Skip to main content

Leprechaun 2 (1994) - In Multiple Ways, an Improvement on the First

 



In my Leprechaun review, which admittedly was not among my more popular posts but here I am doing the sequel regardless preaching the gospel of...offensive Irish stereotypes?, I talked about how much I enjoyed the series growing up having the first two or three on VHS and frequently haunting the horror aisle when we’d make our regular trips to Hollywood Video where I picked up some others. Going in I remembered this sequel actually improving on the original and upon this rewatch I definitely think it does in parts.

Going from a young Jennifer Aniston, who hadn’t quite found her acting comfort zone yet but was serviceable enough in the poorly written role she played, to the painfully bad Shevonne Durkin was a huge downgrade in the female lead role and I think they realized that as in the second half of the film she just disappears for huge chunks of it. The film doesn’t really do anything to explain how the Leprechaun found himself living on Houdini’s property in Los Angeles after the first film ended despite all the expansions to lore. Their conception of Los Angeles is primarily a dive bar and the nondescript office of a go kart track, with multiple sections of the film set in both, really not taking much advantage at all of the switch to an urban location. The kills are not very bloody or graphic, not even when a dude’s belly is ripped open, with a couple kills mostly being left up to shadow and suggestion and a lot of the effects they do show being pretty janky like the lamest skeleton fight I’ve ever seen. The comedy is a lot more cartoonish and over-the-top in a bad way sometimes. It is somewhat better written overall than the original, but still pretty low-end stuff here even when it works.

However, overall the acting here is much better with Charlie Heath doing a slasher-movie-decent job in the male lead and Seinfeld’s Sandy Baron being truly delightful as a conman murder tour operator entirely motivated by booze and money, he brings such a unique voice to this film compared to the bland characters of the original that he alone is worth watching. You also get a couple character actor cameos from the likes of Clint Howard and Kimmy Robertson that liven things up a bit, especially if you’re a strange person like me into both Ice Cream Man and Twin Peaks. The more comedic tone works more often than not when centered around the character of Morty and his toxic but lovable relationship with Cody. Warwick Davis gets a lot more screen time than the original even if his zingers are often groanworthy, but he delivers with the utmost gusto and remains the obvious highlight of any moment he is on screen.

Also, the expansion of the Leprechaun lore in this film can feel a bit random or completely plot driven, but it gives more of a real motivation (revenge and enslavement of a “wife”) to the central villain, a sense of his life beyond the pure scope of the film series, and feels more fully realized than the simple “four leaf clover on a crate” approach to the original film. Also, giving him his tree cavern lair gives an interesting look at how he lives and is a decent piece of set design in a film that is really desperate for that even if they could probably have made it less barren. It isn’t a great looking film by nature of its low budget existence, but it is in this cavern where some of the most interesting camera work and trickery happens.

Look, you gotta be looking for a very specific thing if you wanna watch this franchise, and nostalgia helps a lot with me, but if you are of a certain mindset in life it can be a lot of fun and genuinely enjoyable as a series of good-bad films that know exactly what they are and are not ashamed of it at all. They don’t try to be high art or even low art, they are just dad puns and things like drinking contests or go kart battles with a murderous Leprechaun and a few mediocre kills along the way, and this film is a shining example.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ivan the Terrible, Part 1 (1944) - Uncomfortably Stalinist, Visually Astounding

  I know that I usually start reviews with a personal anecdote of some sort, but this one is kind of a head scratcher. My only real ties in my life to the Soviet Union are just a lifelong, morbid fascination with the Cold War era and rocking a hammer and sickle pin on my backpack as middle schooler into punk rock. However, I do like a lot of Soviet era cartoons which are a special kind of surreal and I really like some film movements of Soviet states on the fringe, and what Soviet films I’ve seen often have very strong and striking visuals. So when I saw that Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 and 2 were on Max, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to do something different for this blog even if it might be a bit shorter than my typical review. Obviously, the biggest and most valid criticism of the film is how deeply unsubtle it is in most ways, but particularly when it comes to defending and propagating the ideals of Stalinism. As a member of the left, I’m well aware there are factions t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scream (1996) - Williamson Dialogue Hasn't Always Aged Well, Though Iconic All the Same

  My mom grew up among the slasher golden era of the 80s, so she adored the genre and many of the 2000+ VHS tapes she had around for a lot of my childhood were various slasher franchises and what we didn’t have by 7 or 8 I was begging my parents to rent for me from Hollywood Video or Movie Starz on a regular basis. So it goes without saying that Scream coming in and revitalizing the entire genre’s popularity for a handful of years was a big deal in our household and I was probably very young the first time I saw it which was likely not long after it came out on tape in probably ‘97, same with the sequels in later years. I then proceeded to watch it so many times across my childhood well into adulthood that practically every line and scene and even delivery are memorized at that point, which made stepping back to write as objective a review as I can somewhat difficult but I found the more of a critical eye I applied to it the more it worked out. As always starting with the negat...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - Funny, Fun, and a Little Bit Insufferable

  The late 00s and early 10s were a pretty good time to be somebody who loved cult horror films with a sense of humor. You had the likes of Trick r Treat, Drag Me to Hell, and my favorite at the time which was The Cabin in the Woods. Whether it was on pay cable or early streaming, the film became a regular fixture in the years I mostly just spent my time frequently re-watching the same movies and drinking far too much beer. Because of that, I’ve gone some years without watching it very frequently cause I got kind of burnt out on it in my 20s but I had this former Blockbuster rental Bluray copy that cost less than 2 bucks so I figured why not see how well the film holds up? The thing that hasn’t held up so well is how smugly in love with its own dialog and cleverness the film is in a way that immediately signals that Joss Whedon was a writer on it. There’s a certain too cute quality to a lot of Whedon’s projects that have made me not like them as much as other people do, sorry to ...
Post a Comment
Read more