Leprechaun 3 & 4


In regards to Leprechaun 3, Lee was like, I'm out.

These reviews were written for St Patrick's Day.

Leprechaun 3

Yeah, this is probably my favorite of the franchise. It was my daughter's, too...we particularly enjoyed the rhymes of this film provided to Davis, as the franchise really emphasized his whole language was that way. I have only watched this once, last year. For some reason, I wasn't one of those teenagers who rented this when it was a direct-to-video juggernaut in the mid 90s. While any more sequels to this franchise seemed as unnecessary as two or three, I do admit that this third film had some amusing supernatural Lep kills I really enjoyed. And this has my favorite leads of the franchise, with Gatins, after being bit by Lep in arm, causing an infection, making for an amusing "transitioning leprechaun". I read the fact that Lee Armstrong quit the business after this and could only think to myself that she must've felt it could not get any lower than this so decided to try another line of work! At least, Lee, it wasn't Leprechaun in Space!

Caroline Williams is the main reason I got a kick out of this silly claptrap. They fit her in a ridiculous wig, sagging boobs, and bubble butt just so she could wish on Lep's shilling to have her actual body before he used his powers to stretch out her boobs, butt, and lips until they explode!

Setting this in Las Vegas is another reason the third film is my favorite of the franchise. Lep fits Sin City like gold in a pot. My daughter and I watched the TV-14 cut on SYFY to avoid all the nudity, so they blurred out the conjured nude model emerging from a television by Lep to seduce Lucky Shamrock casino owner Callan, before she turns out to be a robot sex doll electrocuting him! While exploding Caroline Williams is my favorite kill of the film, Lep really takes some savage out on Indian pawn shop owner, Tubert, biting off his toe, some of his ear, causing a cupid sculpture to fire an arrow into his arm, and finishing off with his wooden cane club.

I read Trenchard-Smith shot this in like fourteen days...say what you will about this just being another Lep sequel, that is pretty impressive to pull that off with such little money! I read they shot mostly in LA, but all the shots of Warwick in makeup and costume moving about Vegas made me smile every time. Gatins as the teenaged outsider arriving in town to attend college is actually better as a human/leprechaun hybrid to me than just as the likable hero! I can only imagine renters/viewers back in the day were furious when Lee strips all the way to her bra (Callan wished on the coin to score with her!), only to "snap out of it" when the wish ends.

The only bummer to me is the way Lep is killed at the end. Flame thrower to a pot of gold that Lep could easily have vanished since he makes it appear out of thin air to begin with, causing the menace to burn to a crisp. I did think the Leprechaun statue at the beginning was neat before Tubert removed the medallion (Lep's weakness). The whole sequence in the hospital when Gatins is worsening from the Lep bite as members of the staff contemplate swindling him of his casino winnings can get more than a bit corny...this franchise is corny, so that is par for the course.

Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space

I rented this way back in 1997 and haven't watched until now for a reason. Think about it...the alien menace space marines are after on board their spaceship is Warwick's Leprechaun. And Warwick's Leprechaun wants to marry a princess so he can be king. And Dr. Mittenhand is basically a Dr Who villain who orders the marines to kill Leprechaun while perfecting a device to grow body parts...almost all of him is machine besides his head and brain. And the leader of the space marines has a metal plate on one side of his fead. Yet another ill-advised franchise sequel where the lead baddie replaces the Xenomorph from Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). Lep is grenaded, with some of him entering a space marine through his urethra and later out his dick once on board the ship. The sexy Home Improvement co-host with Tim Allen's show within his show is a marine who wants revenge for her lover whose dick Lep emerged from.

When I saw this cost $3 million I asked myself where the money was spent. The gore is non-existent, the (not at all) special effects including the space ship and device/gun laser effects are groan, and the sets look as if they were ported over from a bad B-movie starring the great Marc Singer.

Davis, though, is having a blast and bald Siner, adding a German accent, is essentially a Dalek. There are beautiful women all over the place and Lep gets blown apart and shot apart in the best of the gore effects.

Siner in a ball gag (!) is injected with quite a cocktail of scorpions and body part growth goop as Lep mocks his twitching. What Mittenhand turns into is some sort of mutant human/scorpion/spider. Oh and a laser that can grow or shrink objects blows up Lep to bigger size in the climax.

And Lep orders Sarge around while he's strapped with explosives and later forced into a wig, dress, and makeup for his own amusement. Outrageous and WTF?! as intended.

While Collins is the PhD doc packing a laser machine gun, Carlton's boobs reveal on her planet means death typically but the remaining marines consider that quite a great way to go, Miguel Nunez actually doesn't die in a sci-fi horror movie(yay!), and Lep is yet again after his gold. Jasmer is the muscled hero who must outsmart Lep, the Large, while Collins must avoid Mittenspider...he even says, Feed Me and Help Me! Nunez is cocooned while trying to help Collins! But after Lep is sucked into space by the open cargo bay door and once again explodes, his floating hand gives the remaining survivors the finger...I can only guess many Leprechaun fans felt the franchise was giving them the F-U.

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