Semiquincentennial Movie Project #40: Leprechaun

 

 

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #40: North Dakota -

The state of North Dakota was established on Nov. 2, 1889 

Details about North Dakota:

State bird: western meadowlark

State flower: wild prairie rose

State tree: American elm

Additional historical trivia:

Both North and South Dakota were admitted on the same day. President Benjamin Harrison didn't want people to know which one was admitted first, but for convenience sake North Dakota is listed as being the first because it comes first alphabetically.

Up until 2012, North Dakota officials were not required to be sworn into office, which techically would have made the state an unofficial state until then...

The only National park named after a President (Theodore Roosevelt) is in ND.

The Ghostbusters could have a job in Harvey. They have a library that is supposedly haunted.

In 1982, the city of Rutland made it's way into the record books with the world's largest hamburger.

Famous people born in North Dakota: Lawrence Welk, Bobby Vee, Angie Dickinson,  Louis L'Amour, William Christopher and Lynn Anderson.

 

I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one. If you, like me appreciate horror movies that have a healthy dose of comedy, this is one you should check out. My favorite horror/comedy movie still is, and probably always will be, An American Werewolf in London. But this one edges in to the top 5, maybe even into second place in that realm.

It's totally nuts when it comes to the comedic value. Credit star Warwick Davis for that part. There is a comedian I have seen clips of on Facebook, Brad Williams, a fellow "little person", who probably could have pulled this role off, but I think Davis was an excellent casting choice. You might remember him as the title character in Willow. It's too bad his size has limited his available roles (he was an Ewok in a couple of Star Wars films, and notably cast as Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter films), because I think he could bring something to any role he had the opportunity to play. 

 

Personally, I think if they ever remake Wild, Wild West they ought to consider him for the role of Dr. Loveless. (The original TV series character was played by Michael Dunn, another "little person"...)

 

The film got a lot of negative reviews when it was first released. But, if you know me, you know that I often don't agree with critical reviews. A brief scan of wikipedia yields such comments as it "isn't dumb enough to be fun", or "ill advised slapstick". The comments also disparage the horror aspect, and I'll give them that... it isn't really all that scary. There is, however, enough shocking gore to put it in a realm with the average slasher flick.

I look at it along the same lines as I do the aforementioned Werewolf film, or maybe 80's horror/comedy films like House or the Evil Dead films. For me, the horror in those films take a back seat to the comedy interspersed in the film. Jennifer Aniston, making her feature film debut in this, has a few great comedic lines, too.  

Some of the best (read: funniest) parts of the film involve the various ways the leprechaun finds to give chase to his victims. He variously uses a tricycle(!), a pogo stick (!!), a toy car (!!) and even, God help us... a wheelchair(!!!). 

 

 

 

Leprechaun (1993): 

The set-up for this film centers around an old Irish couple, the O'Gradys, Dan and Leah (Shay Duffin and Pamela Mant). Dan has just come back from getting his beloved mother's ashes from the old country, where he also, somehow, managed to trick a leprechaun out of his gold. The leprechaun (Warwick Davis) is none too pleased about this, of course, but in the process Dan manages to seal up the leprechaun in a crate where it will remain for eternity (or for 10 years, since that's how long he is trapped before some unwitting people release him...)

 

This inevitable release occurs when a man, J.D. (John Sanderford), buys the old O'Grady house which he plans to refurbish. His unwilling daughter, Tory (Jennifer Anniston) is along for the ride. Initially Tory is a typical uppity, privileged brat, threatening to go into town and rent a hotel room rather than stay in this rat trap.

 

J.D.: "Never judge a book by it's cover, honey.

Tory: "Dad, this book doesn't even HAVE a cover..."

 

The problems escalate pretty quickly. Just as Tory is about to leave she runs into Nathan (Ken Olandt). In any other movie we probably would have gotten the stereotypical "Oh my gosh, he's a hunk!  OK, Dad, I'll stick around..." Instead, what we get is Nathan ridiculing her for her namby pamby attitude and she decides to stay just to put him in his place and show him she isn't going to let some guy one-up her in the fearlessness department.

 

 

Nathan has a couple of helpers; his brash younger brother, Alex (Robert Hy Gordon) and Alex's older, somewhat dimwitted friend, Ozzie (Mark Holton). It is Ozzie who gets the ball rolling when he accidentally frees the leprechaun. The greedy little sprite has only one goal; to retrieve the gold that the old man stole from him 10 years earlier, and absolutely nothing is going to stop him from his quest.

 

 

At one point, Ozzie, who is the only one who initially sees the leprechaun, starts looking for the fabled "end of the rainbow" (because, after all, the legends state that's where the leprechaun has his "pot of gold"). Of course, when Ozzie tries to get people to believe he actually saw a leprechaun, no one believes him. Not necessarily because they don't believe one could exist as much as Ozzie has a reputation for seeing things, like U.F.O.s, and they just think it's another one of his fantasies. (It having been established early on that Ozzie is basically a child in a grown-up's body...) 

Alex and Ozzie find the end of the rainbow and the bag of gold that Dan had hidden earlier. Ozzie, being Ozzie, says the best way to determine if the bag holds real gold is to bite it (which he saw in a movie once). How this dimwit expected to be able to determine it that way is not clear, probably not even to him, but he accidentally swallows the gold piece. (Remember that folks, it becomes relevant later).

There are several secondary characters that are what we might refer to as the "expendable" characters, none of which get enough character development for anyone to really care about them. Personally I would have liked to see Alex get taken out, that kid was just annoying as all get-out. And if I hadn't gotten to like Tory a little more as the movie went on, I wouldn't have shed many tears if the leprechaun had removed her from the scene either. Instead we get an innocent cop whose only crime was pulling over the speeding toy car as the leprechaun was giving chase for his gold, and the unfortunate rare coins dealer that Alex and Ozzie went to to see what their haul was worth. 

Ultimately the four friends FINALLY figure out if they just find the gold and give it to the leprechaun, maybe he will leave them alone. It does take some time for them to figure that part out, however, despite the fact that the leprechaun's main dialogue with them is "Give me back me gold!"...

 

When they finally do, the leprechaun realizes he's been bilked. They only gave him 99 coins and he originally had 100.  (Remember where that last gold coin is now? Scroll back up if you forgot...)

 

The ultimate dispatch scene where they finally are able to take the leprechaun out of the picture is pretty decent. But since the producers had their eye on at least a sequel (there are currently 7 of them, now), the fact that he was not able to retrieve his final gold piece opens up the possibility for his return. (Since I've never seen any of the sequels, I can't say how all of this pans out, but like Jason or Michael Myers or even Dracula, the old adage rears it's head at the end: "You can't keep a bad man down.")

Leprechaun turned out to be a gold mine for the makers. It only cost $900,000  to produce, but it managed to pull in $8.5 million in ticket sales. This despite the fact that it sits at only 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, and as previously noted, it was NOT a big hit with the critics. But, that shouldn't be a big surprise because highbrow critics are notoriously dismissive of the horror genre. Movies like Psycho and Halloween get a pass, in my opinion, because the "monster" is a normal human being that just went awry. When it comes to "monsters", unless the monster is a familiar creature, such as the shark in Jaws, the critics tend to be like "OK, big deal..." 

So, while the movie is pretty much a cardboard copy of the standard monster flick, I still like it. mainly because of how funny it is at places. Give it a shot.

Until next time, drive safely folks. And, my suggestion is if you see a rainbow, head in the opposite direction.

Quiggy