Gimmicks you’ll need, and gimmicks there’ll be; especially when you get to Leprechaun 3.
Yep, by only the third episode, the continuing adventures of Warwick Davis’ Leprechaun had settled nicely in using ludicrous location changes to dictate the needs of the plot. However, it’s only normal for Horror icons to travel to refresh their respective franchise – I mean Pinhead went to space, Jason went to space and New York (sorta) and even Chucky eventually made it to the Whitehouse. However, while we’ve thus far been spared the sight of Michael Myers trying to negotiate the turnstiles of Euro Disney, or watching Freddy freeze his tits off in Alaska, that didn’t stop the Leprechaun making a beeline for Las Vegas in order to give him a new environment to fuck around in.
While the concept of a bloodthirsty, Irish imp scampering around Sin City may cause eyeballs to roll with some, others may be eager to try their luck in the hopes of scoring a camp jackpot, but can the gold obsessed little shit actually manage to pay out?
A man conspicuously missing an arm, a leg and wearing an eyepatch stumbles into a Las Vegas pawn shop carrying a statue of a familiar, diminutive figure wearing an ornate medallion in the hopes that the owner, Gupra, will take it off his hands for a couple of bucks. However, it isn’t long before Gupra removes the bling adorning the grotesque stone figure and discovers that maybe he should have kept the two as a set as the necklace seemed to be the only thing keeping the fearsome Leprechaun in that petrified state. The next thing you know, the shop owner is suddenly fighting for his life against the revived Irish creature and even the prospect of taking the Leprechaun’s gold and scoring wishes for every coin isn’t enough to help him survive.
Meanwhile, niave college student Scott McCoy is passing though Vegas with his tuition stuffed in his pockets, but after aiding magician’s assistant Tammy with her car troubles, the lure of the lights of the City Of Lost Wages proves to be too much. Despite Tammy’s warnings, Scott is adamant that he wants to see inside the casino and soon slips in only to gamble his entire tuition away in record time. In a panic, he desperately looks for a place to pawn his watch only to stumble across the Leprechaun’s handiwork.
But in a bizarre turn of “luck”, Scott finds one of the Leprechaun’s lost coins and discovers that it’s magical powers enables him to win back his money to the suspicion of the casino owner. Before you know it, the casino boss, a fading croupier and a floundering magician are all trying to get their mitts on that coin in order to make their wildest dreams come true – but no one wants it more that the Leprechaun who starts bumping off his competition tout sweet. However, as bad as all this is, Scott finds that an infected Leprechaun bite he has on his arm is having some serious side effects, could his leathery skin, love for potatoes and an Irish brogue that switches in and out mean that he’s transforming into a Leprechaun too?
While the previous Leprechaun movies could hardly be described as a descent into hard-core horror (the Lep kills a guy with a pogostick for duck’s sake), the broad humour still felt like it was being held in check by plots that still kept everything else somewhat straight. However, with a full bloodied trip to Vegas – not to mention his first venture into DTV territory – the filmmakers have obviously taken the “break glass in case of trilogy” option and went full cartoon with the film, pushing the jokes into more ludicrous territory. To be fair, it’s probably the smartest move they could have made as a franchise about killer Leprechauns is hardly going to suddenly lose its credibility because it contains a moment when the title creature has a moment with an Elvis impersonator.
However, while there is plenty to enjoy about Leprechaun 3 if you don’t mind your films being as willfully dumb as humanly possible, I have to say I thought director Brian Trenchard-Smith would provide something a lot more cooler and funnier than this. Lest we forget, Trenchard-Smith – among other films such as BMX Bandits and Turkey Shoot – was responsible for the vastly overachieving Night Of The Demons 2 that proved he could bust out cool, 90s splatstick that seemed way too ambitious for it’s tight budget. However, despite the director having obviously fun with pushing the Leprechaun’s powers into funky Freddy Krueger territory, there’s a feeling that the budget is too thin for even the director and star to elevate. OK, maybe I’m being to hard on a film that’s just trying to be silly and there’s a lot of fun to be had seeing how outlandish the kills manage to get, but the seams really are starting to show beyond having Davis mug endearingly for the camera.
For a start, if you’re signing on for this installment, you blatently aren’t doing it for characters you care for or air tight plotting as the film has its cast mostly running back and forth between the pawn shop and the Lucky Shamrock Casino and being weirdly nonplussed at the sight of a 3 foot 6 inch monster dressed in a green suit and buckled boots. The film scores points by trying to something new with its human lead by having him slowly change into a Leprechaun after the fucker in question bites him on the arm and there’s a certain amount of cheeky awkwardness as certain “Irish” traits occur thar require actor John Gatins to aggressively consume potatoes of all kinds and employ a screeching accent that still beats Tom Cruise’s attempt from Far And Away. Of course, anyone who actually takes offence at this while the actor sports a massive unibrow and starts talking in filthy limericks that end with the punchline “penis au gratin” probably shouldn’t be watching a Leprechaun movie on the first place, but aside from a script that gets frequently quite snappy, it’s a shame that the sluggish, rather muddled pace can’t match the attempted tone.
Still, all we really want is for Warwick Davis to have fun while his lecherous Lep orchestrates some ludicrous murders. Some work really well with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’s Caroline Williams finding that her quest for good looks are doomed when her lips, ass and tits are magically inflated until they burst; but others – such as the moment when the sleazy casino owner suddenly finds the dream woman who has emerged from his TV has turned into some massive boobed sex robot that promptly electrocutes him – is just fucking weird. However, if the gag involving Scott’s medical result simply being the phrase “fuck you” written in shamrocks makes you chuckle, you may just be onto a winner…
Leprechaun 3 may be gaudy trash, but it’s endearing gaudy trash that uses its location to surprisingly good effect. However, despite some decent one liners (“What’s Judy Garland really like?” is a banger) and some goofily surreal kills, it never quite manages to realise it’s own potential thanks to a rather sloppy pace. However, Brian Trenchard-Smith wasn’t done yet with the world of the Leprechaun and he took the series into even crazier heights when he literally launched it into space. But until then, we’ll just have to be happy with Cleaving Las Vegas…
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