Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996)

Episode 431, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We continue our month of IN SPACE. With our second episode, perfectly timed. For Saint Patrick’s Day. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Craig.

Craig: Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, it snuck right up on me.

Todd: Yeah, I hope you’re wearing green this morning. You’re lucky I can’t pinch you from here. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

This is Leprechaun 4: In Space. And this is the movie that really inspired me to do this whole month. Because I remember catching the tail end of this. On cable and going, Oh my God, I can’t believe this exists. I need to come back to this someday. So I hadn’t seen the whole thing from beginning to end until now.

And I’m just gonna say I’m really happy that this was our second one and not our first one. In other words, I’m really glad that this came on the heels of Critters 4. And like you pointed out in our Critters 4 episode, It’s kind of weird that three of the four movies that we’re covering this month for our in space are Number four.

I don’t know why that is. What came before this was Vegas, which we covered. When we did the Leprechaun 3 in Vegas episode, I remembered reading that the Leprechaun 4 in space episodes was inspired simply by a movie poster. The Apollo 13 photo with Tom Hanks and one of the producers was like Wouldn’t it be cool if like that was the leprechaun’s face instead of Tom Hanks’s face?

And so he did a mock up and brought it to the company Christmas party and that was the genesis for this Direct to video movie. So they got the same director Brian Trenchard Smith who did a pretty good job with Leprechaun 3 So I’m I’m not surprised they brought him on for Leprechaun 4. Had you seen this movie before?

Craig: I thought for sure that I had, now I don’t think I had. There were some tells. Because I think I would have remembered it. Yeah, I think I would have remembered it. I don’t know. It’s possible I blocked it out. That’s also another possibility. Why 

Todd: in the world would you have blocked out this cinematic gem?

Craig: Boy. I just don’t, you know, like, I don’t know what to say. My mom always said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, just don’t say a thing at all. I don’t know what to say. I vaguely remember liking three or at least thinking. It was so stupid. It was funny. Yes. You know, like I remember that one lady’s lips and boobs blowing up and that was hilarious.

Yes. 

Todd: And three, 

Craig: there were, there were some like witty one liners that I thought were funny and, and I don’t know, this one just, it didn’t land for me, ironically enough, the other ones felt more creative. Like leprechaun had more to do. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Now that’s talking specifically about the leprechaun. There is other wackadoodle stuff going on here.

Like, there is just so much crazy in this movie that I think it was almost too much crazy for me. Yeah, I don’t know. 

Todd: I think my feelings about this movie are colored by the fact that we just finished Critters 4. And I thought Critters 4 was a snore fest and had almost no critters in it. And so, by comparison, this one is throwing everything at the wall.

I feel like this movie is Far more ambitious than its budget would allow. Oh yeah. It looks terrible. 

Craig: That’s another thing. It doesn’t look good at all. It looks super, I mean, from the very, very beginning, it looks super cheap. I mean, the, the exterior of the spaceship looks like, 

Todd: hmm. 

Craig: Coleco vision or something 

Todd: like it’s so terrible.

It is 90 CGI. As I think was possible on my home computer in the 90s. I read that the director was super disappointed in how the CGI turned out because he said it was like below PlayStation level quality. And because the budget on this movie was so low, it was only 1. 6 million and they only had like 80, 000 to spend on CGI effects.

He was usually the first render of the scene that they ended up using, which is, you know, just the most bare bones, no lighting really applied, no textures. Like you said, from the opening scene, which is really just the credits, you see a meteor. spinning through space and it looks like a video game. It is horrible.

Craig: Or a bad screensaver. Yeah, 

Todd: a screensaver. When I 

Craig: was in high school. 

Todd: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I mean, even for the nineties, this is horrible CGI. But I found that to be a little bit of its charm. I guess it depends on what you’re watching this movie for, right? If you’re watching this movie That’s right.

for a bad movie, you’re gonna get it in spades. 

Craig: Yeah, and I feel like I just couldn’t tell if it’s intentional or not. It just didn’t, I don’t know, it didn’t feel like it had the heart that some of the other movies had. Really? I feel like, yeah, I felt like even Warwick Davis couldn’t save it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting tired of the shtick, but I didn’t find it funny.

Yeah. The leprechaun Rattles off some one liners every once in a while, but they’re not really funny. It’s more like him just like doing voices, like he talks like a cowboy at some point. Yeah, 

Todd: no, 

Craig: you’re right. The real comic relief is the only black person on the ship, this guy named Sticks, who says lines like, Who’s driving this, Ray Charles?

Todd: Like, 

Craig: that’s about as good as it 

Todd: gets. Like these, like, I’m the black character, so I can say these things, and you’re supposed to think it’s funny. There’s a point at which he even goes into minstrel talk, which is a little cringy. Like, that’s the best you could do. It 

Craig: is, he is by far, in a way, my favorite character in the movie.

Todd: Oh yeah, I mean, to be honest, I thought this movie was trying harder than it, I mean, I remember us, very distinctly, really enjoying Leprechaun 3, because we thought it was silly, we were impressed with what they were able to do with such a limited budget and resources. The Leprechaun was goofy, and I think Vegas was a nice playground for him, because there were so many jokes to be made.

Yeah, I think so too. And space is just, like, I think already, two movies in, I’m starting to see the limitations of setting your non space themed franchise. in space, like where can you go but just references and parodies of alien and Star Wars. That’s about it, you know, unless you’re going to really take it seriously and you’re going to do an alien, you’re really just stuck with, with parody, which grows pretty stale pretty quickly.

Craig: Right. For me. Now, parody has its place for sure. We’ve done a lot of parody films that I’ve Enjoyed very, very much this one. It’s not as though it feels lazy. It’s just feels like the jokes are easy. The parody is easy. Like just out of nowhere, the leprechaun uses an actual literal lightsaber for a second, and then he doesn’t have one anymore.

And there are lots of little nods to the movies that you mentioned. And I, it tries to be alien there, especially alien too. There are so many references. Because it’s a military team on a spaceship hunting an alien. So that’s always going to be compared to Alien 2, at least by me. And definitely the Star Wars references too.

I also felt like it was trying to be one of those space B movies from like the fifties and sixties. 

Todd: For sure. 

Craig: With the whole. Sexy alien queen. Yeah, Star Trek works too. Oh, you’re right. Like, the sexy, yeah. There’s a whole mad scientist aspect to it too. That felt very, like, old school B movie. Yeah. And, saying all those things out loud, it’s, somebody told me that, I’d be like, ooh, that sounds fun.

And it just wasn’t fun, I didn’t think. 

Todd: It was weird. Well, I actually kind of disagree with you. And again, I think maybe just coming off of Critters 4, which I did not find fun at all. I thought this movie was kind of a rollicking ride because they really did, like, throw everything at the wall. Whereas, again, by comparison, Critters 4 was, like, these five people go and essentially try to recreate alien in space and they’re quite serious about it and the critters barely come out.

This one, it kicks off with, I was so weird to see the leprechaun in a cave on an alien planet with this princess who, like you said, is almost like an Edgar Rice Burroughs type. Situation where it’s like princess of Mars. This woman is done up in princess regalia with makeup and like kind of half egyptian Looking and whatnot.

And so that’s their conceit that there’s this alien world. That is almost like this old timey Arabian, you know from the look of her kingdom and He’s whining and dining her there in the cave in order to marry her so that he can be a king because he’s tired of Earth. 

Clip: To the most beautiful woman in the universe, the Princess Serena, my future wife.

Your wife? Your wife?! How dare you! Do you know who I am? I am the daughter of a king. And you will one day be a queen. And it is your royal blood, madame, that will make me a king. What? You? A king? Ha ha ha ha ha! Laugh if you like me, darlin but I’ll have me way. I’m a man amongst men, and it’s tardy I’m of being treated like a dog.

From now on the rest of this miserable universe will bow and scrape before me. 

Todd: It’s so weird because this all comes out of left field like we don’t know why the leprechaun is in space now. No. We don’t know. why he’s suddenly so into space politics, you know, but I suppose any magical creature could be anywhere in the universe.

He wants to be right. This guy can pop in and out of anywhere. His magical powers can just kind of do anything, conjure up anything, which I think honestly is a bit of a limitation of the series, but he’s also like a notorious space 

Craig: criminal. That they, that they send this. Military operation. They’re Marines, I guess.

’cause they regularly sing, simplify, do or die. Kill, kill, kill. So funny. Oh my God. 

Todd: It’s, it’s basically full metal jacket parody or the beginning of aliens. It’s almost the beginning of aliens. Mm-hmm . Beat. For Beat, right, when we’re introduced to them? Yeah. Cause they’re going through everybody, like, gearing up and suiting up and whatnot, and, and it’s, it’s like a one shot tracking thing where, the literally hard headed drill sergeant, cause half of his skull is, like, metal, cause he apparently lost half of his skull in a battle, which we find out later.

Walks through and talks to everybody and everybody is real tough And there’s the tough girl and there’s the banter back and forth and 

Craig: the tough girl is modeled very much after the tough girl from aliens Yes, and the hero of the troop books Is modeled after Hicks. 

Todd: Yes from And looks like Sylvester Stallone.

And then just like Ripley is an outsider, scientist ishy type person brought into this group, this woman is brought in who is a scientist and her name is, uh, Tina, right? She’s played by Jessica Collins, by the way, who I swear looked super familiar to me. Everybody in this looked super familiar to me. But when I went to their IMDb pages, I was like, Yeah, I guess I’ve probably seen them in some bit parts here and there.

But yeah, none of them were really, many of them just kind of look. I think have that famous Hollywood actor look without actually being a super famous Hollywood actor 

Craig: Booker looks like he should be on soap operas and he was The girl who plays tina looks like she should have been on baywatch and she was and they just have That generic look about them.

Todd: Yeah, I guess that’s 

Craig: right. They’re very good looking people. You know, it’s a cast of pretty good looking people for the most part except for some weirdos who are intentionally not good looking. All the stuff that we’re talking about I think sounds fine on paper, like I’m on board with it on paper, I just feel like it’s so poorly executed, like the acting is terrible, ugh, it’s just, I don’t know, and I don’t even really, I don’t even really think it’s their fault.

Faults. I think the words that they have to say are so bad. Well, they’re also oh God, I don’t like even okay We skimmed over Zarina the space princess because she wakes up and she’s terrible like she’s just kind of this petulant spoiled Princess. Yeah. She at first is repulsed by the Leprechaun, but when he’s like, well, I’ll marry you and then I can be king and I can give you all the riches in the world.

She’s like, now you’re talking, sweetie. Like, ugh. 

Todd: I don’t know, man. Like, you’re right, the acting is terrible, but I feel like it’s intentionally over the top. I feel like I’m in the same position I was when we did Terror Vision, for example. You have these actors, you know they’re good actors, and they’re just being goofy and silly.

And I felt like in the same way, these guys, that was the tone of the movie, was to be goofy and silly. And so when they’re trying to be goofy and silly, it, I mean, they got what they, what they delivered, but I don’t think it really necessarily meant it was a bad performance. I just felt that it just meant this was just a dumb movie, and everybody was in on it.

They were hamming it up, I thought. I thought they were hamming it up. That’s fine. Maybe maybe there were moments at which you know, they were trying to be more serious or whatnot But 

Craig: I don’t know. I found that the I don’t have anything against these people, you know, they made a fun movie Whatever who cares?

Yeah, so it wasn’t my favorite like the girl who plays tina. I I thought she was really flat She was very beautiful to look at but I just felt she was flat like the And again, like you’re saying maybe it’s intentional that girl who plays the princess plays it so over the top. It’s farcical Yeah portrayal.

She’s not going for realism. So I guess I should cut it more slack. And I’m afraid that some of our friends who are gonna listen to this are gonna think I’m being a big butthole about it. I don’t mean to. I can see how this would be the kind of movie that maybe under the right circumstances could be really funny.

I started watching it really late at night last night and it was a weeknight and I had to work and so I started to get tired and I was kind of just I mean, like you said, a lot happens. We haven’t even got to the mad scientist yet, but I just kind of got bored. And then I had to watch it real quick when I, right, when I got home from work and I was tired again, so maybe I just wasn’t in the right state of mind.

Maybe, maybe if I had set myself up better for it, I would have had more fun. 

Todd: Well, eventually the marines land on the planet, they come in to invade that cave. To get the leprechaun. The leprechaun, yeah, and the special effects are utterly crazy. Like, on the planet, they’re kind of standing in front of some rocks, but it pans past a very Weird composite CGI background of the planet’s surface that is just distractingly bad.

But they end up inside the cave, and one of them runs over to the gold and jewels that are on the leprechaun’s table, starts to dump it in his helmet, and that’s when the leprechaun pops out with his lightsaber, and chops down his legs, which we don’t see. We see him buzz up the lightsaber, we see him start to swing it, and then we just see this guy scream.

As he gets a little shorter and a little shorter and falls down. I don’t even think we ever see his legs gone. I don’t know. So, you’re instantly seeing, okay, this movie’s got a small budget to work with. And also, I just have to point out, the whole theme of the Leprechaun movies is the gold. The inciting incident for pretty much everyone, I think, except for this one, is that the leprechaun’s gold has been stolen, or it’s been lost.

And the whole movie is really about, if the leprechaun could just get his gold, he would go away. If people would just give the leprechaun his gold, he’d be gone, right? So, so here’s the thing. 

Craig: The guy that they work for, Dr. Mittenhand. The guy that they work for, they are marines. The Leprechaun is threatening a mining mission on this planet.

What they are mining for is his gold. So, They do have his gold. Right. On the spaceship. Right, but. So, so it is. I mean that is the impetus for it is like, yeah, he, well, and then they also have a His girlfriend and he wants her back. Yes. He’s not there. He’s not there just to be a jerk. No. In this one, like sometimes he is.

In fact, there’s one point in the movie where he’s walking around and he’s kind of like God, it’s kind of too bad I have to kill these guys. I kind of like them. And I was like, that’s 

Todd: funny! Right. But my point is, for most of the movie, it’s all about him getting this girl back. Yeah. Which I feel like he could do at any time.

Because he can just pop in and out of various places. I don’t understand why he doesn’t know where she’s being held, why he just doesn’t pop into there. Right do his magic and I forgot about the gold entirely and it seems like the leprechaun did too pretty much because there is a point At the tail end of the movie where he finally gets the princess and she reminds him Oh, by the way, you’re gold and he’s like, oh, you’re right me gold.

And I’m like what like that’s right That’s his lifelong obsession. Why would he? Have to be reminded about it. The guy was about ready to blast off the ship with her. Before she reminds him, so. I thought that was silly. And the other thing that I think is super disappointing about this movie. Is that, not in keeping with the other ones.

Every time he opens his mouth, I’m waiting for a rhyme to come out of it. And it never does. In the other movie, it’s not like every minute he talks in rhyme. But pretty much most of the time. A lot, yeah. Yeah, it’s a lot. And, unless I’m mistaken. Because I was looking for it. That is completely absent from this movie.

Craig: I don’t remember. But like I said, I remembered him being quippier, or the quips being funnier. And a lot of those rhymes were really stupid, but that was kind of funny. They have a whole big space shootout, because That has to happen like five times in this movie. Like so many times the leprechaun’s just standing there and somebody will confront him and he’ll go take a look at this and pull out this big pistol and start shooting with it.

Yeah. Like it’s a surprise every time , like, we haven’t seen him do it throughout the whole movie. 

Todd: Right. And 

Craig: that’s also, I suppose it’s, it’s homage to the alien movies. Fine, okay, I get that, but it’s not creative, like the, the leprechaun’s usually creative. 

Todd: Yeah, when you reduce it to the space battle stuff all the time, it kind of neuters his powers.

It’s, you know, it’s just not, it’s not interesting. 

Craig: No, it’s, it’s repetitive, and eventually they toss a grenade, and the leprechaun jumps on the grenade to keep Zarina from, I love that that’s her name, I’m gonna keep saying it over and over again. To keep Zarina from being killed. And so he completely blows up into a million pieces.

She’s okay. Except for her hand gets blown off. They think he’s dead. So one of them takes a piss on his body and you see the piss get sparkly and go up to his wiener. That’ll come in later. Wow. Ouch. Yeah. And they make fun of him. Like he’s got the clap or something. Yeah. I think the leprechaun went in his wiener.

Todd: So the leprechaun transfers his essence into this guy’s dick. 

Craig: They take Zarina back onto the ship. 

Todd: There’s goofy jokes, like, somebody says, Hey, can you give me a hand here with the, with Serena, and somebody tosses her actual hand to him, and he goes, Oh my god, and the doctor goes, No, don’t be goofing around with that, I can reattach it.

Craig: But they can’t, but that’s okay, because they take her on the ship, and put her on the lab, where there’s this creepy scientist named Harold. Yes. Who is weird, and like, Sexually molests everybody. 

Todd: And His office looks like the milk bar from Clockwork Orange, where he’s got all these like, these nude, modern looking statues that are in different sexual poses and stuff.

That’s funny, that’s the second time a Clockwork Orange has come up in 

Craig: my day today. Oh really? God. I was gonna say maybe we should do that movie sometime, but whew. It’s a rough one. 

Todd: It’s a rough one. 

Craig: We also see, okay, that the leprechaun’s head isn’t dead, so we know that, or it smiles, so we know that it’s not dead or whatever.

Harold works for this other Scientist who only for the first half of the movie appears on a telescreen and it looks like on mystery science theater When they would have to talk to the you know, I’m talking about 

Todd: yes I know exactly what you’re talking about through the TV, 

Craig: right? So it’s just a talking a big close up of a talking head and he’s weird.

Like he looks like dr Evil, 

Todd: I was thinking uncle Fester sort of crossed with a Nazi scientist. Yeah, he has this strong German accent 

Craig: Yeah, this like silly comical German accent and he talks weird and he looks weird And you only see him from the head up and they find out they can’t sew her hand back on but that’s okay because she regenerates Dr.

Mittenglove Mittenhand? 

Todd: He’s excited 

Craig: because he can continue his experiments. All right. Yeah. 

Todd: He’s got a DNA experiment. 

Craig: Then, the leprechaun has to come 

Todd: out of that guy’s dick at some point. At some point. I think it’s Kowalski, right? I don’t know. Who goes in the back with, They’re at this party. Oh, the ship has Has a nightclub.

A nightclub. You can’t imagine there’s anything more than these five people that’s a nightclub. You never see a bartender. It’s, it looks very empty. And it looks like it was outfitted by like, that section of the dollar store during the summer where they Yes, 

Craig: that’s exactly what I was gonna say. That’s how you can tell the budget of this movie.

Look at the glasses that they are drinking out of. They are those plastic glasses that you get at Target in the summer. You know, they’re all like pastel colors and have like wavy Patterns. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that stood out like a sore thumb. Yeah, 

Todd: they’re trying to look super spacey. I swear there is a moment where, um, one of the characters raises the glass to drink out of it and you see the bottom of it and there’s still like a price tag stuck to it.

Craig: That doesn’t surprise me. 

Todd: So they’re in there and then Kowalski and the girl and her name was Deborah? Dolores. That’s right. They go off into the side, the side corridor and start making out. 

Craig: The back alley behind the club on the spaceship is what it looked like. That’s basically what it is, the back alley 

Todd: corridor.

And when he gets aroused, he gets really aroused. Cause he’s, he falls to the ground, starts groaning and his dick starts growing. And I was like, Oh my God, I can kind of see where this is going. And sure enough, it’s sort of like a Nightmare on Elm Street 2 situation where the leprechaun. Bursts out of this man’s crotch and spins around and says exactly what you think he’s going to say.

Craig: Other important things that we learn along the way, they have to protect Starina or whatever her name is, Zarina. They have to protect her because she’s a princess. So to keep good relations with the Dominions, cause she’s from the planet Dominia or something, they have to return her safely and then they’ll have better trade relations or something.

So they are tasked by the doctor with. Protecting her even though they kind of don’t want to 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: we also find out that this doctor Also, one of his other side interests, I guess is lasers that can shrink things. Yes So they’re taking these big chunks of gold that apparently they’ve mined from the leprechauns planet I I don’t know and they’re shrinking them down.

Yeah, I don’t know where those came from I think they came from the 

Todd: cave. I think 

Craig: that’s 

Todd: yes, but Yeah, I didn’t see them take him, but like they also took a bunch of shit from the table and I never saw that again No, I don’t I don’t know. 

Craig: Okay. So there’s a laser that shrinks things and that’s where the gold is.

These are important 

Todd: things They’re looking for Kowalski because Kowalski is it’s weird. They’re looking for Kowalski, but they find that he’s dead already Has his body disappeared or were they actually looking for Dolores? No, I don’t know. They go looking for somebody 

Craig: books and Tina are just hanging out and flirting at the club for a while And the other boys are dancing drunk and together and I thought that was kind of funny One of them the funny one has like his shirt off and like around his neck.

It was funny Then the girl, Dolores, runs into the club and screams, It’s alive! 

Todd: That’s it. So now they know that their leprechaun is somewhere on the ship, and so they are, go off looking for it. And the first place they go is the contamination chamber? Or the decontamination chamber? It doesn’t make a lot of sense because as soon as they arrive there, the doctor, Tina, says to them, You can’t go here, it’s infected with flesh eating virus.

Craig: Yeah, it’s the waste management system. There’s a, like a decontaminating room before you go in there, but I don’t know why they needed to go in there. And I don’t think that they end up doing anything in there. Like, do they just think the leprechaun is in there? I mean, 

Todd: he is, I guess they do. Yeah. So they go, well, I mean, because the leprechaun just pops up wherever they are.

That’s the reason, but yeah, they go into that room in the budget suits. These are big, like COVID era hazmat suits that are just plastic. 

Craig: And the leprechaun is in one too, which I thought was so cute. 

Todd: Yeah. See, there were charming points of this movie, and I liked the fact, again, As opposed to Critters 4, I was seeing some interesting stuff.

Like, okay, this chamber was cool. It’s like filled with smoke. It’s got chains hanging down. All they do is walk through here and just open random doors and pull on chains and that triggers weird shit to happen, like smoke blasts in somebody’s face or like blood or something falls down from the ceiling that he says, Oh, that must’ve been like some lubricant up there.

Like what? And the leprechaun swings by, slashes one of their suits with a knife and. Hurry up, get him out, get him out, and they kind of come into the decontamination chamber, but one of the guys, I can’t remember his name, That flesh eating virus works really, really fast, and he’s just a, Yeah, mooch, that was, yeah, 

Craig: Total skeleton, that was, That was cool, Okay, I’ll give it that one, I’ll give it that one, that one was okay, I mean, it was dumb, like, like, he’s gonna be totally eaten in 30 seconds, but, But it’s creative, They go back to Mittenhand, And he tells them that they have to kill the leprechaun to protect the princess.

And the leader, the guy with the metal head is like, uh, our contract is up at midnight and we’re out of here at midnight. We don’t care. Princess, we’re out. And Mittenhouse gets really mad and it’s like yelling at them and says, You’re gonna, are 

Todd: you, are you aiming for comedy right now? I feel like you’re going to, and then mitten dick was, uh, don’t stop.

I’m enjoying it, but, uh, 

Craig: he’s he, okay. So when they say they’re going to leave, he. Comes out it turns out that he’s been he even makes a reference to being the wizard of Oz like he’s Been the man behind the curtain like this big retractable door opens and he’s back there, but he’s like, I don’t 

Todd: know It’s like the upper part of his body and not even that much It’s like his shoulders and his head have been attached to a machine that can roll around.

They’re like 

Craig: grafted onto Rosie the maid From the Jetsons. Or something kind of like that. 

Todd: Actually, I saw this and I was impressed. I was like, okay, for a low budget movie, they got some cool stuff. Because when they show it from the back, they show all the gears and stuff inside of his torso. So they’ve, you know, they’ve created a separate one that you can see from the back.

I thought it was actually pretty effective makeup. I liked the fact that he had His heart on the outside in a jar. In a jar. Yeah, that was gross. The other side was, what, urine, I suppose? Just every now and then this yellow liquid is bubbling in there. But the funny thing about this was the heart is not always beating from scene to scene and shot to shot of this guy.

Oh, that’s funny. notice yeah it’s not not always beating which was kind of funny but no i actually kind of appreciated the effort that went into this guy 

Craig: i feel like his energy is the energy that everybody should have been at like he is really really hamming it up 

Todd: yeah he’s over the top evil german doctor 

Craig: right that just Total, total caricature.

Clip: Dr. Reeves is the ship’s biological officer and my personal assistant. You will see to it that she is protected at all times. With all due respect, sir, we can’t be babysitting some little You have your orders, sergeant. I suggest you 

Craig: follow them. It feels weird to me in this movie. Like, it just feels like an It’s kind of a separate plot.

Like, there’s this whole mad scientist plot kind of going on in the wings. Yes. While you’ve meanwhile just got the Leprechaun picking off the soldiers in the other part of the ship, and they feel very separate, and they really are. The 

Todd: only 

Craig: connection is 

Todd: Zarina. To be fair, they have to have a reason for not just turning Zarina over to the Leprechaun and going on their way, you know?

It’s the pressure from the doctor who wants to keep her. Because her blue blood, they can just use as DNA, you know, it’s just DNA nonsense, can be used as a regenerative, and so I think he wants to regenerate his whole body, and then he wants to use this to take over the world, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so.

That’s right. I mean, so now they have a reason to protect her and not just hand her over to this guy, and the doctor has something to hold over the marine’s heads and to push them along, and that is exactly, you know, what the leprechaun’s trying to do is get her back, so. I mean, it all makes sense, you know.

Craig: Well, frankly, they still don’t care, but he says that they didn’t read their contracts closely enough because there was some addendum or something that said that he could extend their contract in the case of an emergency. He’s like, and this is an emergency, so your contract is extended. And I guess they take contract law very seriously because 

Todd: This was great.

Craig: Actually, no, it’s more about, you know, their honor because they’re Marines, you know, like they Well, there’s negotiation. Oh, that’s right. The negotiation was funny. That was hilarious. 

Clip: Anybody who stays becomes a shareholder of everything you make on this deal. And we want 5 percent of the gross of everything you bring out of that cave.

Anything over 50 million, we get another point as a bonus. Two and a half percent of the mineral rights, and that’s net, not gross, no bonus. Four percent, no deal. That the bonus 3% with the bonus done, and if the papers blown up, 

Todd: and so now they’re, they’re invested and they’re gonna go hunt down this leprechaun and protect this girl.

So Danny and s sticks go on the hunt. I think Danny gets separated from sticks and the leprechaun drops giant box on him. Again, conveniently avoiding, and the need for any effects, because we don’t see blood, we don’t see the, the movie is actually surprisingly bloodless. For a leprechaun movie. In a lot of these situations, you know, they’re clearly trying to do minimal makeup and minimal special effects.

But, again, he’s just prowling around the corridors. I think this is is this the guy that he’s trying to make a deal with or does that come later? I can’t remember. 

Craig: I think it comes a little bit later. I mean, several things happen here, they’re not particularly important, but this is the point, I think, where he says that he kind of feels bad about killing these guys, but it’s just because he doesn’t want to share his arena, he wants everything, and he says I’ll wed her, 

Clip: bed her, and bury her all the same day.

Craig: Yeah. So he doesn’t really care about her either, it’s, it’s, she is just a means to an end. But he needs her, so he has to kill these folks. And there’s lots of stupid and boring, meet cute flirting going on between Books and Tina. Who cares? They’re trying to do the Ripley and Brooks thing. Hicks. Hicks, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this, you’re right, Danny runs off on his own. He really just wants to make a deal with the Leprechaun. But then, this is more of a callback to the other movies. This is more in keeping with the Leprechaun. He appears on television like he’s doing a safety video, and like, he cuts off his own fingers and taunts him.

But then, he says We can make a deal just come over here where I am and the guy’s like, okay, we’ll make a deal But he’s got his gun out and obviously he’s planning to shoot him but like you said as soon as he gets close enough the leprechaun just like pulls a rope and a giant crate falls on him and We never see him again 

Todd: There’s no blood 

Craig: there’s days just okay I guess he’s dead 

Todd: and then they’re you know, they do a lot of walking through what’s essentially the same set.

So there’s this Sort of suspended walkway in one area and they’ve they’ve walked through this walkway Probably ten times in this whole movie and it’s supposed to be other locations I think and Dolores gets cornered because she goes ahead and then suddenly the door closes behind them to separate them off and they’re trying To get the door open from one side.

Meanwhile, the leprechaun confronts here on the walkway, and she blasts him with her blaster, and he explodes for the second time. But, his legs are still there, and as she approaches him, he, in another one of those horrible video effect CGI things, grows out of those legs. back up again. It’s like, oh, you can’t kill me.

And then he ends up knocking her off of the walkway, but her hands are gripped there. So she’s hanging above this really, really deep area. In the meantime, the others in the other room, as they’re trying to open the door, they’re all yelling at her, hang in there, Dolores, we’re almost there. And he does his whole one little piggy and two little piggies and three little piggies and eventually pulls her whole hand away and she falls to her death.

And that’s Dolores. I, I was surprised. I, I thought we were gonna see Dolores boobs in this. I thought she was the boob girl. Yeah. Cause we hadn’t seen Nudity yet and I was expecting it and uh, no, she dies. 

Craig: Dolores was funny. Before she died she was feeling guilty. She says to Metalhead, is it my fault? And he’s like, what do you mean?

She’s like, Well, I’m the one who gave him the boner. And Metlette says something like, you don’t have to feel bad about that. When I go, I hope I’m standing tall, just like he was. And she looks at him seductively and says, really? He 

Todd: just kind of turns and walks away. 

Craig: Like, like it turns her on. That was pretty funny.

Oh my God. That was funny. But she’s dead. Meanwhile, back in the lab, the leprechaun has made his way there. The DNA cocktail is ready, but the leprechaun. rings the doorbell and Harold goes and checks in and he’s like, hold on I just have to check and see who it is and he turns on a screen and it’s Tina naked Yeah, and she says let me in they tore off all my clothes

Which is made the more hilarious When that actually happens later. 

Todd: But 

Craig: right now it’s just the Leprechaun tricking him. When he opens it, he gets hit in the nuts with something. And then this is when the Leprechaun and Mittenhand come face to face. And I don’t know what I was expecting here, but like, they just kind of banter back and forth for a while.

Todd: You’re like me, but you’re not like me because you think you can rule through this, I can rule through fear, and blah blah blah. It is pretty boring. During all this banter Harold manages to pull what I guess is a knife out of his leg and tries to approach the Leprechaun But he spins around and he uses his magic to make that platter that was on the table Lift up, fly through the air, and smash him in the face against the wall And when the platter falls to the ground you see Harold with this sort of cartoonish giant round Garbage Pail Kids Garbage fail kid flathead.

I liked that. I thought that was funny. I thought it was funny. It was good Yeah, so I mean actually he does end up killing these people in creative ways. I think well, they’re not all just getting shot Anyway, 

Craig: right it was fine 

Todd: And then the leprechaun runs over to the doctor and he’s woken up the princess and they sit there and I guess he’s somehow I can’t remember exactly how but he somehow got the doctor Incapacitated or something because he’s like, oh, let’s let’s do some DNA experiments.

And so he pulls up a blender Which I thought was funny Dumps the DNA that they’ve extracted from her which is blue liquid in there And then because they also have vials of spiders and scorpions in there for some reason grabs those out puts those in the blender blends it all together and then injects the doctor with it and And as the marines burst in they see the guy with the flat head dead on the floor the doctor Swinging around with this syringe stuck out of his neck.

Craig: But they leave him behind. They’re like, we can’t worry about him right now. We’ve got to get the hostage. They chase them and they are surprised when Zarina comes out around the corner and says something. I don’t 

Todd: know. This is your fate. Gaze upon them.

And she, she’s pulls her tits 

Craig: out, pulls her tits out. And I, I was actually really excited about this because I’m like, Oh my God. She there, she’s going to have like monster tits or she’s going to shoot like lasers out of her tits. No, she doesn’t do anything. She just stands there with her tits out for a minute and then she closes it back up again.

And then runs off and then runs off and somebody’s like, well, you’re in trouble now. It’s the doctor that the female doctor is like, well, you’re in trouble now. And they’re like, what? Yeah. She’s like, oh, yeah, on her planet. If a royal woman shows you her boobs, it’s a death sentence. 

Todd: I mean, this was a cheap way to get nudity in here.

And apparently this was on the request of try mark. I think it’s the insistence. Yeah, they needed, they said they wanted nudity in, and the writer was pissed off at that, and so he deliberately wrote this scene to be really, really dumb. 

Craig: Knowing that behind the scenes information, I find that really hilarious.

It is. But, without that context, it just seems 

Todd: Really dumb. 

Craig: Gratuitous isn’t even the right word. No. Like, it’s just so Obvious, like, uh, guess I gotta get my tits out for a minute. Yeah. Get a good look. All right, here we go. 

Todd: I guess Tina wasn’t willing, right? Even though Tina gets her clothes torn off later, and the leprechaun pretends to be her naked, still, this is where the tits come from.

Craig: It just gets worse from here. The leprechaun magically straps a bunch of bombs to the sergeant, and I guess the sergeant is kind of like, Frozen or under the Leprechaun spell or something. They take him hostage and they take him back to the club. And on their way, the other guys, the other people follow them and on their way out of the lab, they see that Mittenhand is gone, 

Todd: right?

He’s not in his machine anymore. 

Craig: So back in the club, Zarina and the Leprechaun, this is, I think when she reminds him that his gold is still out there somewhere, but he says something to the sergeant, like. Let’s show him what kind of man you really are. And I knew exactly what’s going to happen. I’m like, this is such a stupid joke immediately.

Cause this guy, this is a big burly guy. Okay. Big, you know, and like his whole thing is like, he’s super, you know, macho, whatever this guy, the actor was casted in the Arlie Emery role in full metal jacket, Stanley Kubrick’s full metal jacket. And Arlie Emery was like a production assistant or something. I don’t remember.

And he had actual military experience and Stanley Kubrick was so taken by him that he recast 

Todd: the role. 

Craig: So that guy was always disappointed that he didn’t get to play that tough guy military role. I mean, he was still in the movie, but it was a small part. 

Todd: Yeah, well, he’s that crazy gunner who’s just shooting people down from the helicopter.

So, I mean, it’s a memorable 

Craig: I haven’t seen that movie since I was a literal child. Oh, yeah. Like, I don’t remember it. So, okay, they all come in and they’re, you know, like, there’s like a light on the stage or something and here comes Metalhead in full glam drag. And he does a whole number and he’s like interacting with them and flirting with the guys or whatever.

Todd: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, you know, it’s dated humor, but again, in keeping with the Leprechaun series, it’s I mean, it’s another, it’s goofy thing to, it’s fine. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s 

Craig: whatever. It just, it’s using that as a way to mock and emasculate him is, like you said, it’s just old. It’s just tired. Like, okay, we get it.

Like, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: all right, whatever. But Erena tells the leprechaun about the gold and the cargo base, so he goes off to take care of that. We come now to mitten houses or whatever his name is, Mitten. It’s alright, it’s gonna change for real this time. To his point of view, and he is a monster now. He looks good.

And he sees himself in the mirror and he gets up in front of his computer and we kind of see him from behind and he already looks good from behind. Typing on his computer and like logging, like, oh, I’m changing, my human, my humanity is going away and my bug is taking over or something. 

Clip: My experiment has gone awry.

I am becoming My brain slowly losing human perspective. I am no longer Mittenhent. I am now Mittenspider.

Craig: And so, okay, so now we’ve got the Cronenberg, um, fly, the fly going on here. I have to say, I was impressed with these prosthetics. It was like all 

Todd: the money went into this. 

Craig: Yeah. I thought they actually looked quite good. I mean, it was, you know, limited in its mobility, but it was like a full suit that had a lot of detail.

It looks. Organic it was gross. It was big a lot of moving parts. I thought it looked good Yeah, it looked really good. He was able to you know, his face looked scary But he was still able to act and emote in his face. They shot it creatively. So you don’t see a lot of moving, like, you know, in the whole suit, he grabs at people through vents and, and stuff like that.

But 

Todd: overall, it looked good. My favorite part of the movie was him. Spider, scorpion, monster thing. I, I just, I was really impressed with, uh, the makeup and the effects on this. It was good. But back in the club, Tina, who earlier had said that I have a black belt in karate, which, you know, sounds like something that eight year old says on the Playground.

Right, who cares? Yeah, that, that becomes evident because she’s the one who ends up fighting Sarge in drag and finally he, he gets knocked against the wall, knocks off his metal plate in his head and ends up dead on the ground and it turns out, plot twist, Sarge was a cyborg all along. Oh my gosh. Which, 

Craig: you know, it doesn’t surprise me.

That, you know, 2, which is fine. Mm hmm. I was glad to see it happen, because leading up to his death, first of all, I felt bad that they were in the position that he was gonna have to kill them, but he was acting really strangely. Yeah. And it turns out, it’s because he was, like, shorting out. So, you know. He was broken or whatever.

And I guess you could say she didn’t really kill him because he wasn’t really a person. So 

Todd: yeah, she eliminated the threat that he now became. 

Craig: Meanwhile, the honeymoon is over between Lep and Zarina. They’re bickering and calling each other names. And then we get Styx, who he’s just been absent for a while.

Like, I feel like they checked in with him every once in a while, but I don’t know. Yeah. Anyway, he’s back in the control room, and he gets attacked by Mitten Spider, and I thought that he was gonna be dead, and I was sad because he was my favorite character, but he’s not. The next time we see him, he is, like, cocooned, like, in a spider web.

But he’s like fighting his way out and he’s like suspended and he’s like typing on the computer. He’s working very hard. I think it was Mittenman who, he like set off the detonation sequence or like the self destruct sequence or whatever. It was either him or the leprechaun. 

Todd: Yeah, started the auto destruct.

Craig: So he’s trying to get that off. Meanwhile, the young lovebirds are trying to get the leprechaun. He and Zarina are now in the cargo bay where the gold is.

And there’s lots more stupid shooting. 

Todd: Yeah, this is, this is where I think it kind of gets a little boring. To be honest, I was kind of into it until this moment, and then it gets a little slow because now we’re in this big cargo bay, which is just a bunch of crates stacked up to create spaces for them to hide and walk around in.

And the leprechaun finds his gold shrunk down on this little platter right underneath the shrinking and expanding ray. And so he’s like, what happened here? The princess is blabbing away. And so he finally has had enough of her. So he magically makes her face look ugly. And so he says, look at yourself.

You’re not so hot looking after all. And she looks at herself in the mirror and sees the boils on her face. And she faints. And then, um, there’s just kind of a standoff in the cargo bay where at some point Tina kicks around the corner and I think she shoots a gun or something and activates this shrinking, expanding ray.

But it’s in expand mode and the leprechaun is standing right under it. And so in another horrible Case of, of, uh, video effects. It looks terrible. The leprechaun grows to be basically where his head is almost touching the ceiling in this giant cargo bay. So, uh, so yeah, so now he’s a giant in here stomping around looking for these guys, which should take two seconds, but instead it takes like 10, 15 minutes.

And she runs away. He’s kinda hung up right now. He says. Yeah, he’s kinda 

Craig: hung up right now and he’s calling them on the intercom because they need a password and Come help, cause I need a password. What are they gonna help? If you don’t know the password, you don’t have a password. Yeah, just tell them the password 

Todd: on the radio if you know it, that’s all you need.

Craig: Yeah, she runs off to help and the Brooks or books, whatever his name stays behind to fight the giant leprechaun and he takes his shirt off for no reason, but that’s okay, too. 

Todd: Yeah, I noticed this. I noticed everybody was slowly losing clothes at this point. 

Craig: And then that’s when she has to crawl through a vent.

Why does she have to crawl through a vent to get there? 

Todd: I have no idea. It’s the shortcut, maybe? 

Craig: I don’t know. There’s all kinds of spiders. It’s full of spiderwebs. So, you know that spider thing is around and it grabs at her. Through the vent, and she gets away and she gets to the lab and then, 

Todd: but, but it, as it grabs at her, so there’s like three or four scenes of the spider grabbing at her through a vent or from around the corner, whatever, and it tears off a piece of clothing until it turns out she’s wearing a swimming suit.

Craig: she’s wearing like high waisted, black like leotard, high wasted, high cut, like no, it’s like maybe a leotard or maybe looked, maybe it’s swimming. Maybe just really high cut panties. 

Todd: It looked like a swimming suit to me. It’s a one piece. It’s not panty. It’s a one piece. 

Craig: I don’t know, I don’t know, but it’s very high.

It’s very sexy and high cut. And then she just runs around in that for the rest of the time. It was just so funny that they ripped off all my clothes. And then that really happens later. Yeah, I’m sure they would have loved to have rip off more of her clothes, but she wasn’t doing nudity. So 

Todd: clearly, yeah.

And so she, she ends up inside, God, it’s, it’s so funny, just coming out of my mouth. She ends up inside of the control bay where Sticks is hanging and he’s like, come over and help me. But then Mitten Spider comes in and after her, and she’s like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And Sticks goes, there’s liquid nitrogen over in the corner, hit him with that.

Of course it’s a space movie. So somehow liquid nitrogen has to come into play. It’s just a giver. Sure. It came into play in Critters 4, so she runs over where there’s inexplicably two giant vats of liquid nitrogen in the corner of the control room, spins around and blasts him with that, which With 

Craig: a hose that apparently shoots a vapor of liquid nitrogen.

She is holding this Hose with her bare hands the spray clearly sprays all around her hands. Yeah Oh, so silly, but she sprays him and he like freezes and gets all frosted over and goes 

Todd: Me! Me! 

Craig: The throwback to the Vincent Price. Yeah, the fly. The fly, hundred percent. 

Todd: Which I love. Oh my god There were cool in jokes here.

Craig: I, they don’t figure out the code, but Books, like, calls him on the intercom. He’s got Zarina, and he, and, and they’re away from the big leprechaun. And this is all feels very kind of anticlimactic too. Um, he’s like, open the cargo bay doors. And Tina’s like, are you sure? He’s like, yeah. So they do. And Books and Zarina get out the hatch or whatever.

They duck out. And the leprechaun just gets sucked out. Right? 

Todd: Yeah, it’s and explodes. It’s alien again He gets sucked out into space and then you know, like we’ve seen in lots of other movies when you get sucked out into space Sometimes you just die. Sometimes you freeze over Sometimes you implode sometimes you explode and this guy explodes into a bunch of pieces.

It looks stupid Yeah, they end up inside the well, I mean that was the only way it was gonna happen, right this giant leprechaun Yeah, I mean, I guess again. That’s how you kill them in aliens as well. You suck the alien airlock So anyway, they end up in the control room and they figure out the password is wizard because he was the wizard of Oz.

Yeah, he was the wizard of Oz. I mean, even the computer scene is hilarious when they show the computer screen and they type in wizard, the font is like Comic Sans. It’s so silly. The self destruct is eliminated. They’re all safe and they stare out the window and they see pieces of the giant leprechaun floating by and one of them is the leprechaun’s giant hand, which extends its middle finger.

HAHAHAHA Which is very much in keeping with the series. We know this guy’s not dead. 

Craig: Sure. 

Todd: He’s just cheeky 

Craig: Did you feel like he looks more? Reptilian in this movie than in previous movies. His skin had a reptilian texture to it, I thought, that I hadn’t noticed before. 

Todd: I feel like, you know, it, it was very textured.

I, I always love the makeup in these movies. It’s very consistent. I, I kind of felt like we were just getting more close ups. 

Craig: I like the leprechaun’s design. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, the design is good. Warwick Davis always plays it really well. You know, no matter what. I love Warwick Davis. Yeah, he’s quite good at, at this role.

Craig: You know, I looked it up. I, I, I I asked AI if people like this movie, it’s popular, and it says that it’s generally regarded as one of the worst ones. Oh, yeah. For a lot of reasons. So, I don’t feel terrible. I mean, if you’re a fan of it, good! I’m glad that you were able to find joy in things. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha 

Todd: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I found more joy in it. But then I thought I would. You know, for all the reasons that we kind of razzed on it, those reasons are true. But it is a leprechaun movie, I mean, come on, like, they’re all goofy and silly and ridiculous and juvenile. This was in space, and it gave you every ridiculous, silly, juvenile space joke you could probably expect.

It just wasn’t as fun as the Vegas one was, I think. It wasn’t as fun and goofy as the first one, and and I’ve seen some of the In the Hood ones, and I think those are even more fun. But what I will say about this one is that Brian Trenchard Smith, who is known for being able to kind of take a very small budget and make it feel bigger, did a pretty good job with that.

I thought that the lighting and the angles and the cinematography in general, you know, sometimes it was pedestrian, sometimes it was quite good. You know, I thought he did a pretty good job of making this very low budget movie look big. Asterisk, of course, the CGI looks like shit. But I, I actually kind of found it entertaining.

And again, maybe just on the heels of Creators 4, which didn’t really do that at all. Critters 4 wasn’t funny, it looked cheap, it didn’t feel very cinematic, and you barely saw any critters, whereas at least in this movie, it’s moving. It’s constantly moving, there’s constantly something going on, there’s hardly any moment of boredom.

They’re not long scenes where they’re sitting around talking forever. I just felt like there was a constant energy throughout the movie that didn’t really let up. So for that, I kind of enjoyed it. 

Craig: Hey, look, it’s St. Patrick’s Day. Get drunk on green beer, eat some corned beef and cabbage, you know, and throw in some leprechaun, you know, whichever one you want.

This one’s fine. Whatever. Have a good time. Enjoy yourself.

Todd: Well, thank you so much for listening to this and happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of you. We are so lucky to have such great listeners, such great patrons. Thank you so much for joining us for this film. We are two episodes into our space series. I think we already teased the other previous episodes, we might as well tell you what’s coming up next.

We’ve got Jason X and we have Hellraiser 4, Bloodlines, right? Yes. That is going to be a blast. Please stick with us, listeners, and if you know somebody who would be interested in these movies, pass this podcast along to them. You can forward them to our website, ChainsawHorror. com, or you can just Google us, Two Guys in a Chainsaw Podcast.

Subscribe to us everywhere podcasts are, and until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys abnd a Chainsaw.