Leprechaun Returns (2018)

The Leprechaun from the original movie returns when a group of sorority girls unwillingly awakens him when they begin renovations on the farm house.

REVIEW: I was weary of Leprechaun Returns upon the initial trailer. After all, Warwick Davis, the actor who played the Leprechaun in every other movie (minus the 100% unrelated Leprechaun Origins) was not returning for this one (although his reasoning is totally understandable) and on top of that it was being made by the SyFy Channel, and although I love their cheesy summer B-Movies, they aren't exactly who I think of when I think of resurrecting a beloved horror franchise and having it be worth it (their Pumpkinhead sequels, anyone? Urgh).

However, I really had nothing to worry about as this turned out to easily be one of the best entries in the series, if not the best. Leprechaun has always been a franchise where the idea itself was better than any of the actual movies. The first movie is so-so at best, with Leprechaun 2 and 3 being the only truly good ones, then everything after that is just absolute shit.

This is the first sequel in the series that acts as a direct sequel to a previous movie, as each of the other ones are 100% entirely unrelated and stand-alone, minus the use of Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun in them. This one however picks up from where the first movie left off and revives that Leprechaun to terrorize a new generation of teens, one of which is the teen daughter of Jennifer Aniston’s character from the first movie.

The first chunk of the movie is a bit slow, but that's only because the movie actually takes the time to let us get to know these characters, to the point where we actually enjoy all of them, even the more eye-rolling annoying ones. Once the Leprechaun finally makes himself known to everyone though, and starts terrorizing them, the movie is a nonstop fun gory ride till the end. 

The acting is pretty good, the kills vicious and gory, and the Leprechaun himself both funny and deadly. I do wish Warwick Davis had returned though, but the new actor does a commendable enough effort to replace him, and the fact that he looks different here actually gets mentioned during the movie by the Leprechaun himself.

I also loved how this movie brought back many traits and quirks of the Leprechaun introduced in that first movie that was mostly ignored in the sequels, such as his love of shoes and his hilarious obsession of keeping shoes clean, no matter what else is going on around him, or using his voice to make himself sound like other people to trick his would-be victims. Even though the character is played by a different actor, the writing for him was spot on with emulating how that character was in the original first movie.

There are some things I felt the movie could have done without however, as I felt it kind of distracts from the terror that it had built up, up to those points, such as one character that dies early on constantly returning as a ghost to help our main lead throughout the movie (also ruins the impact of this character's death by doing that as well), and I HATED this movie's explanation for where Jennifer Aniston's character is now. I mean, I understand they can't get that actress back, but they could have had a better explanation for what happened to her. Or hell, just recast. They did it for the Leprechaun, and when last we saw Aniston's character she was a teenager so it wouldn't exactly be TOO jarring to get another actor to play her as an adult, granted that she at least looks somewhat similar.

Those issues aside though, this movie surprised the hell out of me and I loved almost every minute of it from beginning to end. I'm hoping SyFy makes further sequels to this, as I'd love to see what they cook up next for this little Leprechaun.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward