Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)

I was busier than I expected this week and therefore only got to see one movie. The good news is that I did have time to watch some TV and will be making a Fall TV post soon. The bad news is that the only movie I saw this week sucked. Thankfully it was one of the "so bad, its good" movies which are a ton of fun to watch with a group of friends!

 
Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)
I had never seen any of the Leprechaun movies before even though I had heard of the series. The first two films were released in theaters and actually made some money, mostly due to their low budget, which I am sure is still way more than the budget for this one! What shocked me was that this was the fifth of six movies in this series! Yes, they actually made a sequel to this monstrosity called Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood. Ugh...
Anyway, Leprechaun in the Hood "stars" rapper Ice-T. While he is good on Law & Order: SUV, the material Ice-T has to work with here must have made him wish he was in Johnny Mnemonic again! The Leprechaun is played by Warwick Davis, who is probably best known for his work on the Harry Potter series in which he played Professor Flitwick and Griphook the Goblin. I also recognized actor Anthony Montgomery who played the main character, "Postermaster P," from his role as Ensign Mayweather on Star Trek: Enterprise.

The basic plot is that three young aspiring rap artists accidentally unleash a leprechaun who was imprisoned by a record producer twenty years earlier. The rappers have stolen the magic flute of the leprechaun and try to stop him from killing people and acquiring gold.
As you could probably guess, Leprechaun in the Hood was a low budget, direct-to-video movie. However, I was surprised to see just how terrible the camera work was. I didn't come into this movie expecting amazing cinematography, but a lot of the scenes just had the camera staying still on a tripod. There was one scene where characters were walking down a street talking and you could barely see them until they finally walked down in front of the camera! The absolute worst moment was a time lapse during a conversation while one guy walks closer to another! Besides the awful directing and cinematography there are several scenes featuring the main characters singing that is merely filler to waste time. Yes, I know they are struggling musicians, but it usually had nothing to do with the plot and made you just wait for what wacky thing that silly leprechaun would do next.

I'm not sure I would consider Leprechaun in the Hood a comedy-horror movie, but there is certainly a good amount of intentional humor that is funny for the most part. I laughed out loud when Ice-T pulled a baseball bat out of his Afro and when one of the characters pulls out a book called Leprechauns for Dummies! Sadly the movie is so poorly made (I didn't even get to the terrible writing or bad acting) that these scenes can't save it, despite being memorable. There are also some bizarre scenes like a transvestite getting humped to death by the Leprechaun, some tone deaf back-up singers/strippers who look like they walked off the set of Goldfinger, and a five second cameo by the rapper Coolio.
Leprechaun in the Hood is a classic bad movie in that it is awful but still watchable. This silly flick is up there (or down there!) with Troll 2 in that respect. When comparing these two Leprechaun in the Hood is more tongue in cheek, but even worse from a technical aspect (camera work, directing, and tons of pointless filler). Like Troll 2, this is another sequel that has little, if any, relation to the previous movies in its series. If you love bad movies which don't take themselves too seriously check this one out. Otherwise stay far, far away.
"Lep in the Hood, Come to do no good"
Best final scene ever!
2/10