Leprechaun (1993) Review

It's about an evil leprechaun who goes ape shit on an entire town when his pot 'o gold is stolen.

Leprechaun was directed by Mark Jones (who also directed Triloquist and Rumpelstiltskin) and stars Warwick Davis (from Small Town Folk, Skinned Deep and Leprechaun 6: Back 2 Tha Hood), Ken Olandt  (from April Fool's Day) and Mark Holton (from Leprechaun Returns, Hoboken Hollow and Gacy). 

Your luck just ran out.

St Patrick's Day is just around the corner so you know what that means. Yep. Green beer and bad horror movies!

Leprechaun is actually a pretty legendary franchise that ran for 25 years and featured 8 movies that had our crazy Irish friend running around farms, hoods and even SPACE. A lot of horror fans like to binge the franchise every year around this time. I've always wanted to but never got around to it for some reason. But this year I am. This St Patrick's I'm watching every single one of these ridiculous flicks starting with the original Leprechaun from 1993.

Leprechaun is a movie with a very simple premise. Some guy runs off with a leprechaun's pot of gold and the leprechaun goes after it, terrorizing every poor bastard unlucky enough to stand in his way. And the only thing that can stop him, other than giving him back the gold, is with a four leaf clover. It's like kryptonite for leprechauns.

And that's really it. 

There's a lot of running around, silly sounds and whimsical music. It actually feels a lot like a family movie, just with a lot of blood and an F-bomb dropped near the end. Most of the comedy is of the slapstick variety. For example, in one scene the leprechaun runs through a picket fence leaving a hole that perfectly outlines his body. It's like a cartoon or something. 

There were a few interesting things in Leprechaun that jumped out for me. One of them is the fact that the movie stars Jennifer Anniston, this was apparently her debut film (as well as her first and only appearance in a horror movie). Horror has a funny way of introducing A-list actors to the world. A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced Johnny Depp, Halloween introduced Jamie Lee Curtis and Return to Horror High introduced George Clooney. Another interesting detail was how creatively our leprechaun got around. This dude found wheels everywhere. One minute he's driving a toy car, the next he's on roller skates, the next he's literally welding a tank together with a pitchfork on the grill to do maximum damage to whoever is standing between him and his gold.

And then there's this thing with Lucky Charms. In one scene the leprechaun is tearing up a cupboard looking for his gold and comes across a box of "Lucky Clover" cereal. He takes a bite and spits it out in disgust. Then later, near the end of the movie, this kid launches a crazy one-liner at the leprechaun "Fuck you Lucky Charms!". What?!  Turns out, Lucky Charms agreed to some product placement in the movie but then backed out after watching the screening. This cost the producers time and money to reshoot and this was their way of sticking it to them. Good stuff.

Leprechaun, overall, was an oddball of a movie that didn't really do much for me. It didn't feel like a horror comedy. Horror comedies normally nail the horror aspect by going over the top which this one didn't do. It was very tame, very family. Looking forward to what the sequel has to offer.

Worth Watching? 

Honestly, I don't think so. I expected to like Leprechaun but I just didn't. It fell flat in every way. 

Leprechaun Review (1993) Worth Watching? - ALL HORROR Tweet it