Leprechaun

You can kill anything. What the hell are you? You're just getting a little runnin' doing. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh It's your killer host, my name is Parker, your resident who are fanatic.

I'm Caroline, scaredy, scream queen. I'm Ian, scary movie, skeptic. And welcome to... What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time. Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. Do you get new classes? No, I've had these, but today, so for this very episode, I pulled up at like archival scan of a Fingorai magazine from 1993 that had an article on Leprechaun, and it was just bad enough quality that I was like, this close to my screen, like squinting at it, and it was just really bothering my eyeballs.

But are you well? Your hair style is different today. I was about to say for all you listeners, Parker is sporting a side part, swooped over, very, a, you know, telling the world that he reads the New Yorker magazine, not just to say he reads it, but like, he reads it. He reads it to be seen reading it. me, you know, has his, his robe on, uh, shelling the world that he's just snuggled up with a cup of coffee on the couch and his New Yorker magazine. Or he just got, but not coffee, Dr. Pepper. I like how you rolled the RF robe because of in case you didn't know that word comes from Greek. L-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

Smills like me podcast tastes like me podcast I cannot oh Well, I mean of all the gems of this movie That one had me rolling on the floor a little bit Yeah, I'm sorry these like pretty good scene gold gold gems go. Oh, yes, it's always not a gem Well, I Speaking of gems, speaking of gold and speaking of Ooh, what's happening this Wednesday, but Happy St. Patrick's Day. That's Wednesday. Oh, wow. Well, I'm so really aggravated because I can't find a shamrock shake to save my life. Oh my god Okay, McDonald's, Shamrock Shakes, literally the grossest thing in the world is a vanilla milkshake with green food dye. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's vanilla. It looks forward to it. No, it's not. It's pretty much not. No, it's not. It's so much more than that. So many more artificial things than that. It looks forward to it every year. And he was like, oh, it's March. There's a McDonald's. Let's go get a Shamrock Shake. And I was like, fine. And we pull up to the drive through. they don't have shamrock shakes so we just waited in line in covid in a drive through a McDonald's but wait wait Caroline I don't need to hear your judgments of the shamrock shake I would like to hear from in the the delicate the notes of the shamrock shakes I don't have never had one.

First of all it's one of the the best past times of my childhood was the time when shamrock shakes come out for the year and every year my mom sends me a text all caps shamrock shakes exclamation exclamation exclamation and then I remember that I forgot last year about it and then I say I'm going to remember to get one this year and I love shame actually so no no no wait keep going oh I'm sorry was it my floor keep going then he gets one and then he feels miserable and he's like I don't know why keep getting these every year but to answer your question uh Patrick oh I called you Patrick some unknown reason Parker

I, I would say, I don't want to say mint, but I think that's probably the closest thing that I think I read an article about how like the shamrock shake is one of the most, and I could be don't quote me on this fact check mean, but is like one of the most unhealthy things that McDonald's offers what that's crazy because there's so many like, artificial additives to the shake to make it taste the way it is, I could be wrong, but the shamrock shake is a seasonal green mint flavored milkshake dessert sold at McDonald's restaurants during March. So it is technically mint. I used to get one every like almost every day after high school when they were out because I was like, oh my god these are so good.

minty creaminess of old school butter mints interesting you know when I see green drinks I think man I love me. I used to get a mint chocolate chip milkshake from Brahms It's it's so not like, yeah, chocolate chip or mint chocolate chip, but I think if you're a mint kind of sewer or a mint lover You will you will very much enjoy the shamrock shake and I would I would urge you listeners to try it if you've never tried it He's afraid that McDonald's is going to take it away because no one buys them. Start small, start small, and if you want to go for the large later, you're welcome to do so, but they typically just serve it in a small, large option.

Well, after telling us it's perhaps one of the most unhealthy things you can get at McDonald's, I'm just lining up for it. Well, I mean, Parker, let's be real. Shut up. Dr. Pepper, like, uh, much healthier. Okay, silent, silent, silence. We have a movie to talk about. Not just any movie, a seasonal movie, and I love a holiday themed horror movie. So we are, you do. We are tickling our shamrock shake. taste buds with a little visual shamrockness with a leprechaun, leprechaun, one of those holiday movies that I had personally not seen before this week, and now I've seen it. Haven't we all, and let Brecon came out two years before my birth, a 1993, the year of my birth.

year of the leprechaun you were born. Leprechaun was written and directed by Mark Jones. He had previously been a TV director and writer, but leprechaun was his first feature film, which will apply to someone we will discuss very soon as well. He also created a Rumpel Stilt Skin in 1995, the year of my birth. I was born in the year of Rumpel Stilt Skin, so. I haven't seen that, but we'll see what it says about me, maybe in the future. And before we move on to the performers of Leprechaun, the makeup effects were done by Gabe Bartollos, Warwick Davis, the man who played Leprechaun spoilers for Caroline's section, spent three hours in the makeup chair having his prosthetic supplied, and then 40-hole minutes having them removed.

Wow, nice. I do have to say, I did not enjoy the prosthetics, but I appreciated them. Village cool. Yeah, except for the lips. Very thin green lips, very gross. need some chance to do it. I think the full face prosthetics sometimes is like the eyeballs look very weird, you know. Yeah. But he like it, but also he, I was shocked, he had kind of like a full range of expression. I never felt like I was just seeing like rubber moving around. Yeah. I wouldn't be the first time. All right, we have the one and only skin and bones, Jennifer Aniston, as Tory, this is her first credited role in a feature film and she iconically plays the same role for everything else that she's done in her entire career, amazing work, Jennifer Aniston.

Um, this film she was playing Rachel Green from Friends as Tory in Lebracon. Yes, and every other romcom that she has ever been in she plays Rachel Green under a different name I think oh my god, what a great movie if it was Rachel Green was an actress playing all of these roles Well, I guess I would just be pretty very meta Yeah, that's gonna be very very meta. Do you think she's like that in real life or do you think like she has the one role really down You know, um, why don't we just give her the benefit of the doubt and just say she's really good at that one role. Um, so pre leprechaun Jennifer Aniston had been on shows such as Malloy and Ferris Bueller.

Uh, and then later she was in. You guessed it, friends. Friends. Nice. Thank you. We have Warwick Davis, who plays the Leopard on. He was in Willow in 1988. The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Oh, one of my favorite movies. And a lot of other fantasy series including Harry Potter, Star Wars, the Chronicles of Narnia, Dr. Who, and Maleficent. Wow. What a roundup. Hmm. Wait, Ian, you said you've seen Willow? No, hitchhikers guide. Oh, he looked at the movie. Great movies. Um, and then he starred in, here we go, folks, leprechaun 2 in 1994, leprechaun 3 in 1995, leprechaun 4 in space 1996, leprechaun 5 in the hood in 2000, leprechaun 6 back to the hood in 2003.

Can they do that? Make six of them. Yeah, with those. Have you learned nothing in the scary movie world? You can do anything, you're trying to disguise the limit. Let me just say, I haven't seen these. But, first, they went to space and then they went to the hood and then they went back to the hood. I mean, the leprechaun is a powerful creature. I think he can do anything he wants. All right, I'm interested to see those, but I will not. They're all streaming on P.C. P what? All right, we also have Ken Olant, as Nathan, who looks like someone I can't put my finger on, but the whole movie I was thinking, you look like someone.

If you can put your finger on and where would you put it? Mark Holtin as Ozzy and Robert Gorman as Alex, so a summary of this movie would go a little something like this. An old man called Ogrady brings a boatload of riches home from Ireland to his wife in North Dakota, but unfortunately that gold was stolen from a leprechaun. the leprechaun murders the wife, but Ogradey traps him in a crate under a four-leafed clover, leprechauns, Kryptonite, Q, fall asleep. Ten years later, Tori and her dad are moving in, Tori is not happy to be so far from LA until she meets local hottie, Nathan, and his buds, Two-thirds of the movie. No one knows it.

He's just being a wild thing, killing cops, pogo-sticking merchants to death, and scratching ladies' legs. Eventually, they discover who was behind all the madness, and Tori learns from a grady who had been in an old folk song, that the only way to kill a leprechaun. is to touch him with a four-leafed clover. So they do. The end. And boy, did it feel like it never would. I have to admit, yeah, real fast real fast, so on that, on that summary, I was watching this movie and I just kept thinking, is anything happening right now and the answer was usually no, it's so bad. I tried, I tried so hard to re-engage because I'm just, I was like, when I know we have

Yeah, yeah, and I kept checking in with myself to check in with the movie, and every time it was like there was nothing to grab on to it's just like slipping away so slowly Yeah, I kept thinking this was the sign-feld of horror movies just a movie about nothing No, I love sign-feld. I'm just saying a show about nothing. This was a movie about nothing That's fair Um, and, you know, the rotten tomatoes score reflects such the critic score is maybe one of the lowest I've seen in herstery of 21% Wow, the audience score is a 32% gracious audience and you know what there's just no freaking critics consensus there isn't one they took the day off and addition to those sequels that Caroline listed leprechaun origins came out in 2014 which was a straight creature feature produced by the WWE

and then leprechaun returns was released in 2018, a direct sequel to the original, but neither of these star warwick Davis as the leprechaun, so they were not included above because they are sans Davis, which you know, a loss, but well, he's alive, I'm just it lost for the movies, So did this movie like make a big splash when it came out or like, is there, I mean, the critic square was pretty low. Well, funny, you should ask because, obviously, as we just saw Leprecom was pretty unanimously paned by critics. but it made $8.5 million in theaters on a budget than less than a million and now has a pretty big cult following and even Jennifer Aniston herself agrees with that on Howard Stern in 2019 she said, quote, I really thought I arrived when I did leprechaun and quote,

The movie, she says, makes her cringe now, but she called it a cult classic and said, quote, I really did think it was an amazing thing that I was in a movie. Look at you now, Rachel Green. I know, now. No, why are you guys so critical at her? Have you watched friends? Yeah, I've watched probably every episode. Okay. Well, speaking of Rachel Green, I did want to just comment on when Tory first gets to this house. I was just laughing, laughing, laughing, because she's wearing very cute little dress, but then these little tiny baby heels that are just sticking into the dirt and I just thought hilarious outfits across the board in this movie. The shorts though.

Would you wear out? I enjoyed those shorts. No, but they looked good on her which isn't really saying much because she's so skinny in this movie I feel like anything would have been fine on her but Yeah, okay. We can't skip straight to them arriving. We have to start at this mini movie in the beginning that was really setting us up for a wild ride. I thought the whole movie was going to be like that and I was like, I am out and then you were still out. Yeah. Wait, explain. What do you mean? It was the flashback with the old man and the wife and all of that happening, I thought that was going to be the whole movie.

No, was it just me or did you think that these people looked like they were made out of wax? Yes. I was really confused at the beginning, so I was like, are these fake people? Is this going to be part of the movie that they aren't real? yeah it there's a lot happening there but they did remind me a lot of the like animatronic characters in the rides at Disney World yeah they look strange and i have to say something that happened in this first scene that is then consistent across the board And I don't know why, but everything just moves so slow. Like for a horror movie, I was like, take your time. Everybody like leprechaun, just, you know, not a very fast runner apparently, everybody else, just kind of like, oh, got to get away.

Let's leave some time in the next half hour. I was just like, wow, everybody, even in these fight scenes between the leprechaun and like Nathan later in the movie, everybody's just kind of looking around. Yeah, there was a big chunky gap between when her dad gets his hand bitten in the very beginning. goes outside to the well with the shotgun, and he gets his gold back. Everything in between was just kind of like up. Caroline, that's like the entire movie. Exactly. I could do not. I'm telling you, I was trying so hard to keep an open mind, and I just, couldn't The only thing, the only thing cool about this movie is the Pogos Tick. Oh, that was cool.

And I have to say, there are, there are little highlights throughout this movie that I do think like, would be worth a short, like if they could do a highlights reel of this movie. There are some good moments because I did find the leprechaun hilarious. When he's going back and forth on that skateboard between the doors, hilarious. I was laughing so hard at that. When he's driving those tiny cars both the like plow at the end and just the tiny car hilarious. He said something that really tickled me. I think I highlighted it. Oh, so like I said, I just thought it was so bizarre that the like the kids and the leprechaum were just not interacting at all for the whole movie and the absolute epitome of this is when they leave the house and the leprechaun just goes in and he eats the leki charms he looks at himself in a mirror for a minute and then just cleans all of their shoes

I was laughing so hard at that because I was just like this movie is chaos. One is just funny that he's cleaning their shoes. But two, I was just like, what's happening? Like, I just had no idea. I just, I loved that like they threw the lucky charms in there. Yeah. Did they get sponsorship? No, but I did read that Mark Jones was inspired by the Lucky Charms serial box and by this movie called Critters, which is about these little creatures from outer space that came out in the 80s. But I do have to say something redeeming about this movie so it is definitely one of our you know silly trashy bee movies that we've covered on this podcast.

It definitely falls in line with those. But I do think there's kind of a... Well, yeah, there is kind of a like it didn't look bad like it didn't look like a poorly shot movie to me like it looked like a movie from well It's from the 90s. I was gonna say from the 80s, but it kind of looked like ET or like one of these nostalgia movies like it had like the right color grading and kind of like I thought it looked good. If you were talking nostalgia, it looked like a movie I would watch for nostalgia. It looks like a movie that, for all intensive purposes, Parker should love. I literally had the thought, there was a shot, actually a few times when the Lebron is like running, and he like kicks out his little feet, and it's just a shot of his feet.

And every time that that happened, that was just like, this is why Parker is having this watch this movie. Like Parker would be giggling every time that that happened. like knowing that I had to talk about this with you and knowing that you would probably be like like just so in love with it Well, I'm going to, I'm going to dispel some assumptions happening here. I had not seen leprechaun, I planned it specifically because I was like, oh, this Monday falls a few days before St. Patrick say how perfect we'll put out leprechaun so people can get in the spirit. And I myself was watching this movie and I was like, I feel like I should be loving this.

Like I feel like there's something that should be clicking here. But I think it just wasn't quite funny enough for me. Like everything that was funny to me was just funny because the leprechaun exists. Like you said, his little feet dance around doing little heel clicks hilarious. I always thought that was funny. But he wasn't really saying anything funny. Like I wanted him to be making some really good jokes And then I, I also had the thought, like, this, he, the leprechaun has the potential to be a Gremlin. And that, but it didn't get there. Like, there have to be a little bit more humor happening on his end. Maybe a little crude humor. I think would have been funny.

Yeah. Um, but it just didn't get there. Well, and I, from what I understand, it seems like the sequels go a little more all out. They're not high up on my list to watch right now. I must admit. But, yeah, I just, I really wanted something, just a little more, just amp everything up a little bit more, because yeah, this could have been a gremlin's. And I feel the same way about the horror, too. Like I said, everything's moving a little too slow to actually be scary, but also, like it just wasn't, it wasn't gory enough, it wasn't, I didn't feel like they were really capitalizing on like being like you can have like silly tension and suspense and like they just weren't really doing that.

I felt like it was just inconsistent, you know there were jokes, Jennifer Aniston is like I'm leaving right now, she walks out the door, she comes back in and was like it was darker than I thought it would be out there. I felt like there should have been a laugh track on that, like that seemed like a very classic like sitcomy line. And then same thing with the horror where it's like you have these pieces where it's like he gets stabbed in the eye so he pulls the cops out and put it puts it in his own eye hilarious. That's so weird, that doesn't make sense, but it's funny, it's gory. but then that's not happening for most of the movie.

A lot of the like horror parts are just them running around chasing each other. And from what I understand, the studio made them re-shoot some of the movie to make it goryer and you can tell. You can tell that it wasn't super consistent. Same thing, Mark Jones wanted to make this a straightforward horror movie, but then when he started working with Warwick Davis, he shifted it to be more of a horror comedy. And I just, I don't know if maybe just that didn't translate. It's just you can tell that things were kind of piecemeal together. I do think that this is something that is, you know, but it just it didn't it didn't connect with me as much as I hoped it was because I also kept kind of you know clicking a button here there on my remote just to see how much was left.

That makes me feel better. Yeah, but I do have to say Aussie, steel my heart. You are a joy and a pleasure and Alex, I don't love Alex, but when he said, I know I can't fix his brain Oh, I loved them. They were so sweet and that this whole movie comes down to that he swallowed one of the pieces of gold. You can't argue with that. You can't argue with it. I will say at the end the effects of him when he swallows the clover. Great line from Alex. But the effect of him melting like the gremlin at the end of gremlins. I liked it. Pretty cool. When did Gremlin's come out? I have it right here because I had a few movies that I compared this movie to, one of which was Gremlin's.

Gremlin's was released in 1984, and then Gremlin's two came out in 1990, only three years before this. Child's play about Chuck E. The Doll also came out in 1988. So kind of a slew of small villain things. Maybe that's why I wanted more crude humor from the Leprcon because Chuck E and the Gremlins both kind of go down that rabbit hole. And both of them are so funny. Yeah, I think that I would have to say I think Leprcon is an unintentional hit. I think there's no reason it should be a hit. It should be a classic. Alas it is. It's Jennifer Anderson. a little food for thought for you. I want, I looked up the legend of leprecons, just to see how much it matches up.

And like it cut, I don't know. You definitely see how Mark Jones, the writer, director, took many liberty, because of course, leprecons are a type of fairy and fairies are classically evil and cruel things. um the leprechauns live underground or in hollow trees so the hilarious scene where the dad gets bitten and then it just shows the tree in his face he's just like ah there you go that's from legend they're also shoe cobblers so that checks out as well and that's how they make their gold Originally leprechauns were red, they were a Celtic legend, and as they became more and more specifically tied to Ireland, they became known for green instead, and then I can't specifically find anything about leprechauns hunting and killing people that have stolen their gold.

But there definitely is plenty of legend about how they'll use gold to bait humans and and play tricks on them. They're kind of cruel tricksters. But I didn't find anything specifically about killing thieves of gold. It's more that the gold is why you try and hunt down the leprechauns, you know, they're mysterious. There, you know, there is no end to the rainbow, but if you could just find it, you would get the gold. Uh, life's pursuit, my friends, who are, is it just trolls in general that live under bridges or like say little, or is that rumple stilt skin? Rumple stilt skin has the golden thread trolls live under bridges. Uh, you're getting your fairy tales with me, uh.

Yeah, they're all confused. I need to watch Shrek. All right, but I do think that this legend of leprocons correlates a little bit to Jennifer Aniston's character here. You know, she comes in all Queen B. Why am I not in LA? This place is poor and gross and then over time, you know, she learns a little bit about you know how to be a strong humble team player the journey of the leprocons so that's all. That's what I could come up with. I also read a review from earlier this year that was in the Irish Post and also a review from Irish YouTuber Ryan Hollinger. Both of them Pretty favorable, pretty positive on this first movie, so they had a lot to say about the other movies, but this one I was like, do Irish people hate leprechaun?

They seem like it's a little annoying that Americans think this is them, but they didn't hate the movie. So there you have it. What would you say from leprechaun is the most? Mimmerable. Murder. Pogastic. Pogastic. Pogastic. Oh yeah, that was good. It also probably makes like potentially like a top 10 murderer. Yeah, that was a that was a cringy moment hit in this little movie. I would like to give an honorable mention though to Mr. O'Grady, falling out of the elevator hurt my soul. I was sad for him. Mm-hmm. Also a good jump scare when he comes around. Uh, um, Caroline, you're wrong. But a fun fact is that Warwick Davis had a hard time operating that wheelchair, so Jennifer Aniston had to run in slow motion so he could keep up.

Mm-hmm. There you go. What great acting skills? On a scary skill, one to five. How would you rank leprechaun? One. I'm gonna give it a two just because his face is a little terrifying. I'm gonna cut right down the center one and a half. You know, there are eyeballs being pulled out. There's hands being severed. I mean, there's something, but uh, no, not particularly scary. And speaking of not very scary, would you give leprechaun a smash or a shamrock shake slash slash? No shamrock shake for me, but still a slash. Yeah, what's on your knuckles? I was painting today. A little green. Green. He's turned him into a blackhawk on. Oh, I am now. Looks like Ian.

It smells like Ian. It's like Ian. No too far, too far. As much as I had high hopes going to this, leprechaun's a slash from Parker as well. Not for me. Now, on that note, would you say, hmm, again, a real nail biter here, would you say leprechaun is your new favorite scary movie? No, no, it's a no for me, too. So, next time on what's your favorite scary movie, Caroline and Ian, they are trapped in a well under a four leaf clover and will not be returning for a few weeks, instead Julian will be joining me for a look at the OG pet cemetery, so look forward to that. While you're looking forward to that, you can leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

I'd be so helpful. My name's Parker. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Letterbox. At Parker Del Rey, where on Letterbox I did leave a little note about leprechaun. After I watched it that said, you know, you can give things a rating on a scale 1 to 5 stars. And I left a little review that said leprechaun. uh... is unradable on a star scale because i just could not wrap my brain around it so you can get a little sneak peek of what i think of these movies before the episode if you follow me on letterboxed just the tip wow uh... my name is Caroline you can find me on instagram at caro manifesto and my name is he and you can find me on

on Caroline's Instagram. And you can find the whole podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at ScaryMoviePod. You can find our Patreon where we have bonus content going up all of the time at patreon.com slash scaryMoviePod. You can send us an email at scaryMoviePod at gmail.com and find our calendar on our website at scarymoviepod.com. Uh, happy St. Patrick's Day. Good luck, everyone. Lucky the Irish, and us the next time. Send us your Shamrock Shake Photos. Oh, yeah.