When I heard The Master was treating me to a special movie for St. Patrick’s Day, I assumed it would be one of the “Leprechaun” films starring Warwick Davis. Truth be told, I was looking forward to watching one of those, as I get a kick out of each one. Sure, they’re mostly awful, but Davis goes all in with the role and each have their own goofy sense of tone. As bad as they may be, they’re never boring.
The Master must’ve known this, as he withheld those films from me. He did give me a killer leprechaun flick, but not a cheesy bad one. He gave me the SyFy Original movie, “Leprechaun’s Revenge”, which is the boring type of bad. It involves a Leprechaun (which looks like Faun’s inbred lovechild) being accidentally released from it’s horseshoe-powered grave by Karen O’Hara (Courtney Halverson). It runs around town during St. Patrick’s Day weekend eating gold and killing whomever steps in it’s path.
Since this is made for TV, most of the kills happen off screen and/or are done in by shaky cam. The only gore we get are packet squirts once the creature attacks. I say packet squirts as it’s similar to what happens when you step on a couple of ketchup packets. This isn’t the reason the film is so boring. Gore isn’t essential to creature features. Hell, a lot of the “Leprechaun” movies had little to no gore and….well, they were at least entertaining.
The main issue I had with “Leprechaun’s Revenge” is that it’s very dull! A lot of time is spent on the mythology of the Leprechaun. This opens up a window of opportunity, but screenwriter Anthony C. Ferrante doesn’t want to take them. The only people in town who have any knowledge of the mythos are Pop O’Hara (William Devane), blogger Josh (Derek Babb) and Dax Spence (Dave Randolph-Mayhem Davis), whose only shown interest because he has a crush on Karen. Their knowledge is very limited, usually revolving around them knowing it’s a leprechaun and how to imprison it, but that’s it. Ferrante seemed to just give up halfway through the script. That or director Drew Daywalt tired of the mythos and just erased it all.
When we’re not dealing with Karen and her friends (who are apparently High Schoolers, though why they couldn’t be college students is beyond me), we follow her father, Conor (Billy Zane), the Sheriff of the town, who tries to solve the recent rash of disappearances and murders. Since pinning it on a leprechaun is bonkers, he ignores his daughter and crazy father’s pleas and tries to find a rational reason. Basically, all he does is run around town wearing a fedora that doesn’t suit him and treat his daughter like she’s five. It’s a shame to see Zane reduced to this. He’s a talented actor who’s star has fallen, something it never should’ve done.
There’s really not much more to be said about “Leprechaun’s Revenge”. It’s a run of the mill creature feature with a funky looking leprechaun, bad special effects and forgettable acting. The only spark is when the leprechaun trashes the St. Patrick’s Day parade, but that only lasts briefly. The only credit I’ll give Daywalt & Ferrante is that they did surprise me with which characters lived and which didn’t. Too bad I didn’t care about any of them in the first place.
Final Rating: D