Leprechaun – Film Review

Dan O’Grady (Shay Duffin) steals 100 gold coins from a leprechaun (Warwick Davis) while on vacation in Ireland. The leprechaun follows him home, but Dan locks the murderous midget in a crate, held at bay by a four-leaf clover. Ten years later, J.D. Redding (John Sanderford) and his daughter, Tory (Jennifer Aniston), rent O’Grady’s property for the summer. When their new neighbors accidentally release the leprechaun, he goes on a murderous rampage to reclaim his gold.

Ever since I first got into horror movies, people have been telling me that I need to watch Mark Jones‘ Leprechaun around Saint Patrick’s Day, but for some reason, I just haven’t gotten around to it until now. I’ve heard so many wild things about it that made me want to watch it for the longest time, and now that I finally have I have to say… I don’t get the hype. At all.

There was not a single part of me that went into Leprechaun expecting it to be this masterful exercise of horror but I did go into it expecting to be laughing and shaking my head at the absurdity of it all in entertaining ways but sadly, this film isn’t even entertaining until its final fifteen minutes and of course, at that point, I just didn’t care too much anymore.

This is a movie that was billed as a slasher featuring a crazy Leprechaun starring the legendary Warwick Davis in the title role. So why in the world are there only about two or three deaths in this entire movie? I kept waiting to see the insane titular villain go berserk and go on a huge murder spree but it never happened.

Thankfully though, the deaths that we do see on screen are all extremely well filmed and the makeup design here is truly top notch. I’ve seen Warwick Davis’ face many times over the years and yet with the Leprechaun makeup on, the actor totally disappears.

But sadly, I couldn’t really have fun with this movie because there were so many instances in which it just felt like I was watching some incredibly bad soap opera. Or, at the times in which it didn’t feel like a soap opera, then it felt like some extremely low-budget children’s show that I would have seen on Teletoon back in the day.

It’s just a big shame because the potential for campy goodness was so high here. I absolutely love the titular character and I think he’s delightful to watch on screen, but everything else surrounding him was astoundingly disappointing. Here’s hoping that the sequels will give me the absurd entertainment I desire.

While it’s not without its moments, Leprechaun is an extremely boring comedy horror that’s devoid of genuine laughs and often lacks bloody goodness.