Subpar Starship Setting

Look, I think everyone can agree the Leprechaun films are bad. Just plain bad. They started bad with the original Leprechaun, which is really only still famous and relevant since its release because it was Jennifer Anniston’s first credited film role. The movies since have been markedly worse each step of the way, from the tragically bad Leprechaun 2 and then the so terrible it didn’t even get a theatrical release Leprechaun 3. No one expects high art from the franchise. Hell, expecting anything even in the ballpark of “art” seems unlikely.

With all that said, Leprechaun 4: In Space is not a drastic improvement for the franchise. It’s just as cheap and shitty and poorly put together as the third film in the series. The only trick is that where that film was still trying, somehow to at least make a pass at being a horror film, with this fourth entry the creative team, including director Brian Trenchard-Smith coming back after handling the third movie, seem to understand that these films are not and will never be good. They’re bad, so you have to embrace the terribleness. You have to enjoy it. You gotta shake it off and just be comically bad with aplomb. And this film somehow manages it.

It doesn’t redeem the film as this movie is still going to be bargain basement fodder for anyone watching horror films. It’s barely passable even as a comedy. But somehow, the various elements of this series that have been working against it this whole time somehow actually work, just a little, in this fourth film. Despite the fact that the film even moves the action to space for no reason (which is commonly the death knell for a horror series, see: Jason X, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Critters 4), somehow, in just a little, tiny way, this film is almost, dare I say, enjoyable.

We pick up with a crew of space marines in the year 2096 AD. Why have we jumped ahead in time from the previously present-set films? Don’t bother asking as the film never answers it anyway. The crew are assigned, via contract, to a science vessel to aid in the clearing out of a deadly invasive alien that has been going from planet to planet, killing and destroying everything in its wake. That alien is, of course, the leprechaun (not that he’s ever called that in the film), and this time he has a new plan: he’s going to marry an alien princess, Zarina (Rebekah Carlton), and steal her kingdom out from under her. It’s a plan she seems more or less okay with since he promises her riches beyond what even her poor little kingdom can provide.

His plan is interrupted, though, by the marines – Tim Colceri as Metal Head, Brent Jasmer as Books, Joseph Slaven as Snake, Miguel A. Nunez Jr. as Sticks, Debbe Dunning as Delores, Mike Cannizzo as O'Grady, Rick Peters as Mooch, Geoff Meed as Kowalski, Ladd York as Lucky, and Jessica Collins as science advisor Dr. Tina Reeves. They blast the Leprechaun apart and take the injured Zarina back to their ship. There, the mission leader, Dr. Mittenhand (Guy Siner), keeps the crew on to guard the planet until miners arrive. But they’re all going to get a shock when the seemingly dead leprechaun comes back to life to terrorize the whole of the ship.

I wouldn’t say that Leprechaun 4: In Space really has a plot. It’s about as disjointed and nonsensical as all the Leprechaun films so far. The evil green guy shows up, says some lines that are supposed to be funny, kills someone, and vanishes, and then the crew all scramble to try and catch him. Loop that through various sets for 50 minutes and you’ve covered just about everything the film has to offer. Throw in some bad CGI, one pair of obligatory tits, and you’ve seen everything in the film. It’s a real low bar it shoots for, honestly.

But it does kind of work. Not well, and not to any degree that I’d want to watch it again, but somehow, in all this mess, there was a film that actually kept me watching for the whole of its runtime without my having to grab my phones, scroll reddit, read the news, and do anything else I could to try and keep focused on the film. That alone is a better record than any of the previous films in this series managed, so there’s obviously some bit to the formula that worked this time when it absolutely didn’t work before.

I think much of it has to do with the fact that the film clearly doesn’t give a shit at all. The whole idea for the film (supposedly) came when one of the producers on the film took the Apollo 13 poster and slapped the leprechaun’s head over Tom Hanks. Suddenly everyone thought it was the funniest idea and they decided it could be the new movie. From the start, then, this film was purposefully designed as a joke, not to be scary, at all, but simply to make people laugh at the audacity of putting their slasher monster in space.

Now, sure, that wasn’t even a fresh idea anymore for horror films (again, see the aforementioned Critters 4 and Hellraiser: Bloodline, both of which came out before this movie). I think people had already decided that a slasher character in space wasn’t as interesting as producers thought it could be. But at the very least the move to space allowed the creative team to throw out everything that didn’t work before and just create a film with an evil leprechaun that has gleefully stupid, nasty fun. I can appreciate that.

There is a go-for-broke energy to the film that was often missing from the previous movies. Any time the film starts to get boring it takes a swerve and goes some other, more ludicrous direction. Bored of the space marines hanging out on the ship after a job “well done”? Have the leprechaun emerge from the crotch of one of the men, fully formed and ready to kill. Getting tired of the leprechaun’s antics on his own? Turn one of the crew members into a giant spider-scorpion hybrid. Then turn another guy into a cross-dressing cyborg. Why? Because why not.

Not all the gags work, of course. The cross-dressing bit feels especially creaky and transphobic now, and there’s a tinge of gay panic in a previous scene as well. You know, as was often the case in male-centric humor of the 1990s. By the same token, the scene working in some female nudity feels so out of place in the moment that you can tell it was only there so the suits could check a prerequisite off on their task list. “A slasher movie needs nudity, so throw some in here for no reason.” It’s pretty clear that everything in the film was thrown together just because, without much thought or reason, so it gives the whole film a very disjointed and off-kilter vibe. Its hits and misses are pretty equal in measure.

But it does all build to something at least marginally watchable. Not good, not even always fun, but frequently watchable. It’s like a low-rent, stage show version of a horror movie, with everyone involved there to have a laugh and get a SAG credit to their names. No one involved expected this film to be good, and it sure isn’t, but they clearly enjoyed their time on this shitty movie and it comes across. I can’t really recommend Leprechaun 4: In Space because, like all the films in the series before it, this film sucks. But it sucks slightly less, and with more chutzpah, then I would have expected. I suppose that does count for something.