Leprechaun (1993)

Day -1 of Sobriety (that's minus one!).

So I drank eight beers while watching Leprechaun, and It was right after that, while still drunk and filled with remorse as usual, that I decided (yet again) that I really had to end my habitual boozing, and I started thinking about creating this Sober Horror Fan blog. So this is really a kind of "prelude to Sober Horror Fan."

I'm not saying the movie itself was in any way significant in that respect, because god knows—I've sworn to myself that I'd never drink again, oh, about 5000 times before. But in a way though, Leprechaun was a fitting send off  to my days of being the "Drunk Horror Fan." Why? (1) Well, because it is a classic example of a dumb "watch while getting buzzed" horror movie, and (2) Ironically, I probably would have enjoyed it much more if I was sober. I at least would have been able to more clearly assess and understand the inanity that I was watching.

I will spare you a detailed plot synopsis, because you can find that elsewhere if you want one, and because, since I was drunk, I can't really remember much in detail, but this is a "comedy horror movie" (sometimes described as a "slasher") about an evil leprechaun who stalks and murders people in order to retrieve the coins from his stolen crock o' gold.

To be fair, I only really have a clear recollection of about the first 30 minutes of the movie, and then things start to get boozy and hazy, but I'll say it up front: I did not enjoy this film much at all. I knew full well going in that it is one of those films that is generally enjoyed as being "so bad it's good," but I would tend to agree with one IMDB reviewer who describes at as more like "so bad it's bad."

How the hell can this film have seven (and counting) sequels?! I knew it was going to be dumb and ridiculous, but I was disarmed by exactly how dumb and ridiculous it actually is. The words and actions of every single character are just bizarre beyond description—like the flirting between the young "hot" characters (Tory and Nathan) near the start of the film, for example. The dialogue between them just so incredibly weird and inane, but I guess that is the kind of thing that the fans of this film enjoy about it.

Throughout the film, things just seem to happen with no context, rhyme, or reason (although there is a fair bit of rhyming and punning done the leprechaun of course). For example, one thing I remember is that in one scene, the leprechaun is suddenly driving a little miniature car down a highway. What? Where did that come from?! I also remember some pretty bizarre, but sometimes quite amusing plot devices, like the fact that a four leaf clover is used to ward off the leprechaun like a crucifix in a vampire movie, and that the leprechaun is obsessive about shining peoples shoes (in folklore leprechauns are often portrayed as cobblers), so the characters throw shoes at the leprechaun to distract him when he's closing in for the kill—he just can't help but stop and shine those shoes! (Now that is cobblers!).

But here's the thing: much as I am deriding Leprechaun, there is not really much I can say about it with any degree of fairness, because as I mentioned, I can really only clearly remember less than half of it. By about the 30-minute mark, I was already getting drunk, distracted, losing my ability to concentrate. If I were to review myself as a viewer, I would get about a 2/10 at best. Leprechaun is a movie that is so weird and random in terms of its plot, characters—everything really—that I can't tell how much of the apparent incoherence was due to the movie itself, and how much of it was due to my booze-addled brain.

So I must apologize to Leprechaun for being unfit to give it its due consideration as a film that many horror fans seem to like. I bet there are even a few people with the blu-rays of all eight Leprechaun films on their shelf, and (green pointy) hats off to them, too.