Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996)

In known Trimark fashion, they had no clue what to do with Lep or which setting to put him next in the fourth installment of the franchise. And after the success Leprechaun 3 did on the home video market, there was no time to waste. It wasn’t until an executive at Trimark saw the promo art for Apollo 13 (1995) and replaced Tom Hank’s face with Lep’s when the genius idea came to fruition. That pitch-meeting must’ve been amusing to witness, to say the least.

 

The year is 2096 and a group of space marines are on their way to Planet Leprechaun where their mission is to search for Lep (Warwick Davis) after he, during the past six months, has disrupted the galactic mining operations. And the order is clear as a gamma-ray: Kill The Bastard! The timing couldn’t be worse as Lep is about to propose to the alien princess Zarina (Rebecca Carlton) so he can become king for some planet that never gets mentioned. The marines storm his low-budget-looking cave where Lep gets blown to pieces by a grenade after a quick gun-fight. The princess survives and gets taken back to the shuttle before they take Lep’s precious gold. Movie over, then? Ha-ha.

 

The marine who threw the grenade takes a piss one Lep’s remains just to boast his victory like a high school bully. The plot seems pretty normal so far, but just hear this: As he urinates on him, Lep’s spirit travels through his stream of piss and into his dick like a bolt of lightning. We later get the most unmemorable and lazy kill count where Lep gets resurrected by jumping out of his dick and pants, implied more than shown, since there was no one in the effect-department who had a clue how to pull it off. No gore – nothing. Boooo!

 

We also get introduced to film’s second villain, Dr. Mittenhand (Guy Siner). He’s the commander of the marines and is a bald-headed cyborg with only his upper torso remaining after a failed experiment. He’s a bizarroman version of Dr. Evil the James Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who tries to look evil with the effect of a mouse trying to be as big as an elephant, and speaks like a deranged Hanna-Barbera cartoon character on amphetamine. His plan is to use Zarina’s regenerative DNA to recreate his own body and … good luck with that.

 

Leprechaun 4: In Space

 

The effects are worse and more primitive than ever, and I think that director Brian Trenchard-Smith sums it up best by saying that he was disappointed by the final quality of the special effects, calling them “below Playstation”. Lep in Space falls off the tracks really fast where the plot, script, talent and all braincells just seemed to get sucked away in a black hole. And what we have left is a demented, bizarre, ultracheap-looking, completely out of control schlockfest with zero direction, and one-note cartoon characters only trying to over-act each other. It’s basically Looney Tunes in a mental asylum in space with a riot. And Lep? Don’t worry, he’s here, still portrayed by Warwick Davis who seems to have fun as usual and goes with the flow the best as he can. But the award for best-worst actress of the decade goes to Rebecca Carlton as princess Zarina who has acting abilities like a broken Hello Kitty toaster. 

 

The one and only legitimate positive thing to mention, is a certain spider-monster creature which (dare I even say it) gave me some Dead Space vibes. And talking about video games, here’s a fun, little trivia: The sound of the doors opening and closing are taken from the original Doom, where it was the sound of the elevators.

 

And I can’t allow myself to not mention a trailer that popped up on my YouTube recommendations recently for an obscure family film, called A Very Unlucky Leprechaun, which came two years after Lep in Space. And guess who plays the unlucky one. There’s little to no info to find, but the only post on its trivia section on IMDb can at least inform us that “Warwick Davis also plays another Leprechaun which is a serial killer.” Huh…

 

Leprechaun 4: In Space Leprechaun 4: In Space Leprechaun 4: In Space

 

Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Writer: Dennis Pratt
Country & year: USA, 1996
Actors: Warwick Davis, Brent Jasmer, Jessica Collins, Guy Siner, Gary Grossman, Rebecca Carlton, Tim Colceri, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Debbe Dunning, Mike Cannizzo, Rick Peters, Geoff Meed
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0116861/

 

Related posts: Leprechaun (1993) | Leprechaun 2 (1994) | Leprechaun 3 (1995) | Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) | Leprechaun returns (2018)

 

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CORPORATE MONSTER – Sci-Fi Horror Short

A dangerously unstable man starts to see monsters all around us.

 

Corporate Monster is a tense Sci-Fi horror short where an unstable man starts seeing certain people turn into monsters. Are they the result of the new medication he’s started taking… or is the new medication giving him the ability to see what those people really are?

 

CORPORATE MONSTER - Sci-Fi horror Short

 

Director: Ruairi Robinson
Country & year: Ireland, USA, 2019
Actors: Jenna Coleman, Birkett Turton, Gary Murphy, Patrick Joseph Byrnes, Kris Edlund, Megan Woods Kegan, Alphonso Cox, Jimmy Doom
IMDb: //www.imdb.com/title/tt10378788/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brightburn (2019)

Brightburn (2019)Tori and Kyle are struggling to have a child, when one night something from outer space crashes nearby their farm. Just like a blessing from above, it’s some sort of space craft that includes a little baby boy, and the couple are happy to take care of him and raise him as their own (hmm…have we heard this story before somewhere?). The boy, whom they name Brandon, proves to be quite special, never showing signs of getting physically hurt and a lot more intelligent than other children his age. As he grows older, however, his behavior changes and he becomes more aggressive and irritable, to the point of even hurting one of his classmates. Tori is desperate to think the best of her little boy, but soon things turn to worse and it becomes obvious to Tori and Kyle that Brandon is far from the gift from above they originally considered him to be…

 

If you are familiar with the story of “Superman” (I guess most of us are), then you’ll quickly realize that “Brightburn” is some sort of twisted version of that good old story: what if Superman was evil, instead of the do-gooder he turned out to be? What if he used his superpowers for evil instead of good, and wanted to destroy the world instead of saving it? Well, that’s “Brightburn” in a nutshell.

 

Before Brandon ventures fully into his evil ways, we see the parents viewing his transformation into something else with a fair amount of unease. Yes, you can easily associate this with puberty: your little boy suddenly changes in both behavior and needs, and for many parents this change can feel uncomfortable and difficult to accept. Except Brandon isn’t just a normal boy, and his change is something else entirely. In one scene at school, we hear Brandon explain the difference between bees and wasps, where bees are domesticated creatures and wasps are predators. His expressed interest in particularly wasps during this scene might give us a hint that Brandon’s alien race is somewhat similar to wasps: it’s simply in his nature to be an aggressive predator.

 

“Brighburn” even delivers some pleasant blood & gore, living up to its R rating. This isn’t a movie filled with twists and turns, it’s very straight-forward. If you’ve watched the trailers for the movie or read a simple synopsis, you know exactly what kind of meal you’ll be served. While “Brightburn” doesn’t really get truly creepy or scary, it delivers on well-paced action and suspense, mixed with some (not that many, but good) death scenes. If you’re tired of all the dime-a-dozen superhero movies that’s been released lately, “Brightburn” might be a fresh breath of air.

 

And finally, some food for thought: if an alien with superpowers landed on Earth, would it really be interested in using its power to protect it just for our sake? Nah…don’t think so.

 

Brightburn

 

Director: David Yarovesky
Country & year: USA, 2019
Actors: Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Abraham Clinkscales, Christian Finlayson, Jennifer Holland, Emmie Hunter, Matt Jones, Meredith Hagner, Becky Wahlstrom, Terence Rosemore, Gregory Alan Williams
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt7752126/

 

Vanja Ghoul