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The Leprechaun is back and this time he’s in Las Vegas. One of his gold shillings goes missing and he’s ready to do anything to get it back, which spells trouble for anyone who gets in his way.
The intro for this movie isn’t too bad. We have our two main characters meeting for the first time, Tammy and Scott, and an unlucky shopkeeper dealing with the leprechaun. I was actually entertained by the shopkeeper’s antics and thought he was he a nice foil for the leprechaun while we were introduced to the main characters. The gore here and in the rest of the movie was good. There was nothing that blew my mind, but I was far from let down with that I saw. The strongest point about this movie might be its plot, or lack of plot. I would usually say that a weak plot is a bad thing, but here it isn’t because it is well handled. Take for instance the characters of the two mobsters, who want the casino owner, Mitch, to pay them back the money he owes them by the end of the night. They really serve no purpose to the overall plot other than being more victims for the leprechaun. However, I found just about every scene they were in funny. The plot would have advanced exactly the same without them, but the movie was far better off for having them in it. If a movie is going to have filler in it, it should be in the form of funny characters like these two mobsters.
In my opinion, Leprechaun 3 is the ideal “B” movie. The acting, writing, etc. is never going to win any major awards, but it was a lot of fun to watch. This is the movie in the series where I think the film makers stopped trying to make a “serious” horror movie. I think in the first and second movies we were actually supposed to be scared of the leprechaun. I wouldn’t say that the leprechaun is scary in this movie, but he was much more entertaining than in the previous films. For example, the scene between an Elvis impersonator and the leprechaun is pure gold.
John Gatins as Scott does a good job of showing us his character’s innocent nature, which is a stark contrast to the setting of Las Vegas. However, as the movie progresses, Gatins’ charm starts to run thin. There just isn’t a whole lot menacing about Scott as a character, so I never really believed him as a real threat to the leprechaun, and I found that even to be true as he turned into an evil leprechaun himself. It’s strange because I found that Lee Armstrong as Tammy started out strong like Gatins, but her performance started to unravel as the movie went on. Armstrong’s performance in the second half of the movie is particularly painful to watch in spots. We’re given yet another way to kill the leprechaun, destroy his gold. In the first movie the key was to use four leafed clovers, and the second movie was all about using rod iron, but now we’re given a different method. My only question is, why? They could have stuck with using an iron rod and that would have been fine. Speaking of the second movie, how did the leprechaun survive that? I’ve read online that this is supposed to be a prequel, but I didn’t see anything that made me think that unless that wasn’t supposed to be an Elvis impersonator… Even if Leprechaun 3 is a prequel, how does he manage to come back from the dead to be in the first movie? I guess continuity from one movie to the next is definitely not a strong point in this series.
I liked that they dropped the dumb idea from the second movie about how having a piece of the leprechaun’s gold protect you from his magic. I even liked the idea of his gold now granting wishes. I know that doesn’t really make sense with the other movies as poor Morty in Leprechaun 2 needed to capture the leprechaun in order to get a wish. However, the end result of giving a bunch of characters their wishes was we got to see some wackiness that only added to the movie. There are times that I’m somewhat willing to forgive some discontinuity if the end result is at least entertaining. Of course, a lot of people could be turned off from the whole nonsense about a gold coin granting wishes if they saw the first two movies.
If you liked the first two movies or are a fan of “B” movies, then I would highly recommend Leprechaun 3. I found it more enjoyable than the first two because it was a lot more fun. However, horror fans who hated the first two Leprechauns are probably going to hate this one just as much, but if you’re a horror fan who never heard of the Leprechaun movies, then I’d say take a chance on this one. I’d say watch Leprechaun 3 and decide if you want to watch any of the other movies in the series
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