The Curator of Schlock #32 by Jeffrey Shuster

Warwick Davis is The Leprechaun

Here’s your stupid Leprechaun review! I know St. Patty’s day was on Monday, so this review is late. I don’t care. Do you know why? Leprechaun ain’t that good. The movie starts out with an Irishman by the name of Daniel O’Grady who’s ecstatic over the fact that he kidnapped a leprechaun on his last trip to Ireland and managed to get his hands a pot of gold. Unfortunately said Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) follows O’Grady back to the states. He knocks O’Grady’s wife down the cellar stairs, killing her instantly. O’Grady manages to pack the leprechaun up in a crate, sealing it with a four leaf clover (the only thing Leprechauns are vulnerable to). But the leprechaun has the last laugh by making poor O’Grady have a stroke.

The movie should have ended there, but audiences and theater chains tend to frown on ten minute features, so they tack a Leprechaun sequel onto the ten minute Leprechaun movie. The Leprechaun sequel stars a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston as Tory, a hip 90s-era teenager who hates eating meat and misses Los Angeles.

She can’t stand the fact that her dad decided to rent the O’Grady farmhouse for the summer. Tory doesn’t like the idea of spending the summer in South Dakota, but starts to warm to the place when she meets Nathan, a hunky house painter who is painting their rented house. Nathan has a kid brother named Alex working for him along with the town simpleton Ozzie Jones.

While fumbling around in the basement, Ozzie removes the four leaf clover and sets the leprechaun loose upon the world. The Leprechaun is hunting for his lost gold and unleashes a nightmare of terror on the community. Well, he kills a couple of guys at any rate. He kills the local rare coin merchant with a pogo stick, pounding up on him again and again until the dude is a bloody pulp. He also manages to take out an on duty police officer. I guess they didn’t cover leprechauns at the police academy. Will the leprechaun’s reign of terror end? Will Nathan’s kid brother attach a four leaf clover to some bubble gum and it at The Leprechaun with his slingshot? Who cares? The 90s sucked for horror movies and Leprechaun is no exception. Any movie that features a monster that likes to shine shoes in his spare time isn’t inspired. It’s just plain stupid.

Still better than Friends, though.

Ten Things I Learned from Leprechaun

1. Leprechauns will threaten you, claiming they’ll tear your ear off and make a boot out of it.
2. Warwick Davis is good in anything.
3. Leprechauns like to kiss their gold.
4. Chasing rainbows can make you a wealthy man.
5. Leprechauns have sharp teeth and they will bite you.
6. You can’t kill a Leprechaun with bullets. They’re magical creatures.
7. Leprechauns speak with Irish accents. Who knew?
8. Movie meatloaf isn’t like real life meatloaf.
9. Leprechauns aren’t big into sharing.
10. The Irish ain’t so lucky.

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Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.