An evil, sadistic Leprechaun goes on a killing rampage in search of his beloved pot of gold.
You voted for it, you got it! This should be fun!
As many of you may know this was Jennifer Aniston’s feature film debut (they always start in Horror), as someone who grew up watching her on the hit show “Friends” this film always made me laugh as I always envision her character from said show in this film.
According to Warwick Davis, the movie was originally planned as a scary kid’s film, but the studio thought it would work better as a more adult horror, so inserts were filmed to increase the gore and violence. I think it would’ve made a great Goosebumps style kids Horror but I’m glad they went with this.
When watching the film it’s easy to spot that this was going to be aimed at a younger audience and where certain aspects of the film were ramped up with gore or the older audience. Because of this it makes for a great gateway film into the world of low budget Horror and that’s never a bad thing.
The cast do a decent job but the star is most obviously Warwick Davis who steals the spotlight as the title character, he seems to have so much fun in the role that it rubs off on you and it becomes infectious. To say this was Director Mark Jones’s first time in the Director’s chair he did a cracking job.
Leprechaun is a fun film that isn’t meant to be taken seriously, it’s entertaining and humorous, enjoy it or what it is.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
One scene required the Leprechaun to find and eat Lucky Charms cereal, which the company gave them permission to do. Upon seeing the finished film, the company was displeased and would not allow them to use the scene. The film makers had the choice to either cut the scene or to re-shoot it, costing them more money. They chose to re-shoot it, replacing the brand name with an obvious spoof of the name brand cereal, and, made one last additional surprise ending scene while they were filming. Furious with the cereal company for making them re-shoot the scene, they pulled the kid character aside and had him say a new line. His line, “Your luck just ran out!” was changed to “F*ck you, Lucky Charms!” as an obvious reference to the whole ordeal.
Filmed between 28 October 1991 – 3 December 1991, but not released until 8 January 1993.
Warwick Davis started to regret making the film. But when many people ended up loving the movie, it spawned 5 sequels, and is now one of Warwick’s favorite movies.
The first film from Trimark.
In the credits a special thanks is given to George Lucas and Vice-President Dan Quayle, among others.
The character of Deputy Tripet was named after David Tripet, who had been the executive in charge of production.
The video has sold less than 100,000 copies.
Warwick Davis appears without his leprechaun makeup as an extra in the cafe scene sitting beside his wife. The other extras in this scene are crew members including writer/director Mark Jones, sitting at the counter with a trucker’s hat on, and special makeup effects creator Gabe Bartalos, in the booth behind Jennifer Aniston.
Deep Roy, best known as the oompa loompa’s in “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory”, and Tony Cox, from “Bad Santa”, were Warwick Davis’ stunt doubles. Cox would go onto appear in “Leprechaun 2”.
George Lucas received a special thanks credit due to the fact that Warwick Davis was under contract to Lucas and gave permission for Davis to appear in the movie.
Then Vice President Dan Quayle received a special thanks credit because his office sped up a working visa issued to British born actor Warwick Davis.
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