Leprechaun 4: In Space Review

So this isn't a typical review. Akin to Chris Stuckman's "Hilariocity" reviews, I wanted to bring light to my favorite series of guilty pleasure movies: the wonderfully bad Leprechaun movies. Fun fact, after the second movie the rest of the sequels were straight to video, but at least we get to enjoy them now! Also something I didn't know until I purchased the set recently and was doing research on them, the movies are all unrelated, which makes sense because at the end of each the Leprechaun dies in some nefarious way.

If you haven't seen these movies, they follow a somewhat simple plot: the Leprechaun is "defeated" by a normal person, and then some idiot digs up something that was used to defeat the Leprechaun, and he wreaks copious amounts of havoc on unsuspecting individuals. The first three start of normal, then there's this one in Space, and the oh-so-amazing "In the Hood" and "Back 2 Da Hood". My favorites in the series are 4 and In the Hood, because they've got the most ridiculous but hilarious storylines. The plot of this movie is as follows: the Leprechaun tries to marry a space princess, but space marines arrive and kill him before anything can happen. Then one of the marines urinates on the dead Leprechaun to prove his masculinity evidently. Time elapses, and as that marine is "getting aroused" the Leprechaun essentially is birthed out of the marine's "package" in a much twisted chestburster interpretation from Alien. Somehow, this was the only one of these movies I hadn't seen before I bought the set, and immediately, aside from the horribly cheesy cgi, particularly in the expansive space shots, I noticed the somewhat similar parallels to the Alien films. Before anyone freaks out, I am absolutely not comparing one of the best Horror/Action movies to this B list amazing but obvious trash, just in the basic premise.

The staple of these movies is the progressively ridiculous and campy kills that occur at the hands of the Leprechaun. The first one is relatively tame, with the most ridiculous being when the Leprechaun jumps on a man's sternum with a pogo stick. They progress to even more ridiculous fashion, from a woman basically being botoxed to death to this movie where a pan is thrown at a guy's head and the next shot is his flattened cranium as he falls down. These things sound ridiculous just writing them, it's another thing to experience them while watching them.

What's interesting about the movies is they're classified as horror-comedy. Most movies are either one or the other, but one that is similar with that genre description would be Shaun of the Dead, which strays more toward comedy, or, in my opinion, the original Evil Dead movies. I remember watching these when I was a bit younger, between kid and teenager, and being somewhat scared, because I wasn't exposed to many horror movies because they weren't my thing, so seeing that pogo stick scene in particular in the first movie was a bit too violent at the time, but seeing them now is comical as sadistic as that sounds because it is so ridiculous when you lay it out on paper. The look of the Leprechaun is a bit creepy if you were to look at it without having seen any of the movies, which is props to the makeup department.

The Leprechaun is played by Warwick Davis, most notably Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter movies. He adds his own spin to the character, and it just works. I read an interview with him talking about these movies and it sounds like he really enjoys playing the character and would like to continue to do so, which is cool because people dismiss these movies, but me personally I enjoy movies more if I know the actors enjoy making the movies themselves. The rest of the supporting actors in the movie show their cheesy acting chops as well. One thing to note is that Jennifer Aniston is in the first one, which is funny to see considering she's typically associated with more "respectable" projects. But Davis steals the spotlight in every film with his rhythmic limericks and his spot on deliverance of his lines.

If you like enjoyable, popcorn munching fun movies, it's worth it to try these out.

#comedy #horror