Leprechaun Returns (2018, directed by Steven Kostanski)


In North Dakota, college student Lila Jenkins (Taylor Spreitler) and her friends are trying to greenify a house that was recently purchased by their sorority. It’s the same house where, 25 years ago, Lila’s late mother fought off a Leprechaun. Lila is the daughter of Jennifer Aniston’s character from the first film, and the fact that her mother is dead probably tells us how much interest Aniston has in returning to the franchise that made her a star. That’s some friend for you.

Mark Holton does return from the first film, recreating the character of Ozzie Jones. Ozzie gets sprayed by water from the well while dropping Lila off at the house. Later, the Leprechaun (now played by Linden Porco) bursts out of his abdomen. Ozzie may be dead, but his ghost still appears, which is good because Lila and her friends are going to need all the help they can get.

To date, this is the last Leprechaun film, and ironically, it’s also the only Leprechaun film to actually show any interest in maintaining continuity with the first one. It’s actually not terrible. The Leprechaun is talking and rhyming again, and some of the kills are memorably bloody. This is the only film I know of that features death by solar panel. It’s still missing Warwick Davis, though, and Davis really was what made the first few Leprechaun films memorable. Linden Porco’s not bad, but he doesn’t have the same joyous energy that Davis brought to the role. As for the human actors, none of them can really match up to Jennifer Aniston, Shevonne Durkin, or Ice-T.

Supposedly, Warwick Davis has said that he would now be willing to come back and play the Leprechaun in another film, assuming the money and the script were right. I hope he does. As bad as most of the Leprechaun films were, the character still deserves a proper sendoff.

Leprechaun (1993, directed by Mark Jones)


Teenage Tory (Jennifer Aniston) is visiting her family’s new North Dakota farmhouse when the dimwits hired to paint the place accidentally set free the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis), who had been trapped in the basement ten years earlier by the former owner. The Leprechaun wants all of his gold. It’s too bad the painters already found the gold and one of them somehow swallowed a piece. This Leprechaun gets all of his gold back except for that one piece. Leprechauns don’t stop until they get all the gold. It’s the Leprechaun code.

The very first Leprechaun film is actually a pretty simple affair. I am surprised the movie was given a theatrical release, because everything about it feels like something that would go direct-to-video. The puns are bad and the kills are unimpressive, though this might be the only movie to feature a deadly pogo stick. It also features a Leprechaun in a go-kart and a kid saying, “Fuck you, Lucky Charms!” because the cereal company decided they didn’t want their product in the film.  That earned Leprechaun an R-rating.  It would probably have been a PG-13 otherwise.

Warwick Davis is at least having fun as the Leprechaun. After Return of the Jedi and Willow, this film was his chance not only to be bad but also to head a franchise, and you can’t blame him for taking advantage of it. Jennifer Aniston is cute beyond words, and this is probably her liveliest film performance. The movie would probably be forgotten if it hadn’t spawned so many sequels. Remember Leprechaun in the Hood?