold coins hidden in a rusted-out pick-up truck and decide to keep it for themselves. Naturally, this doesn\u2019t set well with our pint-sized antagonist who chases after our heroes on a tricycle (I\u2019m not kidding).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unless you watched the short-lived Ferris Bueller TV series, this is Aniston\u2019s first major credit. This is her before a certain 90s sitcom, before a certain hairstyle that briefly became a craze, before a years-long \u201cwill they or won\u2019t they?\u201d relationship with a certain paleontologist. The actress is reportedly embarrassed by her involvement with Leprechaun<\/strong>; I say \u201cwhy?\u201d How many actors got their start in cheesy horror flicks like this? The list is quite long. Okay, I\u2019ll grant it\u2019s not a great performance, it isn\u2019t even good. BUT she must have caught the attention of the right people. The following year, she was part of the Friends ensemble. The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As for Leprechaun<\/strong>, I think it\u2019s a riot! Davis does a great job in the title role. He injects a great deal of humor into the role. He didn\u2019t want to make Leprechaun straight-up evil so he goes for laughs. It works largely because the movie doesn\u2019t take itself seriously either. Incidentally, Warwick isn\u2019t exactly proud of his involvement in Leprechaun <\/strong>either (even though he\u2019s reprised it in six additional movies). I met him several years ago at Disney World and when I mentioned my fondness for it, he smiled and said that it isn\u2019t something he brags about. As for the other performances, what is there to say? The acting is bad, but no worse than most low-grade horror flicks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The dialogue in Leprechaun <\/strong>is hilariously terrible. I predicted it would contain at least one reference to Lucky Charms cereal. It actually has three. My favorite is at the end when young Alex says, \u201cF*** you, Lucky Charms!\u201d before an attempt to take him down. In another scene, a local deputy pulls over Leprechaun who\u2019s driving down a dark road in a toy motorized car. The exchange goes as follows:<\/p>\n

Deputy: \u201cSay, aren\u2019t we a little young to be out this late?\u201d<\/p>\n

Leprechaun: \u201cNo. I\u2019m 600 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

If anybody else said that to a cop, they\u2019d be trying to walk a straight line along the side of the road while the cop gets the breathalyzer ready. Warwick may have a killer sense of humor, but Leprechaun is still a killer. The best kill scene is when he bounces up and down on a man\u2019s chest on a pogo stick. Death by pogo stick, now that\u2019s original. The makeup and special effects are cheap-looking yet still look more convincing than CGI. It\u2019s part of the appeal of low-budget horror films from exploitation studios like Trimark (their first in-house production). It cost less than a million to make and it shows. I LOVE that about Leprechaun<\/strong>, a movie I thoroughly enjoy despite better judgment. It\u2019s a total guilty pleasure!\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leprechaun (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Trimark\/Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mark Jones\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mark Jones\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kevin Kiner and Robert J. Walsh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Levie Isaacks\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 8, 1993 (US) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cast: Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton, Robert Gorman, Shay Duffin, John Sanderford, John Voldstad, Pamela Mant, William Newman, David Permenter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,9,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-guilty-pleasures","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Leprechaun-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7986"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8059,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions\/8059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}