Leprechaun

It's out. It's out of the crate. Hello, Sydney. Who is this? It's your killer host. My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic. I'm Caroline, Scaredy Scream Queen. I'm Ian, Scary Movie Skeptic. And welcome to What's your favorite scary movie? 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 glasses? No, I've had these, but today, so for this very episode, I pulled up a like archival scan of a Fangoria 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 your hairstyle is different today. I was about to say, for all you listeners, Parker is sporting a side part swooped over, very uh librarian, 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. You know, has his his robe on, uh telling the world that he's just snuggled up with a cup of coffee on the couch in his New Yorker magazine. Or he just got fucked. Not coffee, Dr. Pepper. I like how you rolled the R of robe because in case you didn't know, that word comes from Greek. What are we what movie?

My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Okay, wait. I had a um an introduction planned and y'all derailed it. So, real fast, something I was practicing. Sounds like me podcast. Looks like me podcast. Smells 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. What kind of gems are these? Like pretty good scenes. Gold. Gold gems. Oh, yes. Gold is not a gem. Well. Speaking of gems, speaking of gold, and speaking of, ooh, what's happening this Wednesday? But happy Saint Patrick's Day. That's Wednesday? Oh, wow. Well, I'm so 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. It is a vanilla milkshake with green food dye. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's vanilla. Ian looks forward to it. No, it's not. It's pretty much vanilla. No, it's not. It's so much more than that. So many more artificial things than the. Ian 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-thru. They don't have shamrock shakes. So we just waited in line in COVID in a drive-thru in McDonald's. But wait, wait, wait.

Caroline, I don't need to hear your judgments of the shamrock shake. I would like to hear from Ian the the delicate the notes of the shamrock shake. Because I don't I've never had one. First of all, it's one of the best pastimes 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 gonna remember to get one this year. And I love Shamrock Shakespeare. So no, no, no, no. Wait, keep keep going. 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 I keep getting these every year.

But to answer your question, Patrick. Oh, for some unknown reason, Parker. Um I would say, I don't want to say mint, but I think that's probably the closest thing. I 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 me, but it's 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. 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 mint. Interesting. You know, when I see green drinks, I think I love mint. I used to get a mint uh 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 connoisseur 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 gonna 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 is not like uh much healthier. Okay, silence, silence, silence. We have uh uh 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 uh leprechaun. Leprechaun, one of those um those holiday movies that I had personally not seen before um this week, and now I've seen it.

Haven't we all? Oh, and Leprechaun came out two years before my birth in 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 Rumpel Stiltskin in 1995, the year of my birth. I was born in the year of Rumpel Stiltskin, 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 Bartalos. Warwick Davis, the man who played Leprechaun, spoilers for Caroline section, spent three hours in the makeup chair having his prosthetics applied, and then forty whole minutes having them removed.

Wow. Nice. I do have to say I did not enjoy the prosthetics, but I appreciated them. They looked cool. Yeah. Except his lips. Very thin green lips, very gross. The thing about the full face prosthetics sometimes is like the eyeballs look very weird. You know? Yeah. But he looked but also he I was shocked. He had kind of like a full, full range of expression. I never felt like I was just seeing like rubber moving around. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't be the first time. Alright. We have the one and only Skin and Bones, Jennifer Aniston as Tori. Um, 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 Tori in Leprechaun. Yes. And every other rom-com 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 I guess that would just be two frames. 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 uh just say she's really good at that one role?

Yeah. 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 Leprechaun. He was in Willow in 1988, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of my favorite movies five, and a lot of other fantasy series, including Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia, Doctor Who, and Maleficent. Wow, what a roundup. Wait, Ian, you said you've seen Willow? No, Hitchhiker's Guide. Oh. He loves that 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? You can do anything, Caroline. The sky's 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. Alright. I'm interested to see those, but I will not. They're all streaming on Peacock. P what? Alright. We also have Ken Olant as Nathan, who looks like someone I can't put my finger on, but if the whole movie I was thinking you look like someone. If you could put your finger on him, where would you put it?

Mark Holton as Ozzie and Robert Gorman as Alex. So a summary of this movie would go a little something like this. An old man called O'Grady 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 O'Grady traps him in a crate under a four-leafed clover. Leprechaun's kryptonite. Q falls 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 Ozzie and Alex. Well, the leprechaun is accidentally set loose, but for 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 O'Grady, who had been in an old folks' home, 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, well, yeah, real fast, real fast. 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 until the very end. I I tried, I tried so hard to re-engage, because I'm just, I was like, when I know we have to talk about all of this stuff. An intellectual.

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 was just like slipping away so slowly. Yeah, I kept thinking this was the Seinfeld of horror movies. Just a movie about nothing. No, I love Seinfeld. 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 her story of 21%. Wow. The audience score is a 32%. Gracious audience. And you know what? There's just no frickin' critics consensus. There isn't one. They took the day off.

In 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. Um which, you know, a loss. Yeah. Well, well, he's alive. I'm just saying, a loss for the movies. So did this movie like make a big splash when it came out? Or like, is there I mean the critic score was pretty low. Well, funny you should ask, because obviously, as we just saw, Leprechaun was pretty unanimously panned by critics, but it made eight point five million dollars 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. Look at you now, Rachel Green. I know. Now I don't know why you guys are so critical of her. Have you watched Friends? Yeah, I've watched probably every episode. Okay. Well, speaking of uh Rachel Green, I did want to just comment on when uh Tori 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 was 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 gonna 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 terrible or the flashback with the old man and the wife and all of that happening. I I thought that was gonna be the whole movie.

Now, 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, because I was like, are these fake people? Is this going to be part of the movie that they aren't real? Yeah, it there was a lot happening there, but they did remind me a lot of the like animatronic characters in the rides at Disney World. Yeah, they looked 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, gotta get away. Uh let's leave sometime in the next half hour. Like, 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. Hilarious. To when she goes outside to the well with a shotgun and he gets his gold back. Everything in between was just kind of like a Caroline. That's like the entire movie. Exactly. Could you not? The movie is terrible. 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 pogo stick. 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 the like the kids and the leprechaun 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 lucky 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, it's just funny that he's cleaning their shoes. But two, I was just like, what is 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 um 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 um 80s.

But I do have to say, something redeeming about this movie. So it is definitely one of our uh, you know, silly, uh, trashy B movies that we've covered on this podcast. It definitely falls in line with those. But I do think there's kind of uh well, okay. I there is kind of a um B 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 E.T. 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 intents of purposes Parker should love. I kept it. I literally had the thought the uh there was a shot, actually a few times when the leprechaun 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, I was just like, This is why Parker is having us watch this movie. Like Parker would be giggling every time that that happened. I was most annoyed by 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 uh I'm going to dispel some uh assumptions happening here. I had not seen Leprechaun. I planned it specifically because I was like, oh, this Monday falls a few a few days before St. Patrick's Day. How perfect. We'll put out Leprechaun so people can get in the spirit. Um, 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 one, 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 like dancing 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 like really good jokes, and he just wasn't. 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 had 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 I from what I understand, it seems like the sequels go a little more all out. Um they're not high up on my list to watch right now, I must admit.

Um, but uh 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 Gremlins. 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 they weren'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 Anniston 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 sitcommy 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 cop's eye out and put it puts it in his own eye. Hilarious. That's so weird. That 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 reshoot some of the movie to make it gorier, 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 trans like it's just you can tell that things were kind of piecemeal together. I do think that this is something that is, you know, I am target market for Leprechaun. But it just it didn't it didn't connect with me as much as I hoped it would, because I also kept kind of you know clicking a button here or there on my remote just to see how much was left. That makes me feel better. Yeah. But I do have to say, Ozzy, steal 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, but he doesn't, uh I loved them, they were so sweet. Yeah. 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 that. I will say at the end, the effects of him uh when he swallows the clover, great line from Alex. Fuck you, lucky charms. But the effect of him melting like the Gremlin at the end of Gremlins, I liked it. Pretty cool. When did Gremlins come out? I have it right here because I had a few movies that I compared this movie to, one of which was Gremlins.

Gremlins was released in 1984, and then Gremlins 2 came out in 1990, only three years before this. Child's play about Chucky the doll also came out in 1988. So kind of a a slew of small villain things. Maybe that's why I wanted more like crude humor from the leprechaun, because Chucky and the Gremlins both kind of go down that rabbit hole. And both of them are so funny. Um, yeah, I think that I would have to say I think Leprechaun 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. Uh, I want I I looked up the the legend of leprechauns just to see how much it it matches up.

And uh like it could, I don't know. It you definitely see how uh Mark Jones, the the writer, director, uh took many a liberty because of course leprechauns are a type of fairy, and fairies are um 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 and his face is 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 wore red, they were a Celtic legend, and as they became more and more specifically tied to Ireland, they uh 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 in and play tricks on them. They're kind of cruel tricksters. But um I didn't find anything specifically about killing thieves of gold. It's more that the the gold is why you try and hunt down the leprechauns. You know? They're mysterious. They're 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 are are the is it just trolls in general that live under bridges or like say little or is that Rumpel Stiltskin?

Rumpel Stiltskin has the golden thread. Trolls live under bridges. Oh. You're getting your fairy tales mixed up. Yeah, they're all confused. I need to watch Shrek. Right. But I do think that this legend of leprechauns correlates a little bit to Jennifer Aniston's character here. You know, she comes in all queen bee. Why am I not in LA? This place is poor and gross. And then over time, you know, she learns a little bit about um, you know, how to be a strong, humble team player. The journey of the leprechaun. So that's all the city gal. That's what I could come up with. I also read um 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 memorable murder? Pogo stick. Pogo stick. Pogo stick! Oh yeah, that was good. It also probably makes like potentially like a top ten murder. Yeah, that was a that was a cringy moment hidden in this little movie. Um, 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 turns around. Uh Caroline, you're wrong. But uh 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. There you go. What great acting skills. On a scary scale, 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 there's something, but uh no, not not particularly scary.

And speaking of uh not very scary, would you give Leprechaun a smash or a shamrock shake slash? Slash. No shamrock shake for me, but still a slash. Eden. What's on your knuckles? I was painting today. A little green. Green. He's turning into a leprechaun. Looks like Ian. Smells like Ian. Um tastes like Ian. No, too far, too far. Um you know, as much as I had high hopes going into this, Leprechaun's a slash from Parker as well. Uh 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 from me, too. Uh, so next time on What's Your Favorite Scary Movie, Caroline and Ian, they are um trapped in a well under a four-leaf clover and will not be returning for a few weeks.

Instead, Julianne 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. That would be so helpful. My name's Parker. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Letterboxd at Parker Del Rey, where on Letterboxd 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 one to five stars. And I left a little review that said Leprechaun uh is unratable 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 Letterboxd.

Just the tip. Wow. Uh my name is Caroline. You can find me on Instagram at Caro Manifesto. And my name's Ian. 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 uh Patreon where we have bonus content going up all the time. At patreon.com slash scarymoviepod. You can send us an email at scary moviepod at gmail.com and find our calendar on our website at scarymoviepod.com. Uh happy Saint Patrick's Day. Good luck, everyone, luck of the Irish, and uh see you next time. Send send us your uh shamrock shake photos. Oh, yeah.