The Curator of Schlock #81 by Jeff Shuster

Leprechaun 2: The Legend of Funkswittle’s Golden Lox

Another Leprechaun movie. Yay.

Yeah, I know St. Patrick’s Day was a couple of days ago, but it’s a Leprechaun movie so I’m not going to lose any sleep over this. The only Leprechaun movie I care about is the inevitable Leprechaun vs. Chucky movie that they’ve been teasing us all these years. Hollywood, make this happen!

I’ve also included my own subhead for this movie since one was not included. Hollywood should really put me in charge of the titles for their movies. For instance, I would title Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Episode VII: The Gungan Conundrum, but what do I know?

1994s Leprechaun 2 from director Rodman Flender starts off like the last one with an overlong prologue about how the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) wanted to trick a young lass into marrying him back in 994 AD by making her sneeze three times. The young woman’s father says “God Bless You” after the third sneeze, ruining the Leprechaun’s spell. He kills the girl’s father by strangling him in mid air or something to that effect. He then tells the guy that he’ll marry one of his descendants instead, the father’s descendent, not the Leprechaun’s. Ugh! I’m already losing the plot.

Fast forward to modern day Los Angeles, where we’re introduced to a colorful cast of characters. There’s a teenage scam artist named Cody Ingalls (Charlie Heath) who lives with his Uncle Morty who is a drunk. The two of them run some Hollywood Celebrity Death Tour deal, the kind where you learn that Elvis was one of the few celebrities who died on the toilet while actually using the toilet. Clint Howard and Kimmy Robertson show up as a couple of gullible tourists. I think I spotted Cynthia Nixon as well, but that may have been my imagination. Uncle Morty can’t give the tour since he’s skunk-drunk at the local pub.

Meanwhile, we see a homeless guy drowning his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey, sloshing and spilling it near some enchanted tree. Out pops the Leprechaun who wrests the whiskey from the sad sack’s hand. The Leprechaun spits it out, complaining that it’s a Canadian blend and the only real whiskey is Irish whisky. I can’t fault him there, but then he notices a gold tooth in the homeless guy’s mouth. The Leprechaun rips the gold right of the guy’s mouth, adding it to his pot. Later, he rips the ring finger off the hand of a Hollywood agent. Now why is it okay for the Leprechaun to steal gold from others, but you’ll pay dearly if you try to steal his? Not very cricket if you ask me.

It’s important to note that this movie is a love story. Cody has a girlfriend named Bridget (Shevonne Dunkin) who is the spitting image of the young woman who the Leprechaun wanted to marry a thousand years. Naturally, he tries the sneezing spell again only to have Cody say “God Bless You.” This makes the Leprechaun angry, but I have no idea if this broke the spell.

Does “God Bless You” have to be said after the third sneeze to cancel the spell? Can you just start the sneezing spell over again if it’s only said after the first or second sneezes. The film is very unclear on the rules. In fact, the Leprechaun just tosses a gold neck brace around Bridget and claims her as his bride. How does that work?

On a personal note, how pathetic is it to be killed by the Leprechaun? Give me a Jason Voorhees or a Tall Man to finish me off. I’d never live “Death by Leprechaun” down in the afterlife.

Five Things I Learned from Leprechaun 2

1. If you hire Clint Howard, don’t let him go to waste.
2. You can drink a Leprechaun under the table.
3. Walt Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People is a scarier movie.
4. In the 90s, reboots were sequels.
5. Death by espresso machine is a horrible way to go.

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Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida.