 Hello, and welcome to Release Date Rewind. My name is Marc J. Parker, and I am a film lover, filmmaker, film celebrator. And normally, this is an audio podcast, wherever you get your podcasts on your favorite apps. But thanks to Portland Media Center, you are about to watch the video component of this show, where I celebrate movie anniversaries with my friends. Each month, I usually talk about two different movies that I love with different friends, and we talk about the making of the movies, trivia, any fun memories associated with them. So I hope you enjoy, because now it's time to rewind. Someone like Warwick Davis, you know, I guess that thinking obviously paid off, because a lot of his movies are quite memorable. A lot of his roles. Oh, hell yeah. I mean, he was even an labyrinth, one of my faves. So it's a really interesting, you know, two-sided conversation, where, yeah, if you stay away from those roles, not only are you not working and making the money and just being in films, if that's what your goal is, but also you possibly are not in such memorable roles like Warwick Davis. So that's interesting. Right. So it's, you know, I mean, listen, Warwick Davis has been in almost, he was in just about every single Star Wars movie, except for, I think, in episodes two and three, he wasn't in those movies. Yeah. But he was in, oh, that's not true, actually, I think he was in those as well. He literally, he was in all the Star Wars movies because, and he was a huge Star Wars fan. Yeah, because did you know, I mean, you might have seen this online and I saw it in the credits because I watched through to just see who's in there. George Lucas gets a special thanks because I guess Warwick Davis was under contract with Lucas and they, and George Lucas gave his approval to let him go, you know, for two months to go shoot the Slipper Con movies. So how funny that, that big name is, is in this list. Hey, there you go. And then what happens is basically, they're basically just battling the Slipper Con and it gets very slapsticky and there's like, you know, it also borders lines into, you know, the idea that like it's not just a leprechaun, but the leprechaun whose leprechaun comes from Irish folklore, the leprechaun has to be Irish. So then you go into like, there's this sort of like, you know, like, and again, I don't know how Irish people feel about it. Again, I'm not like here to like point out all that stuff, you know, part of the topic. But yeah, no, it's just interesting how, like, you know, then, you know, it was one of the gags is that, like, he has to polish shoes. He's like, it was like, you can't resist. Oh my God, Jeff. Polishing shoes. I forgot about them. There is a moment. They're throwing the shoes. They're throwing the shoes. Absolutely. When Jennifer's got to go check out the old man who I forgot is, they think still, well, he is still alive from the beginning. I thought he just died because he has like a heart attack stroke, but he's in the. I don't remember what happened to him. He was there. Like old persons home. And so she's got to get there, right? And so to distract this leprechaun who's lurking around the house, they're throwing all these shoes, which also I'm like, wait a minute, where are all these shoes coming from? I mean, this house is like abandoned. So they just have this whole pile of shoes. And I completely forgot he literally is bending over and furiously, you know, shining the shoes, wiping them down and letting her go, oh, yeah, that was now. And he also, what is fun, I don't know if this was in the writing or if this was Warwick's idea. The leprechaun, typically, and I think this is true in all the leprechaun movies, the leprechaun rhymes. All of his dialogue is rhyming, which is a lot of it is. Yes. Oh, it's so great. It's so fun, mischievous. And and in the first one, at least since I rewatched it earlier today, he sings songs, you know, he sings, um, right, pocket full of pose. Like he's just playing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the jumping. He's he's on the he's on the pogo stick. Yeah. Oh, that's a great death. Oh, yeah. Was that in one or was that in three? I don't know. Well, maybe it comes back. It's been a long. It's been decades since I've seen the sequels. But yeah, he's on the back patio and he's bouncing on the guy's stomach. Oh, that is. Maybe that is in one. Yeah. At least they do it definitely in one. Maybe they do it again. But that is well, I'll tell you something. As a child, I remember that. That's like my core memories of like Trump. We've talked about kinder trauma, you know, and, you know, that is that was a kinder trauma moment for me. Seeing someone get pogo stick to them by the left. That was super serious when I was a kid. That was a completely serious. Like, wow, that person is dying that way. Isn't that so funny? That's so wild that yeah, you and I have the same perspective because it's so goofy. If we saw this now in our thirties, oh my God, we'd be like howling with laughter. But because we saw it when it was newer, newish. Oh my gosh, at that age, I remember that so that is a gnarly death. When really it isn't, but to me it's like, right? Can you imagine you're lying there? He's just bitten your leg and now he's just jumping on the pogo stick on you. And the guy's all bloody. Oh my God, what a death. There are some good deaths, I have to say. This old leg, he played one. He played pogo on his line. Teach you to steal me gold. And like you said, you're so right. Things get very slapstick because, you know, this movie is obviously not good, but there are some moments where I'm like, OK, I'm focused. I'm into it. I'm following along. There's different types of good. I mean, listen, here's the thing. Like you say that this movie is not good and I know what you mean when you say that. But like there's, you know, there is a category of, like if someone were to ask me, is this movie good? I would say yes, but would I say it's good in the way that like saving Private Ryan is good? No, of course not. It's good in that it's so bad. Like that's what makes it good, is that it's bad. And there's a whole vibe in movies that I love. Like, for instance, I just watched the Buttercream Gang, which if you have not seen. Oh, my God, it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. It's totally out of print. It's called the Buttercream Gang. It came out in 92 and it's just one of those movies that it's just so bad that it's great. And I don't think, you know, low, low budget horror films don't fall into that paradigm. But if I have to rank, you know, leprechaun on Letterbox, you know, I might give it four stars, but I'm not giving it four out of five stars because it's like four out of five star movie. I'm giving it four out of five stars because I liked it four out of five stars. And so I gauge my movies in that kind of way. So it's like kind of funny how like, like a masterpiece, like a freaking masterpiece will get five stars. But yet I also rated Dead Alive five stars. Is Dead Alive a five star movie? To me, it is. So I gave it five stars, but a lot of people probably disagree. So it's like that weird, it's like this weird sort of thing where like, something can be good without actually being good. And that's the category that I think leprechaun and its ilk kind of fall into where it's like, yes, I know this is not a five star movie, but like I still would give it. Like I probably would give, I don't know what I rated leprechaun, but I'd imagine probably like three and a half stars because I love it, you know? But like it's not, you know, like if it wasn't a good, like there are some movies that are so bad, but yet I'll still rate them kind of high because what I personally love about them are like, if I really enjoy them, and then movies that I think are like really bad are like, like there are some movies that are like people really, really love or whatever. I give it like, I don't know, like one star because I just don't think it's good. And it's like consider a good movie. So I don't know. I think it's like, it's very, it's very subjective. Totally. But you know, you bring up a good point about bad movies that are good because I agree with you. This movie is good. I enjoy it. It makes me smile, which I don't know what that says about me. Sorry, everybody. But I think what I mean when I say it's not a good movie is you and I know we have better horror films that we appreciate. You know what I mean? Leprechaun isn't a movie that we probably think about more than a couple of times a year. You know what I mean? So there are other horror movies that really last in even horror comedies, right? That are better. But at least, you know, we can appreciate this for what it is, this fun little under one million dollar, you know, movie. My hair, he got my hair. I got the back door, right? Ow! I gotta stop the bleeding. Now tell me, Jeff, from all the sequels from what you remember, do you regard them as highly as the first one or even in this franchise? I mean, do they really get, you know, really awful? So I gotta tell you, I think four and five are probably the best. Wow. So in the hood, the hood is where it's at. Oh yeah, with iced tea is in it. You know, you don't, that's a thing. Like that's the thing. This doesn't operate by like, you know, standard rules like your great example, I'm currently watching. You saw that I was watching Silent Night Deadly Night. Oh yeah. Oh, what did you do? So did you watch all of them? No, I've not seen one and two yet. Oh my God, Jeff. I have, okay. It's hilarious. So I started because I was interviewing Brian. He used that. I watched part four was the first one that I saw. Oh, I haven't seen that one. And then from part four, I watched part three. And then after part three, I watched part five. Oh God. Which is, and then I stopped. And I probably wait till next year until this time. I know, isn't that funny? It's just so funny. I like just to go out of order and to like do it like that. Honestly, I mean, you're probably doing it the right way because it's not like that franchise is that great, but it is funny how. Four is really good. And five, let me tell you something out of three, four and five. I think five might be the best one. Really? Is one of them like Clint Howard or am I getting my? Clint Howard in both four and five. Okay. He's a cameo in five. Okay. Mickey Rooney is in five. Oh God, Mickey Rooney. And I gotta tell you like these are real. I mean, part five like could be its own. That's what Brian uses really good at. He also did. He's the director of return with the dead three. Okay. On TriMark. And as a matter of fact, I think Silent Night, Deadly Night, part four of the initiation, which is about witches. That was right around this time. Was that TriMark? Yes. I think that was also TriMark. So he had to deal with, he had to deal over at TriMark. And it's just kind of funny because like it's just kind of funny. Like it's how like these weird middle sequels are like a great example. And you know, I catch hell for this all the time. But you know, New Nightmares, I think the best and my favorite. It's so good. It's the best one. And it's the last one. I know. Yeah. So what does that say? You know, at least I don't know. I feel like when it comes to like horror films, certain horror films, you know, sequels are, you know, sometimes better than even the original. So I don't really go by, I don't really think that works even for the Leprechaun series where like literally every one of them is so batshit crazy that like they're all great. Like it's just, what are you, what great do you want? Do you want to see Jennifer Aniston running away from the world with Davis dressed as a leprechaun? Or do you want to see, do you want to see like aliens, like the Marines from aliens battling a space leprechaun? Oh my God. I think I mean outer space. Like what do you want? It's all for there. Would you say, since I've only seen one, two and three, should I, so I guess I should continue. Okay, also I'll pick it up with space and then I'll go to the hood. Okay. I don't know how I, I think I am going to put my foot down. Even though I am curious how Ozzie, the Mark Holton character from the original, I am curious because he comes back in this latest one, but I agree. That's a good hook. That is a good hook. You're going to bring, if you're going to get, if you're going to, my curiosity is now peaked a little bit because you said that because I'm like, now I want to see why, like they brought that dude back. I feel like it's not been in anything in years. Sort of like. I know. So yeah, to see him. I'm interested. Because you know, on this latest rewatch, obviously Jennifer Aniston is the lead. She's first build. She's, she does kind of the most, you know, final act fighting because she's the only one that hasn't really gotten hurt. But at times rewatching it, you know, Ozzie to me kind of almost feels like the co-lead because he's the one that first has an interaction with the leprechaun in the basement and no one believes him. Oh, he's this special guy. You know, he, he's lost his marbles kind of thing. You know, so no one throughout the whole movie, no one believes him until it's way too late. He nails the four leaf clover on the barrel in the first place. That's what keeps him in there. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's the one that says you've got to, Oh no, I'm sorry. No, Grady, the old man is the one that puts the four leaf clover on the box in the beginning and then he tells Jennifer Aniston in a pretty sick reveal. So she's running through these creepy halls that no one is in at this rest home. Warwick Davis, our leprechaun, which I realized we never know the leprechaun's name. Isn't that kind of weird? I think you might, I think you might have a name in the later ones. Yeah, maybe in the later they, yeah. But in this one, at least he's just actually the boy. The leprechaun. The boy at the end, he slingshots his piece of gum to the four leaf clover and it goes right. And he just says, hey, Lep. And then I think he says, fuck you, Lucky Charms. So I'm like, Lep. And that's what I was typing in my notes. I was just like, Lep goes here, Lep goes there. And I'm like, oh, okay, Lep. That's his nickname. But anyway, we find out about the, or at least Jennifer Aniston finds out about the four leaf clover because as she's running from Warwick Davis in this goofy wheelchair thing, then she runs to the elevator, which I feel like every good schlocky horror movie has to have an elevator moment. Of course. Right? The door shut. And just as we think like, okay, next scene in a really good surprise, I have to say old man Grady, who she's there to see falls. Do you remember from the top of the elevator? He just dangles down, right? And he's covered in blood. The leprechaun has got him, but he's not dead yet. And he tells her, you gotta put the four leaf clover on his body. You have to touch him with it. And that's how he dies. And in true early nineties, bad horror, after he tells her this upside down, and I have to say Jennifer Aniston is good. She's got some tears. I don't know if they're real, but she's selling it. She's good. And she's funny when she needs to be. You know, you can tell there was a comedy star in there. She's looking up at him and she's thanking him. And then he very, very goofily dies in this big huff. And I'm like, oh yeah, this movie is just too much fun. Right? He's driving and he's not actually in the car. He's floating and he gets pulled over by the cops. Yeah. And then the cops are like, how old are you? He's like, I'm 600 years old. Yes. And then he rips the cop's face. Yeah. He's in this little toy car from the shop where he does that. Oh, is that what it is? He's in a toy car. Yes. He's in this like silly, that's like, it's funny cause every now and then, and I had read, maybe you did too, that the producers were all torn. Trimark wanted a Freddy, a Chucky, you know, that horror comedy. They wanted critters, all that kind of stuff. Right, they already did about the tone and you can see it. Yes. You can tell. The tone is wonky. Yes. The tone is definitely wonky. And apparently the director, this was directed by Mark Jones, he I guess was okay with Warwick because it was, I guess it stemmed kind of, Warwick Davis was the one as he's doing this. He wanted to lean more comedy. And like we said with all those horror movies, a lot of them were, you know, kind of schlocky comedy. So I think he thought, all right, well this just, I'm feeling like these lines are so goofy. I got to lean into comedy. That's what's kind of popular in these horror movies right now. And the director didn't fight him. Apparently Mark Jones was like agreeing with him on that and was okay with it. And yeah, he went on to do Rumpelstiltskin a couple of years later, a crazy horror movie as well. I remember that was pretty freaky. He wrote a lot of frigging movies, man. A lot of TV too. Before this, he did a ton of TV. So he's been writing for years and years and years. He directed eight movies. Yeah, yeah. But I just thought that was interesting because so they're on board with it being funny. Trimark apparently wanted it to be funny. But the producers, other, I guess the production company that hired Mark Jones, I don't know. They really wanted it gory, scary, serious. So you can definitely feel at times when it's gory, serious, gory, funny, scary, serious, scary, funny, you know. So it really does meander a little bit. The good thing about that though, is that sometimes when they do have these, they do do these like sort of like when they're on the fence about stuff, you do get these very weird sort of movies that will shift from one tone to the other tone. Or they, sometimes they ride the edge of both in a way that just kind of works for the movie. And I feel like that's what's happening with Leprechaun because, you know, it goes like, for instance, he's a very grotesque looking creature, at least from, you know. Oh yeah. When you picture in your mind, even if you're like actually like looking at him, maybe like you're watching a blu-ray and it's high-def and like you can kind of see that the makeup looks cheap or whatever. But, you know, the makeup, I mean that was pretty complicated makeup stuff. So it's like, you know, when you look at the make, the grotesque makeup and then pair that with comedy. Because, you know, much like colors, you know, everything has like, you know, genres have their own sort of complimentary wheel and the opposite, the two opposites are comedy and horror. They directly compliment each other. So something that's really scary can also be really funny and something that's really funny can also be really scary. And that's why you get so many great comedy horror and horror comedy. And isn't it funny how all I've done is inverse those words, but you know exactly what I mean. Oh, totally. I think a horror comedy versus a comedy horror. And I can think of like a half a dozen movies that fall into a great example. What is like a comedy horror? I think of, well, I mean, maybe this is more of a spook, but I think of like Dracula dead and loving it. Oh, I love that one. Which is, you know, firmly a comedy first before it is, you know, doing something, you know, in the horror realm, and it's not even really horror. The horror element is just like it has a Dracula. And then versus a horror comedy, which, you know, you got your evil dead too, you know, you got house, you got these things where it is a horror movie first that is that with comedy, you know, weave through it. And these balances kind of work. And that's what's kind of funny about how slapstick works, where as I'm watching like once upon a time in Hollywood, again, I'd seen it once before in the theater. Oh yeah. And I'm reminded of how he is such a master of not just violence, but of comedy. All of his violence is comedic. All of it is slapstick based. He rides this incredible line of horrifying and hilarious all at the same time. What's happening at the end of once upon a time in Hollywood, you've seen this film, I'm not spoiling it. Okay, sure. Is so like, I mean, it's brutal. It's super violent. And at the same time, it's almost like a loony tune. Oh, it's totally loony tune. Yep, I agree. And that is just my favorite part of the movie is how. Oh my God. And it's wild that this thing is. His violence is also like a release. Like in Django, same thing. It is like this, it's its own type of like violent catharsis that occurs. He builds his stories up with such tight tension and then like winds them up like a rubber band and lets them snap with these moments of extreme violence or extraordinary violence. And again, like nobody does gunshots like Quentin Tarantino. Nobody like go back and watch, look at hatefully, look at Django Unchained. So the point is that my whole bringing this up is just this idea that like you can do comedy and you can do, you could do something violent. You could do, that's also really funny. You could do something horrifying. That's also really funny that one second is so terrifying that the next second is really funny or a great example, look at Return of Living Dead and Reanimator and Dead Alive, even. No, not Dead Alive, Return of Living Dead and Reanimator. Two movies that where the actors and the performances are so serious. They're so completely serious that that's what makes it funny. So you watch somebody saw a cadaver, a reanimated cadaver's head off with a bone saw and it's the funniest thing in the world because they believe in it. They're such a conviction with what they're doing. So it's this weird sort of back and forth. So hearing that there's this thing in the studio, you know, mission pull with Trimark and the director and whatever, you know, about the tone and having something just sort of seesaw from feeling one way to another as we described as children, like what we felt like watching this, we felt only the horror side. We didn't see we're too young to understand the comedy side of what was all there, that fine line that they were doing. But speaking of violence, yeah, my second favorite death with that cop later. So he's killed the cop. The cop's been dead for a while, but at the end, Jennifer Aniston's, it's in the last few minutes, I remember. She's running to the cop car. She thinks he's alive. He's all bloody and gross. And then Leprechaun's there, good old Lep and he, oh, she, that's right. She takes the cop's baton and she jams into little Lep's eye. It's really violent. It's really violent. It's pretty gross. Yeah, you know, I have to say, even though this movie at times almost felt like an Are You Afraid of the Dark episode and no shade, love that show, but like the way it's shot and the music, at times I'm like, this is just like, you know, Canadian TV or something. But they didn't shy away from the gross stuff. So now he's got his green, he has green blood of course because he's a Leprechaun. And he doesn't have an eye. And so he actually then gets in the car with her. She's in the back, she's screaming, you know, good old cop car horror. And he pulls an eyeball out of the dead cop and inserts it into his socket. And I'm just like, wow, like, how, like, this is cinema. This is early 90s horror cinema. Please get out. Please. Die for 90s, dear. So green blood is, that's how you get around the sensors. Oh, smart. Green blood, that's what they did. And from that's still gone. If you have, if you're, the way that you're going to mask that is, yeah, give the Leprechaun green blood, which is also kind of an Irish, there's like, I think there's a thing about like, you know, green blood or something. So it's like another example of like this weird, weirdly stereotypical Irishness connection. Listen, we all have, I guess it exists for, there's a lot of that stuff. Totally. That's what it is, man. Yeah, cause by the end, when he's climbing out of the well and he's just this mushy thing, he's all green. Right. And it makes me think of like movies like Troll, Troll 2. I feel like there was a lot of green goo in those ones, you know? They were vegetarians. Those trolls, they turn you into plants so they could beat you. Yes. Speaking of vegetarians, I had forgotten cause, you know, Jennifer Asston plays this girl, Tori in this movie who's very high maintenance. We like her, but she's very high maintenance. Right. She hates this old house. She can't, I don't even, they don't really make it clear what they're even, what she and her dad are doing in this house. I guess they're just renting it for the summer or something. Wait, isn't the little boy her little brother or is he with the Simpleton? Oddly enough, the little boy is with the Simpleton and the little boy is the brother of the hunky painter. But I'm like, there's like a good, There's painters, there's painters. Yes. They're called, they're called like three guys that paint is their like company name. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. His name, I forget his name, Ken Oland, I believe. He's from April Fool's Day. Others, you know, horror fun 80s movie. So yeah, he's our leading man who is pretty, you know, he's a pretty side character, but yeah, they're this random trio of painters. But speaking of vegetarian, I had forgotten that in all of her high maintenance stuff, which some of it is warranted, but they're at the diner. They've taken her dad to the hospital because he has that really fun scene where he thinks it's a cat in this hole in the stump and he's putting his hand in there. Here kitty, kitty, we all know what's gonna happen. Oh yeah. Do you remember that? Dude, that was crazy too. That was scary. That's a great moment. Yeah. Oh yeah. Cause you know. Cause you just know. You're just waiting for it. Oh my God. And he's like, come on kid, and they're watching and then, ah, and then his hands like shoot up. And then you see a really kind of dumb, you know, sort of CGI or whatever. You know, you see Warwick Davis in the hole and he's like, ah, you know. But so they've taken him to the hospital so now they're at a diner. And I just thought it was funny speaking of vegetarian that on top of all of her high maintenance stuff, he says to her, the pretty guy, Nathan is his name. He goes, you know, you're pretty thin. You should have some roast beef or something dumb. And she goes, I don't eat meat. I don't eat anything, you know. And it's funny because it's like, oh, are we like supposed to be annoyed by that? She's like, I don't eat meat. I'm a vegetarian. And he's like, oh God. And isn't it funny? Like, I'm watching him like, hey, you go girl, that's great. But it's like back then it's like, oh God. Today, no one would even probably bat an eyelash to be more like, wow, it's like telling her to like, you know. The focus is like, fuck off, don't tell me what to eat, I'm good. Thanks, right? Right, right, right. But that's what's kind of funny. Yeah, uh-huh. Little girls shouldn't look the farthest. One last thing that I thought was fun, again, going back to our guy Freddie and how popular he was. This movie, do you remember Jeff? Towards the end, as everything's going haywire, Jennifer Aniston's on the phone. She's, I'm trying to remember. I think she's trying to call for help. The phone's dead, but it rings. And oh, and it's him. It's a leprechaun. She rips it off the wall, but it's still ringing. Ooh. And obviously- Very Freddie, Freddie Krueger, right? Very Freddie. And anyone would be like, okay, don't answer the phone. We obviously know it's leprechaun. But she goes, she bends down, she picks it up. And as we know in both Nightmare One and the new Nightmare, there's some fun phone, gross, you know, tongue action, iconic, right? And this movie totally, totally copies that, totally rips that off with a little gross hand coming out of the mouth. Do you remember that moment? Which I mean, which is so, which is what an opportunity to do. It's like when you have in a weird kind of way the leprechaun and Freddie kind of operate in similar spaces, the leprechauns' powers are terrestrial and like tangible while Freddie operates in the incorporeal and dream world. So it's like, it would be a shame to be, when you fall asleep, you gotta worry about Freddie. And when you wake up, assuming that you have his gold, you have to worry about the leprechaun. That is a straight up rip off Mark Jones and Tim of Little Good, but. A little bit. Leprechaun. It's out. It's out of the crate. Thanks so much for watching. Next time, there's gonna be a new movie that we'll talk about, so stay tuned and please follow Release Date Rewind on Instagram for updates. Bye.