Fright Night Fridays: Leprechaun (1993)

Hi all,

To celebrate St. Patrick's day which is coming up, this week's entry of Fright Night Friday is the 1993 film Leprechaun. It features Jennifer Aniston in her first feature film role fighting against a homicidal little elf in search of his gold. This was a horrible film, by the way. And the awfulness isn't over yet. The sequel's next week.

 Leprechaun

1993, USA, Directed by Mark Jones

Sometimes a film’s premise works against it. The Idea of this movie is that a killer Leprechaun is stalking whoever takes his gold (and whoever else happens to be in the way) which sets up a whole number of inventive and unnerving possibilities. However, this is one of the worst films I’ve seen in some time. It’s got crappy music, weirdly lopsided storytelling and dumb characters which you just want to die (not a good thing for a horror movie to do). It even tries its hand at feminism but destroys any hope the film had of being that by having Tori (Jennifer Aniston) constantly hiding behind the man and being an incredibly useless and annoyingly clichéd female character. Then there’s a discussion about mental illness which tries to be clever and forward but is just painful. Worse still are the incredibly mind-numbing plot twists. Aspects of the film’s conclusion haven’t been foreshadowed and don’t even make sense (the Leprechaun can be defeated by a four-leaf clover which I’m sure there would be several in Ireland. I get they’re rare but the film makes a point of saying that you can find one quite easily if you believe. Cop-out much?). Characters appear and disappear for no reason other than to die or provide key plot elements at a convenient time. That’s not to say the film is all bad. One of the Leprechaun killings is inventive and you really get a sense that the bugger’s really hard to kill (probably a symptom of that lopsided storytelling though). However, most of this film is just awful and it was a real struggle for me to make it to the end as I was nodding off at the same time. A horror movie shouldn’t make you fall asleep.

Gore/Violence: 3 (a lot of blood and a gross eye-for-an-eye scene)

Sex/Nudity: 0 (none at all which is surprising)

Scares: 2 (I jumped once or twice and the persistence of the Leprechaun is a little freaky)

Best Scene: Pogo stick killing

Overall Verdict: 3

Thanks,

James