Leprechaun is undoubtedly a franchise. With six movies under it's belt there's no question about that. What is surprising is that there were so many sequels for a franchise that has barely been heard of today. Even for the horror genre, Leprechaun is a C series. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original's release, I have decided to do a franchise analysis of one of the most bizarre and mind bogglingly problematic (continuity wise) series I will ever attempt. Bare with me, folks, this one's gonna be a bumpy and infuriating ride.
As always we begin with the trailer. The original trailer had a lot to be desired. It was engaging enough to make me want to see the film and it definitely made the leprechaun seem much more menacing and scarier than he actually is, but it just wasn't a great trailer. The tagline for the film: Your luck just ran out! really is the only tagline that could sell the movie for what it is. It's a pun, like several of the lines in the movie, and that's one of the most irritating qualities of the first picture.
Leprechaun's first problem stems from the fact that Mark Jones shot this movie for young children. It was intended to be a young children's scary movie. This makes sense because it seems to be the only audience that would find a leprechaun scary in any sense.
The characters are a mess. I just don't care about Jennifer Aniston or any of the human characters in the movie. The acting is simply atrocious. It is by far the worst acting of any horror movie I have ever seen! This movie just infuriates me to no end!
The only positive element of the film is the casting of Warwick Davis as the killer leprechaun. He is just so mesmerizing as an actor. I just can't take my eyes off of him. He is so much fun to watch, which is the only thing I can think of that makes sense as to why we have five sequels to a crappy film.
The biggest problem with the film is this: they shot it for children like I said before. When they sold the movie, the studio asked for the film to be made into an R. They then vamped up the violence. However, this makes the whole picture disjointed. The violent sequences are incredibly violent for a 'kids film.' It definitely warranted it's R rating in 1993, however the rest of the film is so childish that it just tonally makes no sense. I can't seem to understand why anyone would like the original film for this reason alone. I thought it would be so much better than it was seeing as it's the original of a long series, but I clearly overestimated it's quality.
The leprechaun in this film is killed, or at least stopped, by a four leaf clover. Keep this in mind for next time. It is also trapped inside a well at the end claiming revenge. I rewatched the film for the first time in a few years for my review. I watched it on VOD on amazon. The movie was presented in glorious HD and for the first time that I've ever seen it in widescreen. That made the experience of watching the film fresh. I finally felt complete with this film having watched it in widescreen. But even with the HD and the widescreen it didn't save the film from being incredibly boring. I can never forget the total knockoff of the phone gag from Nightmare on Elm Street. I've always thought of Freddy every time that scene comes up and it's so far from Nightmare's quality it's just painful to sit through. While I was watching it, about halfway through I was itching for the film to be over. It just always seems to drag on for FAR too long. Like I said, it's a disjointed piece. Keep that in mind when you watch it.
Leprechaun was released in theaters on January 8, 1993. On a budget of $900,000, the film grossed $8,556,940. That is an incredible profit for such a crappy movie! That profit margin was something the studio could not ignore, so the studio demanded a sequel. But how would the leprechaun get out of the well, would the sequel still have the childish quality of the original, and how ultimately would the leprechaun return to the big screen...well, we'll discuss that next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment