Leprechaun 5

Seriously, this is the funniest movie I have ever seen. True, judging by the name alone you can tell it has to be pretty funny. If you haven't lost it by the end of the prologue, you have no sense of humor at all. I mean, the whole scene (not just the concealed items in the fro part) is very comically well done! The movie alone beats anything Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, or Chris Rock have ever done. This is the comedy that beats all comedies. It--- Huh? It's supposed to be a horror flick? Huh. You learn something new every day. Well, it's funny, and a fun way to spend a Friday Night with friends who do not take everything seriously.

Although not quite as good as "Leprechaun II", "Leprechaun 5: In The Hood" does an admirable job at capturing the essence of the humorous evil that only the Leprechaun can deliver. He's still just as mean, and twice as violent! I would rate this on a par with #3, where he goes to Las Vegas. Seeing him as a rap artist battling Ice - T is almost too much fun for one movie.

Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)

* (out of 4)

Another awful entry in an all-around awful series. This time out a pimp (Ice-T) steals the gold from the leprechaun (Warwick Davis) and manages to get the medallion around his neck turning him to stone. Flash-forward a couple decades an a rap trio decide to break into the pimp's home and steal some cash but end up taking the medallion and freeing the leprechaun. The only joke about LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD is the title itself. I'm sure this silly title was a hit among video renters and I'm sure this thing sold or rented millions of copies. I mean, we did eventually get a sequel to this thing. This fifth film in the series pretty much puts the horror elements on the back burner and instead we have the leprechaun getting into all sorts of situations. Now I'm sure there will be someone out there who witnesses these situations as nothing more than racial stereotypes but if you're taking a movie called LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD seriously then you have many more problems than could be dealt with in this movie. The entire joke is that the leprechaun finds himself in the hood and sadly there's just nothing funny about it. You know having the lep and Ice-T in the same movie that at some point the two would have to smoke some weed. When this scene happens it's just silly and certainly not funny. Other scenes has a Korean store owner who of course tries to rap. Another sequence has a cross-dressing hooker trying to pick up the lep. We even have an entire subplot dealing with the three rappers trying to get their business done so that they can appear at a rap contest in Las Vegas. What's so annoying about that is that us poor viewers have to sit through some of the worst rap songs I've ever heard. They're corny, poorly written and are just so annoying that you can't help but want to hit the fast forward button. The entire movie could have been exploitation gold but instead we just get a cheap mess of a film that has no scares or laughs. The movie isn't nearly as over-the-top as one would hope and what gore you do get just looks rather silly. The previous four films were pretty bad but at least Davis gave it his all and usually delivered a memorable performance. Even that's not the case here because he too just seems bored with the material.

I rented the original "Leprechaun" when it first came to video, and got lots of laughs- some of them intentional, many of them not. Who could forget the image of the evil Lep tearing ass in the go-cart, or what must be the only death scene in the history of cinema to involve a pogo-stick? The first sequel was god awful in just about every respect, but was made bearable by the Lep's rhyming one-liners. The third made decent use of its Vegas location and had some ok death scenes. I have never had the (dis)pleasure of seeing the fourth installment, which took place in space. That brings us to "Leprechaun in the Hood", which jumped off the shelf at me with its sharp cover art, hilarious title, and marquee value of Ice-T (ha). The flick unfolds just like the other sequels, with no explanation of how the Leprechaun got to his location, or even a reference to the other movies. The three lead characters are a trio of Compton rappers- Postmaster P, Stray Bullet, and Dutch, who are trying to avoid the gansta scene of hip-hop by preaching a positive message. Greed gives in when they loot the house of Mack Daddy Onassis (Ice T), the local crime lord/record mogul. They happen to swipe the lep's stolen magical flute, and before they know it are being stalked separately by Mack Daddy and the now awakened Lep. Along the way we see the Lep smoke weed ("What a curious aroma"), go to bed with a drag queen, and make a few pop culture references ("Come hand me gold you thieving hoods, You've got more loot than Tiger Woods!!"). Sadly the death scenes are lame, with a few victims just being strangled, some even killed off screen. Effects wise, glowing green eyes and dry ice seems to be the extent of what the low budget would allow, but the movie is always entertaining with its campiness. For every bad effect we get a good line like "From the depths of the neverworld, I summon my zombie fly girls") A worthy rental, especially on DVD- it has the trailers for Lep 1 and 2.

Having watched this movie I have to ask myself; What was the director's state of mind? Why did he feel the need to constantly place his main characters in the company of drag queens and even dress them up as such. I mean when I don't have a place to stay the home of the local drag queen isn't on the top of my list. Not since "To Wong FU thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar have I seen so many men sporting control top panty hoes. However this movie is not with out a bright side. Aside from such lovable and memorable characters like "Mack Daddy" and "Local Drag Queen" this movie also contains such memorable scenes as Leprechaun trying to get hand job from young boy in drag. Lets not forget the scene where Leprechaun attempts to have sex with what he at least thinks is a woman(but we all can guess what that means by now). So in closing if you have a fetish for Irish midgets or Drag Queens this move well definatly float your boat.