first 4 of the leprechaun films.
leprechaun: the original with jennifer anniston playing a teen aged girl...when she's obviously well beyond that already. yeah she's younger than in friends, but she's far from looking like a teenager and...well she never could act so she can't act like one either. we'll dismiss that because its only truly annoying at the onset when they establish these details. from there she just doesn't her normal attempt at acting...which mind you isn't horrid but is also never great.
this first film is begins with an old man that steals the leprechaun's gold in ireland and the leprechaun comes to his home in north dakota get it back. kills his wife and gets caught again by the man and put into a crate...but still manages to give the guy a "stroke". enter the new home owners a man and his "daughter" aka anniston as a teen(cough)ager. and he's hired a group of house painters including, not surpisingly, a "hot" guy (who's not really of course), a kid, and a mentally slow man, presumably brothers. the crate gets opened, the gold gets found, and we have the horror movie plot.
all in all its a bit slow getting to the horror, but nothing is aweful about getting there. the acting is fair, the story fair, the filming pretty good, and so on. an enjoyable albiet not particularly scary unless you haven't seen this sort've thing before or have an irrational fear of leprechauns i suppose.
i did actually enjoy the kind've commical foot fetish...or rather show fetish...that is used against the leprechaun...creative..if silly. worth seeing. would watch again. nothing profound though. (6/10)
leprechaun 2: he's back and after his gold again...lost a shillin'...again. this time he's after love too. and right away he has a girl he wants to make his and its his slave's daughter...but he's prevented and then he finds another and manages to make her his "wife" but the boyfriend wants her back. the boyfriend is a LA tourguide with his uncle. this also embark on the leprechaun pointlessly getting involved in random killing...spicing up the gore in the movie without making it any part of the plot...whatever. the boyfriend also learns that wrought iron is the only way to kill the leprechaun (not sure what happened to the four leaf clover theory...). and then along the line somehow the shilling when he has it makes it impossible for the leprechaun to hurt him....which is stupid because we already seen him kill people with his gold but who am i to say... truthfully theres nothing really good here but for a cheesy horror its fun enough. the added gore works fine and the silly rhymes begin to become a signature in this film. overall good if a bit lacking in serious scares. almost ruinned by seriously bad acting on the girls part...not bad normally but her attempts at scared or sad is just horribly awkward. (6/10)
leprechaun 3: on to las vegas... a pawn shop owner is given a sculpture of a leprechaun...(you see where this is going right...duh!) he tells the shop owner not to touch the amulet aka necklace. (yeah...) and of course he takes it off the sculpture and it comes to life...and leaves it pot of gold with the shop keeper...and immediately comes back for it. meantime....country boy visitin' the big city...stops...bumbling stops...he almost runs over a girl who needs help with her car. she's a vegas magician...or rather assistant aspiring towards her own act (a subplot never used)...he helps her she gets him into the casino because he's underage....he loses his college money betting and is told to go the pawn shop and pawn his watch to win his money back. finds the owner killed and finds a gold shilling on which he makes a wish....suddenly these movies include wishes being granted but without any logic...they did it before in the last movie. in the first movie they got a wish for catching the leprechaun...which would have to be "give me your gold"...the second movie they got three wishes for having the gold...the third movie now they get a wish for each shilling they have of the gold except theres only one shilling ever being passed around. whatever again...don't over think it. the casino is full of unsavory characters to fill time and to make some plot devices moving the shilling about and letting the leprechaun destroy the wisher somehow. interesting subplot which has to be new...the country boy used the wish to get a winning streak back...and did so...the leprechaun while trying to find his shilling, which had just been stolen from the boy, bites the boy and bleeds onto him. now he's infected and becoming a leprechaun and he and the love interest...you know the hot city girl he saved...have to kill the leprechaun to save his life. oh and this time in order to kill the leprechaun they have to destroy the gold which they do by burning it...ummm...nevermind. not half bad movie gorier again, not bad acting for the most part....on and on. then cut to the last scene and they have a shilling still....oh oh oh is there a part four...why yes there is: (6/10)
leprechaun 4; in space: sounds dumb right...you're right. the filmmakers i guess decided they wanted to do a sci-fi film and being that its a leprechaun film hilarity ensues...sort've. the jokes are lame which is just as true in any of these...but where this fall dreadfully short is the rest of the attempt. bad acting, bad script, totally unbelievable in any conceivable realm. i mean they didn't even try to make this a plausible space film. instead its about a group of soldiers sent to some alien planet to kill any alien life forms. thats right this is about alien species from different planets and in fact humanoid like aliens that we have relationships good and bad with....wtf? and what the group of soldiers stumble into is of course the leprechaun's home cave (complete with bat sounds and another alien creature which is promptly killed). here he has his newest to be wife...who is a queen from another planet and the leprechaun is plotting to become king. also a sub plot of scientists and a wizard of oz character called both wizard and dr. mittenhand. in truth its watchable stupid...but its stupid! (3/10)
theres more leprechaun films after this...i can only imagine...and i'm frightened
notes about this dvd pack: theres 2 dvd's in the box; disc one is 1&2, disc two 3&4. normal, except that the menus, setups, and even the style of the discs are different. the first 2 films are on a single sided disc and come with nothing featurewise nor subtitles (closed captioning works). the second two films come on a double sided disc and offer subtitling. these are also full screen versions. maybe some where filmed that way i dont' know...i didn't check and i cant' imagine it'd make one lick of a difference.