Leprechaun Returns

After twenty five goddamn years we’re served up a true Leprechaun sequel.  All the other films produced in the wake of the original acted more as reboots that didn’t acknowledge any previous events.  But now, NOW!, we return to the house in the middle of nowhere North Dakota with the clover patch, the barn and the well where the Leprechaun melted.  A couple of decades of neglect hasn’t changed the place much.

In typical rebootquel fashion the daughter of Jennifer Anniston’s character, Lila (Taylor Spreitler (Amityville: The Awakening)), comes to the house because it’s been turned into a sorority associated with the local college.  She specifically transfers here and joins the sorority because of her connection.  Her mother died recently crippled by the fear of the Leprechaun potentially lurking in the shadows.  Lila had to take care of her because she refused to leave her house.  By visiting the ol’ homestead where all this shit started I think Lila’s looking for answers as to what drove her mother insane.

Since the house is isolated and a fair distance from the school the students are allowed to experiment with becoming self-sufficient as part of their curriculum.  So they must grow their own food, provide their own electricity through solar, dispose of their own waste and source their own drinking water.  Additionally they haven’t gotten around to setting up the equipment that would give them cell service and internet.  So naturally there’s no calling for help when shit goes down.

Now I know what you’re thinking, the well with the Leprechaun carcass is gonna cause trouble.  Ok, yes but they kinda messed this part up in my opinion.  First I should say that Ozzie (Mark Holton (Teen Wolf)) is the only recurring character from the old cast.  He’s the dimwit painter who accidentally swallows one of the gold coins.  He ends up giving Lila a lift from the bus station to the house.  When he gets there the well geysers up and some water gets in his mouth which allows the Leprechaun to come back to life and burst through his stomach.  There’s some bullshit the Lep spews about how he could return at his discretion and only decided that now was the right time.  Look, you could’ve simply had Ozzie ask for a glass of water when he drops off Lila and not realize it’s from the well, which presumably hasn’t been used in twenty five years.  The Lep’s essence gets in the guy and slippitly slap he’s back in business.  This is such an easy fix.  Anyway, the Leprechaun wants his gold back and attacks everyone at the sorority.

The big question on your mind is how’s the new fella in the lead role and the answer is Linden Porco (Nightmare Alley) does a pretty great job.  He took some getting used to but by the end he definitely grew on me.  He’s not quite in the same league as Warwick Davis but he can handle the menace fine and deliver a nice giggly high pitched laugh after each quip.  I had difficulty understanding him half the time but that’s most likely due to the heavy makeup and fake razor teeth he had to wear.

Getting a bit more technical the humor feels off.  All the modern meta jokes I didn’t care for that much and also a bunch of the characters behaving like assholes I think is supposed to be funny.  However, the combination of the cinematography being dark and totally serious and the movie opting to be pretty gory doesn’t completely add up.  Comedy mixed with blood and guts can certainly be a winning combo if done carefully but it doesn’t gel that well here.  Humor is extremely tricky to land where camera setup, editing, performance, soundtrack and rhythm all need to work together in a precise manner.  And it’s not that the other Leprechaun films are hilarious or anything it’s just that this one seems like they’re trying hard to jam in jokes all over the place where they don’t fit.  The one gag that made me chuckle though is when the Leprechaun is momentarily distracted by disorganized shoes in a closet and goes to neaten them up.  And when he gets to a pair of Crocs instead of putting them away he just throws them in the garbage.

One major aspect that must be applauded is they chose to do almost all of the effects practical.  One dude gets split in half vertically so the front part of his body and the back part of his body separate and they do it with models and props and tons of fake blood and everything.  Even the few moments where they use a green screen or CGI it doesn’t look terrible.  The new design of the Leprechaun is cool and pointier, heads roll, green blood flies, entrails spill, etc.  This is easily the strongest aspect of the picture and might be worth checking out for alone.

If you’re a fan of the Leprechaun series or into the newer rash of updated horror classics that are a sequel to the original then you’ll probably dig this.  Similar to its brethren they incorporate topics of today like going green, mental health, apathy towards major global issues, they invert the cast of the first film by having most of the protagonists be women and so on.  It doesn’t do anything new or unique and in some instances wears its influences on its sleeve perhaps a touch too much like An American Werewolf in London, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness and the Leprechaun looks more like the Creeper from Jeepers Creepers than previous iterations.

Overall this is pretty ok.  I had a decent enough time.  It’s at least as good as its predecessor and certainly better than parts 4-6.