Leprechaun Returns

Now we come to something new, one that borrows a page from last year’s “Halloween.” “Leprechaun Returns,” released on TV in 2018, like “Halloween,” is a direct sequel to the original “Leprechaun,” ignoring all of the previous sequels before. Rather than taking place in the Hood with Ice-T or in space, the leprechaun, this time played by Linden Porco, has spent the last twenty or so years rotting down that well. He finally comes back when an eco-friendly sorority decides that the rundown house and well are the perfect place for their environmental sorority house. When newest member Lila (Taylor Spreitler) arrives with Ozzie (Mark Holton), the leprechaun finds the perfect way out of the well and soon begins hunting the girls and their friends, as he once again is looking for his pot of gold.

What made 2018’s “Halloween” as great as a direct sequel, which cleaned the slate on the other versions, was that it greatly included the original heroine again. “Leprechaun Returns” didn’t get Jennifer Aniston back in here, so sadly we get the confusing ‘daughter of,’ a trope that was used in a lot in horror sequels around the time of the original “Leprechaun.” Kat Hughes said in her review, “The buzz around the Halloween direct sequel paid off, but here it feels like a really cheap hook, and one that you wouldn’t really miss unless you have seen the first film.” There also included Ozzie, but he’s sort of being a ‘hey he’s back from the first movie,’ his role could be any other character.

Hughes noted, “Leprechaun, which is included with the DVD for Leprechaun Returns, wasn’t the most solid of movies to begin with, and the sequel falls even further from perfection.” It also goes in a very different direction. The first one was a comedy horror, and despite the same could be said for this sequel, it’s way more of a gruesome movie. Hughes said, “The first film was rather anaemic, but here blood gushes freely with nearly all of the deaths featuring bucket-loads of the red stuff. The original had a rather limited kill count, here it’s a more standard slasher affair with almost all characters perishing in more and more absurd ways. We get someone split in two by a solar panel, someone water-sprinkled to death, and an idiot who clearly went to the ‘Rickon Stark school of evading’ whom seemingly allows himself to get taken down by a drone. And did we mention a game of charades with a ghost? That pushes Leprechaun Returns firmly into jumping the shark territory, and certainly won’t keep Wayne’s World’s Garth up at night.”

What really aggravates about “Leprechaun Returns” is the unwanted and outdated trust on misogynistic jokes. For some reason the leprechaun has suddenly become a huge desirable predator. He’s seen watching one of the girls in the shower, and later says that she has ‘boobs of talent,’ the same girl smacks him across his face and he replies, ‘you give great head.’ The girls themselves aren’t the intelligent and independent sisters you would want for today’s times, and each of them instead is a clichéd trope. There’s the bossy one (Sai Bennet), the alcoholic (Emily Reid), and the girl (Pepi Sonuga) who keeps sleeping with the boy (Ben McGregor) she broke up with, just because. Characters also change traits constantly, with one character (Ben McGregor) that has been nice and friendly to Lila suddenly taking a photo of her getting out of the shower and saying it’s going up on social media. It’s confusing and hard to put together whether we should be cheering for the girls or the leprechaun, as both sides are unacceptable.

Hughes is right when she said, “A sorry sequel that limps to its conclusion, Leprechaun Returns is a confused and outdated muddle of a movie.” Just like the leprechaun, you’ll really want to look for gold, but will end up with nothing but weak lead.

Despite that I like the idea that they finally decided to make a direct sequel to a film as opposed to constantly changing the story that you could watch these out of order, just like the rest of the franchise, this one is just garbage. How can anyone really like this franchise, especially since Porco doesn’t stop with the weak rhymes and riddles that he constantly spews? Like I have said with the rest of the franchise, avoid this film and all the others because I don’t find this funny or entertaining, as I didn’t laugh at anything.

Now that I have got that out of the way, look out on Thursday for the finale of this year’s “Halloween Month.”