The Leprechaun movies have always occupied a strange space within the horror genre, but perhaps none of the slasher franchise’s entries are as notorious as Leprechaun in the Hood. After Warwick Davis’ signature magical killer had hunted Jennifer Aniston, visited the casinos of Las Vegas, and traveled to space, producers decided to cash in on the recent wave of blaxploitation-influenced films of the 1990s and take the Leprechaun to the inner city. The result was what critics and audiences decided was a goofy, offensive interpretation of an already ludicrous concept, whose premise did not seem nearly as clever since it came out in 2000, when the decade was already over.
Leprechaun entered the slasher scene at an inopportune point in the subgenre’s history. By the time the first film released in 1993, slashers had become a laughing stock, with previously feared icons like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees suffering maligned portrayals of their characters in recent films. Scream would eventually freshen the concept of a masked killer in 1996, the same year Leprechaun 4: In Space was released, but this was due to Wes Craven’s self-aware classic poking fun at the genre’s tropes. In a way, the Leprechaun films were doomed to failure from the beginning.
However, Warwick Davis’ outlandish and comedic performance allowed the franchise to pick up a cult following as home video releases despite the original’s critical failure. Davis and the rest of the filmmakers involved in the franchise steadily embraced the comedic tone as the films became more ridiculous. After the titular Leprechaun went to the final frontier, though, it seemed as if there was nowhere else left to terrorize. That is, until, the popularity of hip-hop and a rise in films dealing with the black urban experience led to the creation of Leprechaun in the Hood.
Why Leprechaun In the Hood is Disliked
Like other films of its era, Leprechaun in the Hood takes heavy influence from “blaxploitation,” the cult genre dealing with urban African-American issues that emerged in the racially tumultuous 1970s. However, while black filmmakers like Spike Lee and John Singleton criticized the cinematic portrayal of black urban poverty, Leprechaun parodied these elements in an awkward fashion. He stabs one of his victims with an afro pic, smokes a joint rolled with four-leaf clovers, and in perhaps what is the movie’s most infamous scene, performs a rap number at the end.
Such jokes may not come as a surprise in a film with a premise like this, but critics pointed out the lack of cleverness in the comedy. There was seemingly no reverence for either blaxploitation or the horror genre, with cartoonish characters and overly silly dialogue combined with cheap-looking production value exemplifying the film’s incompetence. The Spike Lee-produced Tales from the Hood, which was released in 1995, also took a horror-comedy approach to black issues, but included explicit social commentary written and directed by African-American filmmakers. Leprechaun in the Hood, on the other hand, came across as more exploitative and downright lazy.
Still, the film does have its fans. Some find the sheer stupidity in the writing to be outrageously funny, allowing the film to cross over into “so bad it’s good” territory. This can probably be said of the other entries within the franchise, but Leprechaun In the Hood is special in its overt datedness. Despite the harsh criticism, the film’s following was strong enough to warrant a sequel in Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, featuring more gold, guns, and marijuana, and which was the last Leprechaun film Warwick Davis starred in before retiring from the series.
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