Thoughts on an Random Movie: Leprechaun (1993)

I got a job recently, and I haven't been around to update this site very often. I mean, I never do, but I need to do at least one Remake Watch post (Police Academy and Overboard!), so even at that, I'm behind on my work.

Since I spent most of the last 24 hours being unusually productive (I got Boxoffice.com and DVDTalk.com work done today too), I figure I might as well post here just to complete the hat trick, and what better to fill your internets with than a random assortment of thoughts about Leprechaun, which I am watching for the first time. I may or may not be watching all six Leprechaun films in the next week or two (yes, they made six Leprechaun films), so you might also be treated to entries on the sequels as well.

I decided to start blogging a little late in the game, so I'm afraid my thoughts on the first 30 minutes are mostly missing. The rest are time-coded, in case you too are one of the poor souls who owns Leprechaun and you'd like to retroactively read along.

(unspecified): Can this movie not afford the expensive visual effect of a door closing?

25 minutes: As a director, if you're unable to visualize the impossible, such as the end of a rainbow, just hide it behind an old truck.

27 minutes: I hope this annoying kid dies first.

28 minutes: The fat guy just ate a gold coin by accident. This incident was followed by this amazing exchange:

"Can you die from eating gold?"
"You can if I kill you!"

You would think that the second line comes from the Leprechaun, but no, it comes from the annoying kid.

28 minutes: I'm afraid there aren't actually expensive surgeries to make morons into geniuses. Sorry, Poor Man's Louis Anderson.

29 minutes: Nathan the Painter is really impressed that Jennifer Aniston has picked up the challenging "paint-in-a-straight-line" technique in 30 seconds. I guess he's into intellectual women.

31:20: Why on earth would she think Nathan the Painter was hiding under the truck? Is that something country painters do?

32:30: The characters in this movie are very easily convinced that the Leprechaun is a random, benign animal.

34:10: Of course, the town just happens to have a collectible coin store. I mean, what town doesn't?

35:50: Damn it, did I leave my bike bell on upstairs again?

36:18: Better whisper exposition to myself while I lock this safe.

36:37: So it isn't bizarre to this coin shop owner that a kid-size tricycle is rolling through his coin shop?

37:42: DEATH BY POGO STICK

37:50: I guess this guy does have a lot of toys, for some reason. Maybe they're collectibles or something.

41:25: Wait, so, instead of kicking the Leprechaun as hard as possible and running to his car, this cop chose to flee into the woods?

42:45: It's a real shame that Mark Jones' elaborate artistic vision is being steamrolled by this cropped, full-screen DVD.

44:20: This cop is experiencing all the stages of grief, at the base of this tree, in order, inside a minute.

44:58: Nathan the Painter has ordered blob, in mud sauce, with a side of slop.

45:43: Aniston pronounces "mature" like "couture". That's how you know she's serious.

46:10: Off-brand Lucky Charms in the pantry. Nice.

47:33: Wait, is the idea that he sanded the boot until he'd whittled it down into a high heel? Why does that change the boot's color?

48:21: Yes, Nathan. A bear arranged a bunch of shoes on the table.

49:20: She's mastered a broom too? On the same day she mastered painting? Look out, world!

49:22: "Sounds like a bell." THIS IS A GENIUS OBSERVATION

50:56: I really do like the flute-heavy score. It's funny. Good funny.

51:56: LOOK OUT A BEAR TRAP

52:17: This battle is seriously epic.

52:39: LUNGE

52:46: Don't just stand there, Jennifer Aniston, do something!

52:53: Of two adults, you send the nine-year-old to go get the shotgun?

54:15: What is Nathan shooting at?

55:39: Six rounds my ass. You only put one round into him, you liar.

56:57: kill the kid kill the kid kill the kid kill the kid kill the kid

57:25: No power windows.

58:33: It doesn't even look like the Leprechaun's car is tall enough to touch the truck, much less flip it over.

59:24: We're in some serious Evil Dead territory here.

59:33: Serious Evil Dead territory.

59:36: Wait, so, he opens the door and just runs away?

1:01:41: "Where the hell are the police? They should be here by now!" Police in this town have a minute-or-less guarantee.

1:02:47: The flip-frame transitions in this movie are amazing.

1:03:13: YEAH BADASS SHOTGUN WIELDING JENNIFER ANISTON APPARENTLY

1:06:19: "No one takes a leprechaun's gold!" No one except all of the characters in this movie!

1:07:28: Don't see a lot of dick-grabbing as assault in real life, much less in movies.

1:08:21: "We got the sucker!" Yeah, well, you got him before, too.

1:08:49: Just shoot him again, damn it!

1:09:33: Normally, I'd expect producers to hold off on having the villain in a horror movie skateboard until the sixth or seventh chapter, but Leprechaun goes for the gusto.

1:11:07: It rang before, and it was the Leprechaun! You ripped it out of the wall and threw it on the floor, and you're going to answer it again?

1:11:13: Apparently, the answer is yes. Therefore, this Nightmare on Elm Street rip-off moment is only brought to you by your own stupidity!

1:11:44: "That thing is a leprechaun, and we've gotta find a way to stop it!" Aniston's hatred for that line is audible.

1:12:38: Is there a reason they're not all escaping?

1:14:09: The Leprechaun has mastered the skateboard, but not roller skates.

1:14:35: HEY JENNIFER ANISTON THAT IS A HANDICAPPED ZONE YOUNG LADY

1:15:21: Really, I love it in every movie when characters whisper exposition to themselves. I'm not trying to single Leprechaun out.

1:17:17: The Leprechaun is a master of disguise! Awesome.

1:17:19: WHEELCHAIR CHASE

1:18:38: Exposition is not often delivered by a bloody, dying man, hanging from the roof of an elevator. And by "not often", I mean "not often enough".

1:20:18: The Leprechaun's low-to-the-ground point-of-view turns out to be unexpectedly appealing when it comes to foot chases after 1993-era Jennifer Aniston.

1:23:16: Damn it, movie, don't pretend you're going to kill the kid when you really aren't.

1:23:50: Leprechaun becomes a religious movie.

1:24:10: Largest four-leaf clover ever.

1:25:33: This is not a great movie, but that is an amazing one-liner.

1:26:25: This is the opposite of touching. Stop talking, Ozzie.

1:28:03: One hastily-added voice-over line is an ending, right?

In Defense of Saw

Yeah, yeah, my last post was about Saw as well, but hey, if it's Halloween, it must be Saw. Here's a lightly extended version of an already lengthy comment I wrote on Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily post here about the series.

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Man, people really take the term “torture porn” literally. I don’t like it, but the term is simply implying that is as exploitative of horror movie torture/bloodletting as regular porn is of sex. It doesn’t mean that it necessarily has any actual sex or nudity in it, just that people go to get their “torture”-loving rocks off at the sight of some violent death sequences.

That said, like any Saw fan would tell you, the real reason I go each year is to see how the plot develops. It’s like a crappy cop show, just with splatter. People are always derisive of this kind of statement, as if I have to have some sort of high-minded attitude to claim the Saw films have a plot to follow, but usually those are the people who didn’t bother to see the film and don’t like that kind of movie anyway. It’s okay not to like the Saw franchise, but you don’t need to go and decry it as some sort of bane on humanity just because your cinematic sensibilities are different from mine, especially since you haven’t gotten into it and never would, even under the best, most unbiased circumstances. I'll probably never watch The English Patient, but you don't see me hanging around generalizing to the world that it and other Oscar-bait pictures are repulsive.

I also think it’s ridiculous to imply that it’s good that horror is moving in a PG-13 direction. Not everything needs to be a Saw or a Hostel, nor does everything need push the gore envelope farther than the last, but bloodletting is part of the territory. The original A Nightmare on Elm Street is pretty bloody, but it’s a pretty classic genre picture, and the idea that PG-13 is better would stomp all over several of its greatest, creepiest scenes (like Amanda Wyss getting lifted out of the bed and dragged up the wall or Johnny Depp getting sucked into his bed). To say that horror should be less violent as a blanket statement is like saying action movies should have less guns and explosions, or that romances should scale back on the intimacy. Some of these movies that have come out in the last few years probably are torture porn, but you can’t just ball everything up into a category because you don’t like it without examining it. Again, I don't want to sound like I'm overanalyzing this into artsy-fartsy territory, but films like Hostel were made by auteurs trying to create something compelling and interesting to like-minded people, which is the right idea, even if some people can’t stomach it, and series like Saw are too over-the-top, really, to worry about (I mean, come on, someone gets melted in the latest one!). It’s PG-13 films like the Prom Night and Stepfather remakes (which always end up Unrated on DVD, to try to entice in the very same Saw crowds), which are artistically empty, financially motivated and poorly made that deserve to get canned.

Lastly, it’s ridiculous that anyone not interested would be so burdened by the Saw movies anyway. It’s like the inverse of having your cake and eating it too: you don’t like it, so nobody should have it. Just make an effort to stay out of the discussion. Did anyone see the movie’s most recent theatrical trailer? It was only 50 seconds long! The films are playing to the faithful, and the faithful alone, so in the age of TiVo, can’t you just ignore it?

Dear Amanda Seyfried, you deserve better. Much better. Sincerely, Tyler Foster.

Over at Shock Till You Drop, you can watch the trailer for Jennifer's Body, which brings together three of my least favorite things in the whole world: 20th Century Fox, Megan Fox, and Diablo Cody. It looks pretty much as bad as I expected (the movie's visual style looks aggressively boring, the Rocky Horror Picture Show homage is strained, the CG is awful, etc.), but Amanda Seyfried seems unexpectedly interesting, like a beam of light shining in one of the world's deepest, darkest caves.

Additionally, the trailer suggests some of the problems this movie raises aren't going to be contained within the film itself. The trailer prominently features the R rating at the end (after it tries to sell the film on the fact that it's got Panic at the Disco songs in it). We've just come off The Hangover, and I wouldn't want a terrible movie like Jennifer's Body f---ing up the return of the R rating (also worth noting: the last two films where Fox promoted the R were Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem and The Happening). I'm also all for gender equality, so I'd love to see both women embracing horror films and horror films embracing women, but writers like Diablo Cody think the only way to appeal to women is to make fun of or prey on men. The result is the kind of idiotic, catty garbage that would likely appeal mainly to either terrible, vindictive people, or those who don't like R with their horror movies.

Martin Scorsese + Horror = Yes

As a palate-cleanser after the dreck that is the Old Dogs trailer, here's the trailer for the new Martin Scorsese film Shutter Island. I've been ignoring the news about this movie, for whatever reason, but it doesn't even matter, because even if I had been listening, it wouldn't have prepared me for the trailer, which basically looks f---ing amazing.



As a horror fan, there's nothing like seeing a great horror movie after thousands of mindless slashers, missed opportunities, and these days, terrible remakes.

Shutter Island opens October 2nd, 2009.