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REVIEW: Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997)

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Leprechaun 4: In Space: D+

I know what you’re asking yourself right now, but allow me to counter with a question of my own: Why wouldn’t the Leprechaun be in space? Huh? Think about that, smarty-pants.

The Leprechaun’s evil has reached intergalactic proportions in this shitfest of a film. He kidnaps a princess from another planet whom he plans to use as a hostage in order to become king of her home-world. Then, some space-marines come along. You know. Space-marines. Like in Aliens and Starship Troopers. They murder the shit out of the Leprechaun, but he manages to sneak onto their vessel in a completely logical manner: When an overzealous marine is urinating on his corpse, the Leprechaun transmigrates his essence into the guy’s penis, which he later violently bursts from once he returns to the ship. That’s right: a dick-stowaway.

By the way, don’t google “dick-stowaway.”

Now that the “in Space” part is taken care of, we can sit back and watch the Leprechaun formula mindlessly unfold. Everything that happens in spaceship sci-fi movies happens; someone gets sucked through the airlock, someone’s spacesuit is ruptured, someone is an android, a self-destruct sequence is initiated. At one point, the Leprechaun genetically mutates one of the crew into a human-arachnid hybrid. He is doused in liquid nitrogen and shattered by a bullet a la Terminator 2, similar to how your will to live should be feeling at this point in your viewing of this abysmal mess.

The rip-offs of the Alien movies are fucking shameless. If space-marines, bursting from a human body, spaceship self-destruct, and hidden androids weren’t enough, the Leprechaun is zapped with an enlarging ray, becomes a 40-foot tall version of himself, and, just like the Queen at the end of Aliens, the protagonist blasts him through the airlock into space after a showdown in the cargo bay. Someone should blast this movie into space. But then, aliens might find the movie and assume it is a representative of our collective culture. Then they would understandably kill us all. Thanks a lot, Leprechaun 4!

The Leprechaun explodes in space and his disembodied hand flips off the space ship at the end of the film for one last fucking lame zinger. Really, he is flipping off the audience as if to say “At no point during the making or execution of the film did we respect you, the audience. Hey audience: FUCK YOU.”

REVIEW: Leprechaun 3 (1994)

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Leprechaun 3: F+

Jeez. Where to start with this? I remember watching this movie on pay-per-view when I was 12 and even then, when I would watch ANYTHING in the horror section from the video store, I recognized this as a turd of a film. I remember laughing once at the whole thing, which says a lot since the comedy in this movie is exclusively slapstick and tit jokes. There is little worse than watching film that does this comedy poorly (I laughed when the Leprechaun flips the camera off, so that should tell you how mature I was while watching it for the first time).

The Leprechaun is trapped in a magic statue that winds up in a Vegas pawn shop. When some greedy nimrod releases him from the statue, he not only unlocks a murderous villain from a block of stone, he unlocks the same fucking movie we have already seen twice in the preceding films. The Leprechaun wants his gold and he also wants to kill people. This time, instead of murdering random white trash who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, he slaughters ambitious lowlifes in the gutters of Vegas casinos. They have the same ideas/personalities as the people who died in L1 and L2.

The Wishmaster kill model (which, I guess, should be called the Leprechaun 2 model) is over-utilized in the film. The most memorable kills are a magician getting sawed in half for real by the Leprechaun and a woman who wishes for a hotter body having her breasts/ass/lips supernaturally enlarged until she pops like a balloon full of pig guts. You can of course, see all of this coming a mile away and the execution is so anticlimactic by the time it happens, I contemplated punching myself in the crotch just so I could feel something. But I didn’t because that would have been a victory for Leprechaun 3.

The protagonist is bitten by the Leprechaun and he starts turning into one. Never mind the two biting incidents from the previous films that had no consequences. I think maybe it’s because the Leprechaun was wounded and maybe his blood got mixed in. I don’t fucking know and I’m not going to re-watch the scene just to confirm. If you are capable of critical thinking like that, this film is not for you.

The Leprechaun is defeated when his gold is set on fire. This has a voodoo-esque affect and the Leprechaun himself bursts into flames and dies. I wished at this time that I too would have burst into flames as it would have been more entertaining than Leprechaun 3. The main guy returns to a regular person and there is another Leprechaun cliffhanger at the end which you should realize doesn’t matter because the films have absolutely zero continuity.

REVIEW: Leprechaun 2 (1994)

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Leprechaun 2: D+

The Leprechaun is unexplainably not dead and the events from the first film might as well have never happened. In fact, this could just be the first film; the plot is almost identical minus some lame prologue.

The audience learns that the Leprechaun is allowed to choose any woman he likes as his bride provided he can make her sneeze three times on his 1,000th birthday. When he fails to score a bride in the first scene, which takes place 1,000 years ago, he vows to marry a descendant of this guy who fucks everything up for him. 1,000 years later, he finds a descendant to the bloodline and decides to make her sneeze and marry the shit out of her.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can roll out the exact same plot/pace/tone from the first Leprechaun film; with each minute, it becomes clear that you are watching a clone of Leprechaun 1 and at no point will it ever stray from the design you have already experienced in that movie. There is more of the same comical carnage. There is more of the same iconic classical Leprechaun-lore contorted to fit into a horror film. They don’t even pretend to give a shit about film making with this one; it reminds me of a stand-up comedian telling the same jokes over and over.

Why doesn’t the movie get an F or UV? There is the establishment of a new trend to appear in this film and the Leprechaun films that follow: the “be careful what you wish for when you get three wishes from the Leprechaun because he will twist your words around to kill that ass” model of kill. This setup becomes a favorite for writers in the coming years and, I suspect, helped to inspire the Wishmaster films (which started a few years later) in which EVERY fucking kill is ironically rooted in “be careful what you wish for” and “ZING, you got your with but you are fucking dead.” This setup is a double-edged sword; these kills are fun because the character flaws of assholes in the movie wind up getting them murdered but they also make the kills super-predictable because you can spot the fatal flaws a mile away once you start watching the movie.

One guy wishes for the Leprechaun’s gold, which the Leprechaun joyfully teleports into the guy’s stomach, stretching his shit out like someone in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Then the dude wishes for the Leprechaun to take his gold back, so, of course, the gold is promptly ripped from his stomach, killing him. ZING! The Leprechaun pogo-sticks on some dude’s chest until he dies, which is awesome. There is shape-shifting, bad one-liners, midgets, and just as much mayhem as the original film. It is still pretty charming, but it doesn’t take much guts to make a horror sequel that so closely mirrors its predecessor, so that’s also why it’s a cut below Leprechaun 1; it took some balls to make the first film, but anyone could follow the formula and cash in on the same basic model of splatstick with minimal (or virtually no) innovation.

I can’t even believe that this shit got a theatrical release, though. What were they thinking?

In Leprechaun 1, they had to use magic and a huge fucking explosion to defeat the Leprechaun. In Leprechaun 2, they attack him with a crowbar and he dies. Aaaaaaand there’s another single gold coin cliffhanger.

REVIEW: Leprechaun (1993)

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Leprechaun: B

Watch Jennifer Aniston and her loser friends get terrorized by an evil Leprechaun. All the ingredients and talismans from classic Leprechaun-lore are there including the 4-leafed clover, rainbows, and pot of gold. Even though this movie about a demonic Leprechaun probably only exists because the writers were scraping the bottom of the how-can-we-make-this-fairytale-character-who-isn’t-in-a-horror-movie-yet-scary barrel, it is a classic and entertaining splatstick. If you’ve never heard of the films, the Leprechaun is a crude and slightly racist midget who loves LOLing at torture and death. He has magic powers which he uses to murder people in ironic and Looney Tunesesque scenarios.

Some 1980’s bro finds a pot of gold in Ireland and the Leprechaun hides in his luggage and makes his way back to the States. He murders the guy’s wife and drives him insane. The bro uses a 4-leafed clover to trap the Leprechaun in a box. Some 90’s bros accidentally free the Leprechaun from his prison ten years later and he immediately begins a killing spree motivated by his misplaced gold.

The kills are cool and the cartoonish tone that the movie takes makes it fun. You laugh while people are injured and killed and the Leprechaun drops numerous puns/one-liners. The comedy is mingled with the horror aspects of the film in a very successful way; there is serious gore, but also a Leprechaun cackling while riding a tricycle. At one point, he even smashes into Jennifer Aniston’s vehicle in a little Leprechaun car. Before he can reclaim all of his ducats, the Leprechaun is killed by a 4-leafed clover / gasoline explosion combo. His little skeleton is proof that he’s been killed. There is a lame cliffhanger involving a single gold coin.

The cult success of this film inspired several sequels and (unfortunately) multiple imitators that tried to capitalize off of the adored elements of the film. All of a sudden, there was a Rumpelstiltskin movie, a “Wishmaster” movie, tons of elf/fairy horror films, and (incredibly) more Leprechaun horror films not associated with this character or franchise.

REVIEW: Mr. Brooks (2007)

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Mr. Brooks: F

Mr. Boring. Just awful. If you are in the mood to watch some bullshit, here it is.

Costner plays an un-scary Patrick Bateman-like popular yuppie by day, schizophrenic serial killer by night. He winds up taking another psycho under his wing and they kill people. I think the writers were going for a dark character study with this one but the tortoise-like pace and lack of chemistry between Costner and Dane Cook put me to sleep. Mr. Brooks’ arguments with his sinister alternate personality are externalized as his id appears in the form of some annoying dude for like a thousand of these “debate” scenes.

Demi Moore is the best part of this movie. You can quote me on that. She is a hot-shot cop who sniffs around the old murder files and starts to pick up on Brooks’ shit.

SPOILER: One of the reasons the movie didn’t get a UV: Mr. Brooks outsmarts Dane Cook and murders the fuck out of him with a shovel.

I guarantee that you’ll see every kill coming a mile away and the dialogue is fake as hell. No one talks like the people in this movie. Even the deranged Brooks debates about murder are goofy as fuck:

“Finding someone you think would be fun to kill is a bit like, well it’s a bit like falling in love. You meet a lot of candidates, and you like some of them, and they’re nice. But they’re not right. And that special one comes along, and your heart beats faster, and you know that’s the one.”

If you thought that was “deep,’ you should check this film out. You’ll probably have an existential meltdown when Dane Cook works some of his jokes into the movie.

REVIEW: Hellraiser 3 (1992)

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Hellraiser 3: C

Hellraiser 3 keeps in line with Hellraiser 2 in that Pinhead is still trapped in a fucking rock. He somehow got his identity divided and exists simultaneously as his human self and the demonic cenobite. His human self is stranded in a black hole somewhere while his cenobite self is the only part of him trapped in stone. That’s mostly where the original ideas stop. Then the old Hellraiser formula kicks in…

Pinhead, while trapped in the rock, has to use his limited supernatural powers of intrigue to temp some idiot into opening the cube with the promise of accessing new levels of hedonism that walk the line of pleasure/pain. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIES WHERE HE NEEDS HUMANS TO SUMMON HIM. Only through this can he fully bust out of his rock and start ritually hooking motherfuckers. Things start going his way when douchey 90’s Night-at-The-Rocksbury club rats become mesmerized by the box and start getting murdered. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIES WHERE PEOPLE START IRONICALLY START DYING BECAUSE OF THEIR INFACTUATION WITH THE BOX. The club owner is the hedonist/evildoer character who will inevitably empower the cenobites through his own shittiness. JUST LIKE IN EVERY OTHER HR MOVIE. He buys the Pinhead rock thinking it is cool modern art, some assholes are systematically slaughtered by the power of the cube, and (of course) some do-gooder gets wise to what’s happening. JUST LIKE IN THE OTHER FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKING MOVIES! The temptation gradually becomes manipulation, and then becomes possession.

When Pinhead finally busts out, two things happen: some decent carnage occurs as he summons cenobite backup (one cenobite uses possessed CD’s to telekinetically slice people), and a sub-plot is fully exposed that (I think) explains that Pinhead’s identity spilt somehow resulted in the total corruption/evil of rock-Pinhead. Apparently, the human-Pinhead (who, again, was trapped in a vortex the whole movie) was the only thing keeping the original Pinhead from being a ruthless asshole. The Pinhead consciousnesses fuse and him becoming more complete somehow vanquishes him. Okay. The ending is some “THE END” with a “…?” after it shit. JUST LIKE…

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbhQCi32r-A

REVIEW: Raptor Island (2004)

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Raptor Island: D+

I watched Pterodactyl the other night. When  I saw that Raptor Island was next, I let out a long breath, sadly mumbled “fuck it,” resigned myself to the idea of watching it, and thought about my life during the credits of Pterodactyl.

Lorsnzo Lamas leads a team of soldiers in pursuit of (what else?) terrorists to fucking Raptor Island! You can see where this is going and what kinds of shenanigans to expect. Cheaply rendered CGI raptors feast on soldiers and terrorists alike. All the same ingredients of Pterodactyl and all the same lamentable movie-making. My favorite Lamas quote (with a straight face, standing over comrade’s fallen body): “Secure his body men; I don’t want those raptors gettin to it!”

I included an image of the raptors so you can see the level of CGI we’re dealing with. Not only do you have to suspend your disbelief and pretend that Lamas is anything other than a pill-head with a bad tan, but you also have to pretend like those fucking feeble, shivering polygons that slunk around to the same 30 second clip of “raptor” noise are dinosaurs.

REVIEW: Pterodactyl (2005)

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Pterodactyl: D

Pterodactyl is ptero-terrible but I was entertained during most of the movie.

Some scientists/students on a field trip meet some terrorist-hunting Marines in the woods in rural Turkey and all of a sudden, pterodactyls start eating everyone! How’s that for a plot, asshole?

The CGI looks like PS1 but who cares; if you sit down to watch this movie, you know what you are getting yourself into. This movie was made during a unique window of time in which CGI in horror films was just god-awful and Sharknado had not been made yet. Bad movies with post-Sharknado era self-awareness that are “so bad, they’re good”  were not being mass produced for mainstream audiences, so any movies like Pterodactyl that didn’t take itself seriously wasn’t doing so because the filmmakers thought they would get paid. It was because the movie was a piece of shit and/or no one cared. This is part of why I don’t hate this movie: I don’t feel like it not taking itself seriously is a gimmick being sold to me.

Anyway, if you were hoping for something at all like Jurassic Park, prepare to watch that hope get eviscerated by a pterodactyl. Check this out: Coolio plays one of the soldiers! His only role in the film is to blast shit with automatic weapons and deliver one-liners. When the terrorist ringleader gets dropped into the dactyl nest at the end, Coolio lowers the assault rifles he holds in each hand and quips “Damn! Judgement by dinosaur!” while the dactyl babies tear the guy up.

There is a plot worse than most video games’ and a lot of guns, dinosaurs, and carnage. The movie didn’t age well. Don’t watch it unless you love Coolio or you have brain damage or both.