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Check out some great photos by Official Photographer Peter Stone.
Leprechaun in the Hood
Released March 28, 2000, from Trimark Pictures
Directed by Rob Spera
Starring Warwick Davis, Ice-T, A.T. Montgomery
This movie went straight to video, and is rated R for strong violence and gore, pervasive language, drug use and some sexual content. It is the fifth movie in the Leprechaun series, although the number "5" doesn't appear anywhere in the title or credits.
Description from the back cover of the promotional video:
HE'S BACK AND MEANER THAN EVER.After a long and golden dormancy, the Leprechaun is brought back to life by three bungling rap artists looking to launch their music career.
When Butch, Postmaster P, and Stray Bullet loot the local hip-hop mogul's studio to fund their demo album, the threesome unwittingly ends up with the secret of Mack Daddy's success: a magical flute. Their gigs instantly turn golden but a blood-thirsty Leprechaun and an angry Mack Daddy are hot on their trail, leaving a wake of destruction tainted by politically incorrect limericks.
Description that previously appeared on the Trimark Pictures webpage:
The year is 1993 and the Leprechaun has been awakened from a 20 year nap by four young rap artists looking to make it big.For the last 20 years the Leprechaun has been kept under wraps by Mack Daddy O’Nassas, a Suge Knight-style hip hop impresario who rose to super-stardom when he discovered the Leprechaun’s gold in 1973. But now the Leprechaun’s golden flute has been stolen from Mack Daddy and he must get it back before the Leprechaun and his Zombie Girls do. Will Mack Daddy get the flute back, or will Stray Bullet, Postmaster P, Butch and Wreck keep it from him and the Leprechaun and make it to Las Vegas for the big talent show?
The two publicity notices above give two different versions of the number of young rap artists. The first notice is the correct one, and is a generally more accurate description of the movie.
Leprechaun in the Hood is radically different from the first four movies. Despite some surreal touches in the opening sequence and some other light moments, it's basically a straight horror movie rather than a camp cheesefest. Although it does have Leprechaun rhymes and some jokes and sight gags, on the whole it's quite serious. Most of the time, the Leprechaun acts purely sinister, without the demented glee that we're accustomed to. He's also a lot more patient and methodical than his previous incarnations.
This change in tone and pace is startling at first, and takes some getting used to. The Leprechaun is not seen all that much in the earlier part of the movie, and it takes a while for the story to develop a grip on the viewer. But have patience: eventually everything clicks, and the last part of the movie is highly entertaining. The movie is very effective on the whole.
Although the overall tone is serious, there are some VERY funny moments in this movie, especially toward the end. There are numerous killings, which are not played for laughs this time, and they become more graphic as the film progresses. Leprechaun in the Hood contains at least ten times as much bad language as the first four movies combined, and includes a very bizarre twist on the customary topless scene. Besides proving that Warwick Davis is great at plain evil as well as comic evil, this time the rest of the cast has real acting skills too, and the dialogue and general style of the film are more natural than what you would normally expect in a Leprechaun movie. This is the first movie in the series to contain references to the prior movies, which is a pleasing touch. There's another first, too - there's no female lead, and the only women the male lead even talks to are the Zombie Girls and his grandma. The end of the movie is my favorite sequence in the entire series, so make sure you keep watching until the credits roll. You'll be glad you did!
An Alternative Idea
On May 12, 2007 Lep 3 & 4 director Brian Trenchard-Smith did a podcast interview with Greg Conley's online radio show. Approximately 16 minutes of this 54-minute interview dealt with the Leprechaun series, especially Lep 4. An MP3 of this interview is available here on the Your Video Store website. The Leprechaun section starts right around minute 22 of the interview.
While there's a lot of great Lep 4 information, the most interesting part of the interview deals with Leprechaun 5. It seems that there was some brief talk of having Brian direct that movie, but he felt that it was inappropriate for a white director to make a movie poking fun at black culture and that it was better to hire a black director for the job. I don't know whether Rob Spera (who directed Lep in the Hood) is black.
However, Brian had his own idea of what he'd like to do for the fifth Leprechaun movie and it was a long way from the hood. His plan was to put the Leprechaun in the White House! The movie would have continued on from Lep 4 (apparently ignoring that #4 takes place in the future) with the immense spaceship from Independence Day looming over the White House. But instead of blowing the White House to bits, the ship would deliver the Leprechaun into the building. The Leprechaun would find out about all the gold stored in Fort Knox and would naturally be interested.
The political situation would have been modeled on the Clinton years since Clinton was in office at the time. There would be a dysfunctional first family including a president with a zipper problem and the president's daughter, and greedy Republicans would be scheming to take power. Somehow the Leprechaun would have inadvertently ended up saving America.
Brian pitched this idea to the studio execs, who rejected it on the grounds that it was too far out and political satire wouldn't work for the Leprechaun fanbase. Eighteen months later the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, which would have been a golden opportunity to expand the Leprechaun's audience if this film had been available. I don't know how the majority of Lep fans feel about this concept, but I think it's a brilliant idea.
IMDb has the trailer, a message board, and much more.
Spot Music produced the soundtrack, which was never released for sale to the public.
Warwick Davis received a Best Actor nomination from the 2000
Video Premiere Awards for this movie.
