Silver Screams: Leprechaun in the Hood (2000-dir. Rob Spera)

Some people think rapping is easy, but have you ever heard "Sexy MF"? Even Prince couldn't rap well. It doesn't take an education to rap well, nor great musical knowledge or even a basic sense of human empathy. But it does take SOMETHING, some specific cocktail of invention, nerve, and swagger. This je ne sais quoi can't be faked: Prince had invention, nerve and swagger for days, but he didn't understand rap and he couldn't ever make it work for him. Rap takes conviction.

Cult movies are like this too. Even your dorkiest most internet-brained friends don't care about Sharknado (2013) and it's five sequels anymore because you can't fake the funk. Pre-fabricated cult objects like Sharknado (2013) or Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) can cause brief commotions, they're designed to do just that, but they rarely stick around. It doesn't take great talent or a smart script to make a genuine cult film. But it does take that same invention, nerve and swagger. It takes conviction.

Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) is a film with no conviction, no swagger. It's the kind of film that gets made when the bean counters say "go urban" but the creatives involved have only ever seen a handful of episodes of The Wayan Brothers Show. It has a certain reputation the way a Sharknado (2013) does: the title gave the people walking by it at the video store a little chuckle, it gave some teenagers something to laugh and shout at and ignore while drinking some weekend. The poster is the product, the film is just a byproduct. It often gets the benefit of the doubt as camp. It doesn't deserve it.

Trimark Pictures' Leprechaun series never had the joie de vivre of the Child's Play movies they were chasing, but they are some sort of beloved. Legend has it that Leprechaun (1993) was to be a darker, more straight-forward creature feature until Warwick Davis injected his eponymous role with a mischievous humor and the film works as well as it does because it balances that whimsy with vicious bloody violence, gnarled claws and disgusting teeth being Leprechaun's preferred weapons of choice. It's utterly silly for a movie about a wise-cracking Celtic trickster elf to turn into a siege thriller in the third act, but it works because the creatives actually cared about making something scary.

The film was followed by sequels that were highly profitable for Trimark but wildly inconsistent in quality. Leprechaun 2 (1994) is passable but limited by a sluggish uninspired script. Leprechaun 3 (1995) is a genuinely funny horror-comedy with great imagination, deliciously grotesque special effects and a lively Las Vegas setting. Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996) was the series' first swing at pre-fab cult object absurdity, and is almost exactly the same movie as Jason X (2001) except somehow worse.

Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) follows a series tradition of ignoring most traces of continuity, beginning in the 1970's with Mack Daddy O'Nasses (Ice-T) and his toady Slug (Barima McKnight) following an old map to an abandoned stretch of the LA subway network to the Leprechaun's treasures, including a magic golden flute. Within a few minutes a magical amulet around Leprechaun's neck that has been keeping him imprisoned as a statue is removed and he's alive again, quoting MLK ("...thank God Almighty, free at last!"), and cutting Slug's throat with his own afro pick. It's the sort of tasteless material one could get behind if it was pulled off by filmmakers who know the world they're skewering but Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) has a strained flop-sweat quality, a sense that between the six (6!) credited screenwriters they know exactly two dozen things about black people, all second-hand via Def Comedy Jam and In Living Color.

After a brief struggle with Mack Daddy the amulet is back around Leprechaun's neck turning him back into stone and Mack is free to use his newfound magic gold flute and it's mesmerizing powers to start a career in the music business. We jump forward to 2000 where three young rappers Butch (Red Grant), Stray (Rashaan Nall) and Postmaster P (Anthony Montgomery) are onstage rapping like it's 1981:

"Postmaster P that’s me, you see?

The P’s for positive and that’s my guarantee

I got not time for negativity

Smooth is my groove and fresh my recipe

Postmaster P, positivity

A positive flow through your speakers is what I’m bringing, see?

The crew and me we all got unity

We keep the crowd hyped, positively"

When I tell you this film is packed with horrible raps like these I mean it is bursting at the seams. Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) features no fewer than six musical numbers and they are all of this quality, rhymes that go past "corny" and into "neurologically troubling". And let's be clear, expectations were already low: the Leprechaun himself loves to speak in rhyme but one consistent fact of the series is that his rhymes are always terrible. This is the series that gave us "She sneezes once/she sneezes twice/she'll be my bride when she sneezes thrice". Leprechaun never had bars. But I would rather listen to an inspirational youth group kick rhymes about the importance of flossing before ever listening to Postmaster P again.

The three rappers, whose group never gets a name for some reason, are auditioning for a spot in The Big Rap Competition in Las Vegas. The film constantly reminds the audience about The Big Rap Competition in Las Vegas but we know that they'll never get there because Las Vegas is where good things happen in Leprechaun movies and nothing good happens in this one. Their first roadblock to Las Vegas happens when Butch accidentally blows up all their equipment while trying to make a smoke machine. The trio needs money to replace their microphones and PA (rap competitions famously make you bring your own) and luckily they run into Mack Daddy, now a big-time music producer of gangster rap. The three have less street cred than Rappin' Duke but he gives them a shot anyway. However, when they refuse to compromise their commitment to braindead creampuff verses where they rhyme the word positivity with itself, he kicks them out of his office.

That's when they come up with a foolproof new plan to replace their equipment: rob the big scary gangster mogul of all his stuff, including that mysterious glass case where he keeps his leprechaun statue along with a pot of gold. Long story short, they get the loot, in addition to the mysterious golden flute he keeps in his desk. This also, of course, unleashes Leprechaun who immediately starts making jokes about Tiger Woods despite the fact that he's been a statue since 1972. Is the film saying that, in his hibernation state, the Leprechaun is still aware, conscious and absorbing the culture of the world around him, ambiently drawing from the collective subconscious of mankind? Or is Tiger Woods one of the two dozen black cultural touchstones the six (6!!) credited screenwriters know about?

With Leprechaun on the loose the film is free to pursue its purpose as a lighthearted supernatural slasher romp, but instead it immediately fizzles out. The first thing you realize is that Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) is a project that has all the hallmarks of a hastily slashed budget. For one thing, Warwick Davis is very rarely onscreen with any of his co-stars, with nearly every kill of the film attempting to obscure the fact via surrogate zombified babes with glowing green eyes doing his dirty work. It's not hard to imagine Warwick Davis, the core reason any of these films have a following, asking for more money and being rewarded with having his days cut short, most of his role reduced to insert shots on minimalist sets. And in another sign of budget troubles it's clear that most the film was shot without any real coverage. Scene after scene of ostensible comedy plays out in sluggish master shots with no editing options to quicken the pace, turning an already dull film into a painful death march. 

In a scene where Leprechaun and Mack Daddy share a joint (alas Leprechaun gets no weed one-liners, just a uncomfortably long extreme close-up of his crumply face blowing smoke and sensually whispering that it's "the bomb") we establish the stakes, with both racing to track down the boys and retrieve their stolen loot. But no momentum or tension is ever established as the trio listlessly bounce from scene to scene with stereotypical characters like a shiesty pawnshop owner (Dan Martin), a Chinese restauranteur (Jack Ong), an outrageously horny trans woman (Lobo Sebastian), a scam artist reverend (Ivory Ocean) and a sassy grandma who talks about her bunions (Bebe Drake). At each location Postmaster P plays the golden flute, trying to figure out the secret to its mesmerizing power. Then, later, the Leprechaun or one of his hos (there's a rudderless sub-plot where Leprechaun, already an aspiring date rapist in the previous sequels, has now become a full-blown Svengali pimp) show up to kill them, with all the thrill of checking boxes on a to-do list.

Eventually the three rappers circle back to a second audition for The Big Rap Competition and, with help from their magical golden flute, rock the crowd with incoherent rhymes like "How many plays rap grooves at the drop of a dime/Hit his motherfucking face/Leave him in a puddle of your warm blood/I go home but it turns out I should've stabbed you/In the bathroom". If Balki from Perfect Strangers used Google Translate to write a rap record over the "Hip-Hop #3" Casio Keyboard Rhythm setting, he'd probably produce the Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) soundtrack. Backstage they're notified that they've earned a slot in The Big Rap Competition but their celebration is cut short when Leprechaun shows up, steals the golden flute, and uses his telekinesis to make Stray shoot himself in the head. Distraught and well aware that they suck too much to get anywhere at The Big Rap Competition without their magic golden flute, Butch and Postmaster P come up with another fool-proof plan: they're going to dress up like hos to sneak into the Leprechaun's lair.

Now the topic of black men crossdressing for laughs is a loaded and controversial one and my white ass is in no way equipped to fully unpack it (instead I'll redirect you to a book like We See Each Other, A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film by Tre’Vell Anderson), but you don't have to be Marlon Riggs to see that this plot development comes from the six (6!!!) credited screenwriters' hostility towards the main characters, who are humiliated and made to look foolish at every turn. Other Leprechaun films all give their leads romantic sub-plots, blossoming love stories thwarted only by that damn pesky Irish demon. Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) is about three dumbasses who suck and spend the whole movie losing, all the way to the very end. After a lengthy and degrading makeover montage Butch and Postmaster do eventually make it to Leprechaun's lair and, after giving him a joint laced with four-leaf clovers (a silly gag in 2000 but in the bougie gentrified weed industry of 2025 I bet you can actually buy this pre-roll somewhere), he passes out allowing them to steal his flute. 

Then, as the two make their getaway, Mack Daddy shows up again and there's a shoot-out where Butch dies (his heartfelt plea to not die dressed as a woman played for laughs), Mack Daddy gets shot by Postmaster P (in some ways turning his back on his positive socially conscious rap persona while, in others, finally living up to his postal namesake), and Leprechaun gets turned back to stone when Mack Daddy, in his dying moments, throws the amulet back around his neck. We then jump forward to a concert where Postmaster P, now a Scarface-styled gangster rapper, performs for an adoring crowd. At the end he pulls down his sunglasses to reveal that he, too, has glowing green eyes as the Leprechaun sits in the crowd and tells the camera "I taught him everything he knows". It doesn't square with the previous scene at all even a little bit but before you can say "Huh?" the film visits you with one final indignity: watching Warwick Davis rap under the end credits. Bushwick Bill he ain't. Usually I abhor the way streaming services will jump to a new movie just as the credits start to roll. This time it was a mercy.

Leprechaun in the Hood (2000) is a terrible movie, but it was never trying to be anything other than a good piece of video box art. It must have been successful enough at that, at least, because it would later be followed by the series' first (and only?) direct sequel: Leprechaun Back 2 Da Hood (2003). Thank Christ I won't have to watch that until 2028. With any luck we'll all be dead first.

Next on Silver Screams...The Convent (2000).