What was originally going to be made as a scary film for kids, the studio decided to turn this campy kid friendly horror concept into a slasher horror film for adults. The plot is just about a sadistic Leprechaun looking for his gold while killing people in the process, it's that simple of a plot. I remember seeing this film on TV all the time during St. Paddy's day when I was a kid and while being a horror fan and a kid who was too young to see most R rated material, I was hyped. Now that I'm an adult who's seen plenty of R rated horror material, does this film still hold up? ON WITH THE REVIEW...
The victims in this film are all goofy, over the top, and stupidly annoying idiots and not one actor gives a good performance in the role. Before Jennifer Aniston was on the TV show "Friends", her film career began with her running away from a Leprechaun. There's nothing likable about her at all, all she does is bitch and moan and constantly become a damsel in distress. She's also accompanied by three painters throughout the film. The leader and hero Nathan (Ken Olandt) is boring; the kid Alex (Robert Gorman) is very mean and nowhere near fun or innocent; and the dumb painter Ozzie (Mark Holton) is more annoying than he is funny or likable. Most of the dialogue that they're given is not only not funny, but it's very poor. I mean, how many times do they ask the Leprechaun what he is; who thinks a Bear can shine shoes; how many problems does Aniston's character have to complain about; and don't get me started on the corny lines and idiotic jokes that Ozzie says? Ok the line "F--k You Lucky Charms" was a cool and great revenge on "Lucky Charms" for not letting them use their brand name in the film which we instead got a spin off cereal box called "Lucky Clovers". These characters also go around doing one stupid thing after another like accidentally swallowing a gold coin; leaving a kid alone in a house with nobody to protect him; answering an unattached phone; or leaving the house and then coming back after a few seconds because it's too dark out, to deciding to leave again a few minutes later, while it's still dark out. Yeah, they're all complete morons!
Enough talking about these lame characters, let's talk about the films star and monster played by Warwick Davis. The percentage of Warwick Davis's performance as the killer Leprechaun is 10 percent scary and 90 percent funny. I like that in the first half hour and so of the film; he's mostly kept in the shadows, which I do find scary in a couple of scenes. When we finally do see him, he is scary looking with that cool make up that they put on him, it's really awesome. While looking scary, he plays his role more for the comedy than he does for scares which I do find enjoyable to be perfectly honest. He has fun dialogue; his Irish accent is great; and his personality is very fun and entertaining. He literally steals the movie whenever he's on screen. I even love his sadistic nature of biting peoples flesh; eating bugs; killing every person he meets; using whatever magic power he has left to get our main characters; and how he obsesses over his gold, which I'm guessing is what helps make him so powerful. His weakness is a four leafed Clover which I thought was an interesting concept on killing and weakening a Leprechaun.
(YEAH, THIS IS IN THE MOVIE)
While the film was marketed as a straight out horror film, you can tell by just saying the title that it was not meant to be taken seriously. Just say the title of the film out loud without laughing or smiling at how dumb it sounds. I already talked about the unfunny idiotic main characters and the played out for laughs monster who has very few scary moments in the film, but there's more goofy things to it than you realize. A few examples is since Leprechaun's like making shoes, this Leprechaun will shine any shoe he sees even when the victims are getting away. To get to his victims rather than just teleporting himself to one location to another, he uses different means of transportation such as a tricycle, a toy car, roller skates, and even a wheelchair! Come on, that's too funny to take seriously, especially that moment when he crashes through the fence leaving a cartoonish looking hole in the fence. If that's not campy enough, he even kills a victim with a Pogo Stick, yeah that's really scary...NOT! The special effects in the movie are pretty decent, while at the same time too funny to take seriously. Like when the Leprechaun loses his hand and then see his separate hand moving, while cool, who isn't thinking of "Evil Dead 2" or "The Addams Family". The films colorful lighting, angles, darkness and gore are nice to look, with that said, some of the editing and shots are very poor and clumsy looking. The choreography when the characters are fighting the Leprechaun is so terrible that it's laughable. Even the point of view shots of The Leprechaun running after our characters have not only been done to death, but again, it's more funny, than it is scary.
The film is not scary (Despite its few moments); it's goofy as hell; the characters suck so bad that you pray for them to die than live; there's plenty of dumb moments and things that don't make sense; and I found it to be entertainingly bad. While being a bad film, it's still fun to watch mostly for Warwick Davis's performance as the Leprechaun which you can tell right off the bat that he's having lots of fun playing this character. To really enjoy this film, you got to take it for what it is, a dumb goofy horror film. It's indeed a guilty pleasure and Warwick Davis is what makes the film so watchable.
RATING 2/5
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