Leprechaun 4: In Space

That is not how you title a movie!

Bad things were going down in a marsupial slaughtering factory in the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan. A bloodied factory worker had screamed about “devils on the loose” before breathing his last. Then came the howls from a shifting black mass of doom creeping in my direction. Dozens if not hundreds of rabid Tasmanian devils were headed toward me.

— To be continued.

This week’s movie is 1997’s Leprechaun 4: In Space from director Brian Trenchard-Smith. This is the one we’ve been waiting for, folks. I can’t think of any movie series that couldn’t be improved by sending it into outer space. This marks the last movie of the 90s era Leprechaun movies and the final movie in The Leprechaun Cycle. I remember catching this movie during its original IMAX run. Wow. You could count every whisker on Warwick Davis’s face!

Leprechaun 4: In Space begins with the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) trying to coax the lovely Princess Zarina (Rebekah Carlton) into marriage. This isn’t taking place on Earth and Princess Zarina is not an Earthling. The year is 2096 and the Leprechaun is now living on a planet of gold. He wants to marry the princess and murder her father so he can become king of her homeward. Zarina’s on board when he promises to make her rich.

On a starship, we have a group of space marines on a mission to kill the Leprechaun. If you cynically think this movie is going to be like Aliens, but with the Leprechaun instead of the Xenomorph, you would be right. The Leprechaun manages to fall on a grenade and explode. A marine named Private Kowalski pees on his corpse, which allows the Leprechaun’s evil spirit to swim up the urine stream into the marine’s twig and berries.

Meanwhile, there’s a deformed cyborg named Dr. Mittenhand (Guy Siner) that wants to use the DNA from the princess to grow himself a new body, Princess Zarina has blue blood with regenerative properties. Mixed with Dr. Mittenhand’s DNA, this will give him a new lease on life. He is the real villain of the movie, a mad scientist complete with German accent.

Meanwhile, Kowalski is getting hot and heavy with his girlfriend. The Leprechaun manages to crawl out of Kowalski the same way he went in, revoking Kowalski’s membership in the process. With the Leprechaun on the loose, it’s open season on space marines. There’s one scene where two marines enter a room where a special bacteria devours every living thing it comes into contact with. Naturally, the Leprechaun tears a hole in one of the marine’s hazmat suits, leaving him to get eaten alive until there’s nothing left but bones.

What else? The Leprechaun and Princess Zarina manage to mess with the DNA cocktail meant to restore Dr. Mittenhand. They combine it with some tarantula and scorpion DNA, turning Dr. Mittenhand into a freakish monster. Also, the Leprechaun gets hit with a growth ray that turns him into a giant. What will the marines do? This is the last movie in my Leprechaun box set. Do I spring for more? Let me sit on that one for a while.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.