LEPRECHAUN
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli
Running Length: 1:31 Rated: R (Violence, gore, language)
Starring: Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton, Robert Gorman Director: Mark Jones Producers: Jeffrey B. Mallian Screenplay: Mark Jones Music: Kevin Kiner Released by Trimark Pictures
When a leprechaun's treasure is stolen, he hunts down the thieves and kills them--at least that's the premise of LEPRECHAUN. In this case, one of the wee folk (Warwick Davis) has been relieved of a hundred gold coins. In an attempt to regain the lost treasure, he's captured by means of a four-leaf clover and trapped in a box. Ten years later, a girl (Jennifer Aniston) and her father move into the house where the leprechaun is trapped. Surprise of surprises, the leprechaun gets free and starts to kill and maim everyone in sight.
To begin with, this is a feeble premise for a movie. What the "creative" team behind LEPRECHAUN manage to do with it, however, is a travesty. I know that there are far more bad horror films than there are good ones, but this goes beyond simply being "bad". It's so unpleasant, in fact, that it isn't even worth a look as one of those popular "so bad they're good" films. It is legitimately unwatchable.
The plot is a mishmash of cliches. The dialogue was written with the brain- dead viewer in mind. Not only is it stilted and unrealistic, but writer Mark Jones seems determined to explain everything, no matter how obvious (and often ludicrous) it is. Of course, toward the end, the leprechaun has to be "killed" twice. This "sudden return" from the dead has, over the past few years, become one of the most-overused plot devices in Hollywood.
The actors seem perfectly suited for the stock characters they portray. Warwick Davis enjoys himself in an over-the-top performance, and Jennifer Aniston shows that, in different circumstances, she might be competent, but everyone else is horrible.
As is usual in pictures of this genre, there's a lot of blood, but, while some slasher flicks take pride in the art of presenting a murder, there's no style evident in LEPRECHAUN's various killings. The copious amounts of gore are more laughable than sickening. True to its unoriginal form, the leprechaun follows the recent trend of wisecracking whenever he injures or murders someone. Compared to the other homicidal maniacs like Freddy and Chucky, his lines are more idiotic than pithy.
Then there's the intelligence of the characters to consider. Now I recognize that it's necessary for people occasionally to do stupid things in horror movies to advance the plot, but LEPRECHAUN thrives on far too many of these contrivances. How is the audience supposed to sympathize with a group of morons who act like they flunked out of kindergarten? For example, if you suspect that a cat is rabid, would you stick your hand into a hole in a tree to try to get it out? Neither would I, but the characters of LEPRECHAUN approach the matter differently.
It's not worth wasting any more time on this review. LEPRECHAUN is a movie with virtually no redeeming qualities and even the most film- starved horror fan would do better watching HALLOWEEN for the umpteenth time than putting himself/herself through this torture. It's hard to believe that ninety-one minutes can seem this long.
Rating: 1.1 (F-, *)
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews