LEPRECHAUN 2 (1994)

LEPRECHAUN 2 (1994)

Tagline: This time, luck has nothing to do with it!

(Horror, Comedy, If You See A Leprechaun Just Leave Town) [R]

Okay so you found a gold coin and it looks like the one in this book. It's probably worth some cash. But this leprechaun stuff...

In this one, we really don’t get a tie to the first movie at all other than the fact that this is part 2. We are just told that it is the Leprechaun’s 1,000th birthday and now he is supposed to marry his bride. Fast forward to modern-day Los Angeles and the Leprechaun happens across Bridget and causes her to sneeze three times which allows him to choose her as his bride. Only Bridget has a boyfriend named Cody that isn’t exactly willing to let the Leprechaun have his way. 

Apparently, the story is that they wanted Jennifer Aniston to return to this movie to play the role of the Leprechaun’s would-be bride, Bridgette, but she was busy working on the TV show “Friends” and declined the role. It was also offered to Denise Richards, but she wanted to make a movie where she falls in love with an animatronic dinosaur just because it has her boyfriend’s brain. So enter Shevonne Durkin who would take on the role of Bridgette and she pretty much kills it. I will say that I do wish they had gotten Heather Langenkamp because at the time she was at the top of her “scream queen” game and likely would have topped Durkin’s performance. Oddly she also ended up in TAMMY AND THE T-REX with Denise Richards. It looks like Shevonne stopped acting back in 2014. 

Needless to say, we don’t see any of the characters from the original movie return. The same thing happens in LEPRECHAUN 3, so the only actual continuity we have is the Leprechaun himself. He also has some powers in this one which I don’t recall him having in the original, but maybe I a purposely forgetting about that. Warwick Davis is a strong point in the first 6 movies to be sure, but there is some real crap in this series which now has 8 installments if we want to include the reboot and its sequel. 

Even though we get fewer annoying characters in this one I didn’t quite like the whole “wedding” story all that much. What does work is that we are given a good reason why Cody isn’t just willing to let anything go. He puts up a fight for Bridget having to overcome greed and magic and all of that to overcome. I kind of miss movies where not only is the boyfriend not a total jerk, but he’s also a resilient bada-s. 

The score is nothing special and the effects are just okay. I do like that they tried some new things, but I wasn’t impressed with the whole “dark tour guide” storyline or Morty’s character in general. This one is not overly gory or anything and would have fit right in with most 80’s horror nonsense, but it does have a darker tone than the first movie. We also get a crazy final scene reminiscent of CHILD’S PLAY 2’s ending. I am not going to give away what happens though because the first 3 films in this series are worth watching if you are just looking for cheesy horror like the kind of stuff I prefer. 

I do think this installment is better than the original which apparently is in direct violation of the “Bloody Disgusting” website's “definitive” LEPRECHAUN movie rankings put out back in 2015. For the good, these films do remind me of the ’80s. For the bad, they are supposed to be comedies and don’t really have much humor that I would consider funny. I actually think there are a few FRIDAY THE 13TH films that have better humor. 

I give this one a 4 out of 7.

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