LEPRECHAUN 5: LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD

Special to PollyStaffle.com

Wow!

Wow!

Wow!

Leprechaun 5: Leprechaun in the Hood is such a mongoloid piece of shit it probably must be watched. It was made in 2000, which puts it at the very end of years in which I will review films from. Hip-hop trends change so fast this film does actually feel camp already, even though it was only ten years ago. It comes from my beloved straight-to-VHS period, the final period of horror cinema I truly care about. Contributing to the general awfulness of this film, which is a transcendental awfulness in so far as it transcends itself, is the hip-hop in it already sounds ancient. This is not to say I am a hip-hop fan - I’m not. But this hip-hop is dated and was probably even heinous by heinous hip-hop standards of the time. It’s also very long for a “film” of it’s kind, which means the torture is prolonged.

Is this film racist? This film is based on every negative stereotype about African Americans to hit our culture since the 90s. They even threw in some racist stereotypes about Asians just for good measure. It’s also a sequel to the Leprechaun movies which were always as much or more so comedies based on the fact that the villain is a three-foot-tall midget in a latex masks and a Lucky Charms outfit. Ice-T is in this sack of shit, as is Coolio in the worst move of his career.

Yeah, the Leprechaun smokes pot and learns ghetto slang of the period. Wow, this film is some serious bullshit. No joke, it hurts. It hurts so much it must be art. There’s a transsexual in it. I kid you not.

The plot? Ice-T has the leprechaun in statue form in his house, aspiring hip-hop artists rob him, and then the leprechaun comes back to life. The hip-hop artists are chased both by the Leprechaun who wants his magic flute back and Ice-T who also wants the golden magic flute. The magic flute brings psychological dominance in people that hear it. Ice-T’s character has been using it to be a huge hip-hop star.

The leprechaun raps at the end. Couldn’t see that one coming could you?

No, its awful, but it’s a memorable awful, its an engaging awful, it’s a transcendental awful. It’s fucking heinous. You know what though? Straight-to-VHS had charm. Straight-to-VHS is hot and will likely make a cool retro trend at some point if it hasn’t already. It sort of ended with the Leprechaun and Wishmaster sequels, the most recent horror films I can deal with. Straight-to-VHS was a ghetto for lower budget horror sequels so bad that they never made it into theatrical release. Current lower budget horror films are Suicide Girls shot on digital, spammed about on social networking sites. The production quality, acting, and special effects were actually far superior to smaller budget horror films today. Ice-T is still an actor someone’s heard of.

Anyway, Leprechaun in the Hood is a film that rightly justifies the principle of a film so bad its good. Certainly, it is fun to make fun of. Then again, the people who made it probably made it as much as a comedy as a horror or a hip-hop gang film.

Unlike some of the films made after, this piece of shit has a substantial cult following for somewhat understandable reasons.

- William Wheaton, June 2010

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