Leprechaun: Amazon Prime's crock of gold

[dissolute ocelot]

The first five Leprechaun films are available to stream on Amazon Prime. I just watched the first one (1992) with Jennifer Aniston playing a spoilt teenage girl with new LA Gear trainers who doesn't really do anything to piss off the titular bastard, but plenty of other people covet his gold and get their shoes shined (not a euphemism (seriously, he polishes shoes between slayings)). It's fairly entertaining, well paced, and not awfully made.

It feels weirdly as if it's aimed at 10 year olds, with a wise-ass young kid and his intellectually-disabled friend in lead roles, but despite a fairly low body count and plentiful comic moments (some actually funny in a Gremlins-esque way), there's a lot of gory biting and clawing so I don't seriously recommend you let your younger kids watch. For geography buffs, it's one of the few movies set in North Dakota, which looks much sunnier than in Fargo (I suspect it was shot elsewhere but haven't checked).

I'm now wondering if I should skip straight to Leprechaun 4: In Space, or if there are any delights to be had in 2 and 3. Leprechaun 5 In The Hood with Ice-T is also free to subscribers (and on my watchlist). I understand it features Warwick Davis rapping.

According to Wikipedia there are 8 films, although I'm a bit dubious as to whether 6-8 have been watched by anybody ever. Also, Warwick Davis is going to hell.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

A friend showed me clips of Leprechaun 4 (she's a fan) and on watching them I had to ask "Is... is it supposed to be shit?" (as in intended to be a parody with deliberate low-quality production values). Worth watching for Guy Siner as Dr. Mittenhand, and as one of the few actors in the movie who leans into its ridiculousness.

[BlodwynPig]

Jen unjustly shuns the first film and her appearance in it, but as I told her after wrapping my first film, she only got the lead in Minotaur due to that performance and, therefore, should be grateful.

[SavageHedgehog]

It feels weirdly as if it's aimed at 10 year olds, with a wise-ass young kid and his intellectually-disabled friend in lead roles, but despite a fairly low body count and plentiful comic moments (some actually funny in a Gremlins-esque way), there's a lot of gory biting and clawing so I don't seriously recommend you let your younger kids watch. For geography buffs, it's one of the few movies set in North Dakota, which looks much sunnier than in Fargo (I suspect it was shot elsewhere but haven't checked).

IIRC it was shot to be a PG-13 but they added gore shots in results to bump it up to an R. Maybe the last time that (as opposed to the opposite) happened.