Leprechaun 2

• (Known in the UK as One Wedding and Lots of Funerals)
• Directed by Rodman Flender
• April 8, 1994
• Based on characters created by Mark Jones

Having failed 1000 years prior to get a bride, a leprechaun goes after the descendent of the man who screwed him over. Every monster needs a wife!

I watched Leprechaun 2 and I find that there is not much to discuss. Not that the last one was a terribly meaty or dynamic film, but this one feels more drawn out and forced. Like the original Leprechaun this is schlock horror. In comparison to the first it has slightly better gore and better looking production values but feels closer to a TV movie. Warwick Davis returns as a leprechaun but not the original leprechaun. It has that going for it.

I will concede film has better humor and that’s due largely to the macabre one-liners uttered by Davis’s character in the expected rhyming scheme. That’s what horror villains did back in the day. They had jokes and a theme. Our leprechaun still has a hunger for gold. There are a couple of times when he rips gold from people’s bodies in bloody ways.

This possibly gets sillier than the last film. It occurs on St. Patrick’s Day and there are a whole lot of short individuals present in the movie. We even get a drinking contest involving the leprechaun in a bar with a few known actors of the type cheering him on by chanting “He’s one of us! One of us!” Lead by the well known Tony Cox who was for some time more famous than Warwick Davis! This is a cross-section of second and third tier celebrities of the time. I’m not dissing on them, but Michael McDonald while a talented comedic actor was never huge.

These are your basic stock characters. We have the dutiful yet neglectful boyfriend that must save his way too attractive for him girlfriend from the leprechaun, who is seeking to take her as a bride. Were they teenagers? I don’t know. He’s friends with a drunk schemer who’s very intelligent. There is a jerk character idiot that gets quickly killed. And the police believe this kid is a homicidal maniac simply because they found his name at the crime scene and nothing else.

Our lead couple has all the chemistry of tap water and the combined talent of plywood. The boy looks like his highest accomplishment should be nothing more than a very forgettable teen comedy never to be released on streaming or physical media, The girl was a pretty face that faded into obscurity on shorter and shorter lived shows of the time. That’s my backstory for the actors based on what I saw. They just were the worst possible casting choices. They have no entertainment value.

There’s one moment where it gets derivative when they rehash a little car joke from the original Leprechaun. It’s a bit creepy but beyond that it’s simply a rehash. Then again this was pushed out about a year later and creativity was most likely secondary to getting something out. As a fan of cheesy 80s/early 90s era horror I enjoy this but there’s not too much to talk about.

There’s just nothing much here. It’s a series of goofy and occasionally gory scenes strung together by a weak plot. Not too surprising for the time, but nothing helps make it special or that memorable. The one-liners are okay. The kills are okay. The highlight of this whole film is the make-up on Warwick Davis.

Leprechaun 2 isn’t bad, but it lacks the trashy magic of the first one. Maybe another polish with the script or some better lead actors and it could’ve changed into something a little bit more special. Not bad for what it is but not as good as it should’ve been.