Leprechaun 3 (1995) — Triskaidekafiles

LEPRECHAUN 3

WRITER: David Dubos

DIRECTOR: Brian Trenchard-Smith

STARRING: Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun
    John Gatins as Scott
    Lee Armstrong as Tammy
    Marcelo Tubert as Gupta
    John DeMita as Fazio
    Caroline Williams as Loretta
    Michael Callan as Mitch

QUICK CUT: The adventures of the Leprechaun take him to Las Vegas, where luck rules supreme, as he once again searches for his missing gold and get into trouble.

THE MORGUE

Scott - A newbie to Las Vegas, he's a bit naive, and a little bit too much of the "Oh gosh, the big city sure is big!" stereotype. He's on his way to college, and thought he'd stop by and see what the big deal was all about. Much to his surprise, he kinda likes it there.

Tammy - Or, maybe he just likes Tammy. She's an aspiring magician, trapped as an assistant to someone far less talented than she is, and serves as eye candy for a large chunk of the movie. She doesn't quite become the hot potato of love that Bridget was in #2, but she comes dangerously close. She fortunately has a bit more personality of her own, and shows her smarts a few times, when she isn't getting screwed over by wishing coins.

Fazio - Tammy's far FAR less talented magician. How the hell he became a headliner at a Vegas casino, is anyone's guess. That's his REAL magic power. He's not that original, his tricks are on the lame side, and he'll do anything to get ahead.

Loretta - One of the girls that works the card tables at the casino. She's older, obsessed with her looks, and has a little more than a crush on Fazio, but not that he cares. She's just as opportunistic as he is, though.

Mitch - The owner of the Lucky Shamrock, and if you know your Vegas stereotypes, you can imagine just how skeevy he is! Most of his conversations with Tammy are directed straight into her breasts.

The Leprechaun - He's baaaaack. His personality from the second movie is pretty much intact, although this time he's a little more into the rhyming, and a lot less into the wheels. Both of which are a shame...

THE GUTS: Heeeey, that 3 looks awfully familiar!! Anyways...

We've made it off the farm. We've climbed out from under the tree. So it is time for the Leprechaun series to head to Vegas! That...that makes perfect sense, right? Actually, it makes way more sense than "Leprechaun goes to Vegas" at first sounds, to be fair. You've got gambling and luck, and the whole gold coin thing works well there, and making wishes come true? Yeah, this actually works thematically. I mean, it's not like sending they're sending the Leprechaun into space, right? THAT would be crazy and inappropriate!

The movie kicks things off in a pawn shop where the owner is taking care of inventory for the night, as some guy stumbles in. And what a guy. He's missing a leg, and a hand, and an eye. It's like if they merged the Governor, Herschel, and Merle from the Walking Dead into a single walking injury.

He hauls a bag into the shop proclaiming he wants to sell the contents for gas money to get out of town. Inside the sack is a statue of our familiar Leprechaun with a medallion around his neck. So...we are just not even gonna bother with continuity for a second sequel in a row, are we? Not even gonna try? Just a little? Anyone?

I do kinda like the idea that there are these little adventures that he has between movies, but I'd still like to see how he gets from movie A to movie B...

The owner offers him twenty bucks for the hunk of rock, and gets warned to not remove the medallion. Removing medallion commences in three...two...

While he's checking out said medallion, McGranite *instantly* comes back to life and has disappeared by the time his new owner turns around. On the upside, the guy finds a pot of gold sitting right there. All for twenty bucks! Score!

He tests the gold in the traditional manner, and O'Wicket returns the favour by pouncing from behind and biting his ear. I guess he developed a taste for them after the first movie.

After removing the guy's shoes and gnawing on a toe as well, the Leprechaun backs away when the guy holds up the medallion. Apparently offering some protection, the Leprechaun takes his gold and runs away, conveniently leaving a plot device...er, coin behind.

The power of cheap plastic jewelry compels you!!

Which leads us to Tammy having car troubles and almost getting run over by Scott while she tries to flag down help. And they're going to be lovers, aren't they? I've seen worse first dates.

Scott gives her a ride to work, while the shop owner researches leprechaun folklore on a horribly dated multimedia cd-rom, as the Leprechaun counts his gold. Which is when he discovers there's been a bank error, and it's not in his favour.

Lucky stores his remaining gold in a safe in the pawn shop's storage room, just as Gupta finds the missing coin. And hey, Tammy works at the Lucky Shamrock! What a coincidence! If all of this seems very jumpy to you, good. That's how the movie plays out. They do a ton of short scenes bouncing between these three plots.

While she sneaks the college freshman into the casino so he can see what the place is like, the pawn star finds the Leprechaun just as he gets found. Magic chaos ensues with the poor guy taking an arrow to the arm, and having his gun explode in his hand.

Gupta shoves the medallion into his attacker's face, probably keeping him alive just a little bit longer, but likely also pissing the guy off.

Meanwhile, Scott is staring agape at all the bright lights and shiny noises of the Lucky Shamrock, and Tammy hurries to work. We get to meet her boss, the magician Fazio, and another employee, Loretta. She's a shameless flirt of a cougar with Fazio, but he brushes aside her advances because of her age.

The casino owner, Mitch, shows up to see Fazio's newest trick, but all he gets is a table set on fire. That's a way to impress the boss. You can tell that Mitch has more patience for Tammy, and sees great things on her chest...er, in her future, and has little time for Fazio's antics. Which makes you wonder why he hired the guy, but whatever.

Scott is becoming entranced with the glamour of the casino, and pulls out the cheque for 23 grand that he's supposed to be using for college. He tries to cash it and make some wagers, and runs into Mitch who instantly thinks the kid isn't old enough to be there, but once he sees all the zeroes, he just as instantly decides Scott is. He probably assumes 23 is his age...

And since we're in Vegas, it's time for some mobster legbreakers to show up! They threaten Mitch because he owes them money, naturally, but he stalls for a little more time. I gotta say, I like these two. They've got a sense of humour about them, and you'd almost be smiling as they kill you! Wait, that's not good...

How much stereotyping can one image have?

Gupta tries to make a deal with McMonty O'Hall and offers him the medallion for half his gold. The little guy agrees just long enough to get the medallion magically with a fishing line and fling it across the room. There's gonna be a beating in the old town tonight... HEY! If the leprechaun thing doesn't work out, he could always go work with the mob!

Another thing worth noting at this time, is that they have seriously ramped up the Leprechaun's tendency to rhyme. The first few movies, it wasn't so bad. Now it's most every line, which is really quite sad. I however give credit where it is due, and that using a limerick is really quite new.

Back in the casino, Scott's losing his money with every flip of a card, I have to say that rhyming all the time is really quite hard.

Seriously, he's somehow managed to lose almost the entire 23 grand since we last saw him.

We jump back to the pawn shop after watching a pretty terrible magic show by Fazio, and I am already convinced that Tammy could do a better job, based on her only pulling a quarter from behind Scott's ear, earlier. It is the epitome of every bad Las Vegas magic cliche you can imagine. Burt Wonderstone would have found this act seriously dated.

Scott's meanwhile lost all his money, and Loretta talks him into pawning his watch to get some extra cash and make a comeback. Boy, is he in for a surprise at the pawn shop.

He arrives too late to save Gupta, and Hasty McKillian isn't too happy he's already offed the only guy who knew where his gold was. Well yes, if you strangle your only source, it is rather difficult to get information out of them.

Scott calls the cops when he sees the dead body, and lays the phone down on the computer's keyboard. Who does that? Anyone? The bizarre action for plot's sake resumes the leprechaun infodump, and I'm waiting to see if any of this stuff will have any bearing on the story. It would be a nice change of pace from the last two films to have them actually set up some rules and use them.

He listens to the infodump, and spies the missing gold coin, picking it up and pondering his wishes. Scott wishes he was back at the casino on a winning streak, and it's a good thing too, because he disappears just before McHatchet tries to kill him.

Even so, the rubber axe probably would not have hurt him.

So, Scott finds himself back at the casino, with a lot of money, and more chips being slid his way. He tries placing another bet, and the magic coin moves it to 13 for the next spin of the wheel.

Our hero's luck is turning to gold, but Loretta's luck is fading, since the coin is stopping the rigged wheel from working. This makes Mitch increasingly angry and puts her job at risk.

Mitch shuts down the table due to *ahem* technical difficulties, and comps Scott a room. On his way, he runs into Tammy who flips out that Scott failed to follow her one simple piece of advice, and sends him to his room without supper while she does her magic thing.

Slow McPlotdown finally arrives at the Lucky Shamrock to find his missing piece of gold, and runs into Fazio. They have a brief magic-off, and I kinda would've liked to see more of that. There's some mileage to be had between sleight of hand vs. real magic. But no, Fazio wanders off after getting a stinky present, and runs into Loretta who has been following Scott to figure out how he beat the wheel.

Loretta and Fazio scheme to steal his money, and his lucky gold coin. Scott foolishly leaves his money unattended while he heads to the bathroom, and Fazio proves he is better at lockpicking than prestidigitation. His sneaking skills leave something to be desired though, and Scott hears him thumping around, chasing the thief out. But not before Fazio pockets the gold coin.

That's when Lucky McGuffin wanders in to try and find his gold, and dude! It just walked past you out in the hallway! If you can smell your gold on people, why...oh, fine, never mind.

Scott gets bitten, stabs the Leprechaun in the face, and the creature's Vulcan blood lands on Scott's own wound. WARNING! THIS IS A PLOT COMPLICATION!! After hurling the dude out of the window, Scott cleans up and sees his reflection change in the mirror. Huh. Who knew Leprechaunism was contagious?

Meanwhile, Fazio hands over the coin to Loretta, then gets chased off by Mitch to do his job. Mitch is still trying to get his money for the loan sharks lurking around, and sees the coin. Figuring he can use it to keep them at bay, and since he blames Loretta for losing money to Scott, he tries to take it from her.

Once he has the coin in hand, he makes an idle wish that he could have Tammy, and cue the magically enduced love spell trope!

Loretta figures things out pretty quick about the coin, while the two lovebirds divert the plot into a little lovemaking cul-de-sac. Tammy's flirty, flighty, lovey dovey voice is almost too painful. And I was gonna give her props for being a decent actress! But this, owww.

For her next trick, she'll make her top disappear?

While Tammy's in the middle of her striptease, Loretta creeps in and finds the coin. The instant she leaves the room with it, Tammy's mind and dignity return, and nails Mitch in the crotch. Sadly, this gets her fired.

The Leprechaun tracks his gold to Mitch's room and turns on some porno for the poor guy. Meanwhile, Scott is waking up from his bout of lepresy, and finds himself craving potatoes. Well, at least they're using SOMEthing from the cd-rom infodump. It also makes him tell dirty limericks to one of the servers. Oh joy, a pair of annoyances who like to rhyme. I won't stoop so low and add to the crime.

Loretta passes by the potato loving fool and lets slip the plot point that Tammy's in Mitch's room. Scott manages to tear himself away from being addicted to spuds to try and go save her. Fortunately, his quest is short as she's already in the elevator by then. It looks like Scott and Tammy are gonna be up all night to get Lucky.

Up in Mitch's room, the topless woman has crawled out of the TV like she's Samara, to help him deal with his sore groin, and the Leprechaun keeps playing silly infomercials with himself in it. It's a cute joke, but is overplayed, and goes on for too long. Even if seeing Warwick Davis dressed up as a priest in the Leprechaun makeup is pretty hilarious.

And that's when the woman from the tv reveals her true colours and form and wires.

PLEASE PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON. YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO COMPLY

Now that they movie has given me the stuff of nightmares to go right alongside Deadly Friend, Sparky O'Lectrcute kills off Mitch with a fatal charge from his Womandroid.

That's when Scott and Tammy show up for a chat with the boss about her wrongful termination. Sadly, he's also been wrongfully terminated, and all they find is the Leprechaun sitting over the crispy fried casino owner.

Scott bonks out the Leprechaun and the pair run off, just as the two legbreakers wander back into the plot to try and get their money. They see Mitch's smokey body and sum this movie up pretty succinctly, "What the hell is going on here?"

Stabby O'cculus plucks out the one guy's eyeball, then beats the pair of them with his sh...shilal...shel...I need to look this up. Shillelagh! That club thing, yeah!

While Scott fights with his bad case of lepretitis, Loretta figures out the coin and ends up with a better bod. She heads down to Fazio to blow his mind, and show off.

Fazio naturally swipes the coin, and wishes to be the greatest magician in the world. You would think Loretta would be more concerned with losing her coin, but is more interested in staring at the mirror, thanks to her vanity.

She spends a good long time just admiring herself, until the Leprechaun wanders in. For no real reason, he decides to enlarge her assets to a ludicrous degree, until she catches her inflated rear on a nail and explodes.

He doesn't even really ask for his gold, he just felt like being a dick, I guess.

Across the street at the crime scene...er, pawn shop, Tammy and Scott poke around contaminating the place. Scott listens to some more advice from the computer about destroying the gold, and Tammy finds the medallion, which is already hazardous to Scott in his condition.

Lucky Jr. follows his nose to the bowl of...er, pot of gold in the safe, and uses his suddenly appearing magical powers to retrieve it. If nothing else, he'll have a bright future in robbing banks.

Tammy's with the computer on this one, and wants to destroy the gold, but Scott's stuck talking like a leprechaun and wants to keep it. If it gets rid of his brogue, I'm all for melting that sucker down until it's fit for a Targaryen!

With gold in hand, they try and wish Lucky to the bottom of the ocean, but they forgot that a leprechaun's gold can do him no harm! And by 'forgot', I mean 'we were never told'. See, this is one of the things the instructional video should've mentioned.

They escape, but Scott's starts to get worse from the leprechaunfluezna, and Tammy insists they rush him to the hospital. Which pretty much leads to the doctors staring in surprise and shoving antibiotics down the kid's throat.

They picked the right time to cancel House.

Once the doctors discover the gambling winnings in Scott's stuff, they start ordering literally every test in alphabetical order. Weird to have the movie try and take a moral stance on the state of health care, of all things.

Meanwhile, Tammy gets tricked down to the morgue by a suspiciously Irish voice. She's been pretty smart through most of the movie, so it's a shame she fell for that.

As she gets tied down by the Leprechaun, Scott uses his magic to free himself, and kill the doctors and nurse in the operating room. Boy, he's gonna have some Catholic Guilt to sort through when this is over.

Scott rushes down to the morgue before any harm can come to Tammy. The Leprechaun and Scott face off in what may well be the worst rap battle in history as they throw bad rhymes back and forth until Scott points McEminem towards Fazio and the coin.

And we finally get to see the Leprechaun wheel around on SOMEthing this movie, after Tammy gets free and shoves the medallion in his face. He scampers off on the gurney, flipping them off as he wheels into the distance.

So they rush back to the casino, where the Leprechaun already is. He's intruded upon and is mucking about with Fazio's magic show, trying to get back his gold. Naturally.

Things don't go well for Fazio, who eventually gets chainsawed into two pieces when he refuses to give up the coin. Instead, it drops from his hand and bounces somewhere into the audience.

Our heroine finds the coin and tries to wish Scott back to normal, but the Leprechaun stops her and tears off some of her clothes for good measure. Before he can do any worse, Scott chases him off with a flamethrower.

Darth O'Vader tries to entice Scott over to "The Green Side" with the pot of gold, and this is only made all the more hilarious by the music suddenly becoming VERY inspired by John Williams.

Scott struggles with his need for gold, but eventually does the right thing and turns the flamethrower on the pot and destroys it. I'm a little disappointed that it just fades away, and wasn't melted. That feels like cheating.

Not even melted gold is magically delicious!!

With the gold destroyed, and the Leprechaun a pile of ashes without a phoenix, Scott returns back to normal, and the pair leave the casino.

Oh, Tammy still has a coin, but they repeat the exact same moment from the last movie and toss it away so Scott can resume his trip to college! Oh wait, he's out 23 THOUSAND DOLLARS, and that's a plot point that's never resolved. But the movie is over, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for all those who died.

And so we leave Las Vegas, and wrap up Leprechaun month, and the last movie in the series, because there couldn't possibly be any other place they can send the Leprechaun. There can't be any more...be any...what?

There IS more? And in the next movie they DO actually send him into space, of all places??

*shakes his fist to the sky* LepreCHAAAAAAAUUUUN!!

AUTOPSY REPORT

Video: Things seemed really soft this time around, but at least the colour wasn't bad.

Audio: A decent mix that gets the job done, and only a few lines of dialogue get lost along the way.

Sound Bite: Two for one time! First some of the Leprechaun's brilliant rhyming skills!

"Lovely court of palaces, completely full of riches! I'll rip 'em off, and rob 'em blind! Those dirty sons of bitches!"

And secondly, from Fazio, because it made me laugh, "Loretta, if you want magic, bend over! I'll pull a rabbit out of your ass."

Body Count

1 - 30 minutes in, and the pawn shop dude finally bites it thanks to a phone cord, after a long night of beatings and shooting.
2 - It takes another 30 minutes before another body drops, when Mitch gets electrocuted by an electrocutie.
3 - And from here on out, the bodies hit the floor at a rapid pace, starting with Loan shark #1 loses an eye and gets beaten around.
4 - Loan shark #2 just gets pounded on.
5 - Loretta grows too large and explodes.
6 - Poor guy down in the morgue is found with knives stabbed into all his major organs.
7 - Scott kisses one doctor to death.
8 - He magically forces another doctor to inject a nurse with a syringe.
9 - And finally he gasses the last doctor to death.
10 - Fazio gets hacked in two upon his own stage.
11 - With his gold destroyed, the Leprechaun bursts into flames and technically dies, but we've seen how that goes...

Best Corpse: Well, they sure did give me quite a few to choose from. The clear winner though, is Mitch getting fried by the pornbot, because damn she's creepy.

Blood Type - B: There wasn't a TON of blood, with all those bodies, but they did sneak some in during a few scenes; notably with Gupta and the mobsters. The movie does gain a bunch of extra bonus points for makeup effects from the usual Leprechaun look (Although it's starting to look a bit cheaper?) to Loretta's transformation and explosion (How was that not bloodier), and a crispy corpse or two.

Sex Appeal: Tammy skips through 75% of the movie in her assistant outfit, but never gets entirely out of it. They leave that job to the escapee from Cinemax that eventually becomes a scary robot.

Drink Up! Every time someone starts a new rhyme.

Movie Review: My biggest complaint with Leprechaun 3 is the poor juggling of storylines. It gets to be SO much with jumping from the pawn shop, to Tammy and Scott, to the Leprechaun, to the casino, bouncing between three different characters later on... A little more editing and condenscing would have done this movie wonders. Too many scenes that are too short, that could've been combined here and there. It's not a huge problem, but I would've liked a little more coherency. Overall, it does manage to have a decent enough plot and reason to be in Vegas, and they strike JUST the right balance between humour and horror. The movie IS funny, and not afraid to be downright SILLY at times (I am looking straight at you, Elvis!), but still keeps up the danger, the sense of a real threat despite the jokes, and some good, if minor, gore. It comes close to being the right way to do a funnier look at horror. Four out of five cheap medallions.

Entertainment Value: The movie definitely goes more for the silly this time out, and it just about works. As always, Warwick is fun to watch. The crazy antics that happen because we're in Vegas are exactly what you'd expect. The acting is JUST good enough, but then sinks down to wince-worthy levels. But a movie about the Leprechaun's journeys taking him to Las Vegas is going to be a little on the silly side, so you know what you're getting. If anything, they've just about figured out the formula at this point, even if it has drifted more from the straight horror of the original movie. They took what worked, played with the humour inherent in the very idea of a killer leprechaun, and tweaked things to a point where we have this. Four out of five unnecessary medical procedures.