LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN 3 (1995) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 21st, 2009)

When I was in high school, this was the first movie I ever reviewed for our school TV show.  I liked it back then, and it’s just as much fun now.  Leprechaun 3 is simply the best film in the franchise.  This is the Goldfinger of the series.  (I think Leprechaun would like that bit of praise because it has the word “Gold” in the title.)  This is the one where all the elements clicked.  The one that was more than the sum of its parts.  The one where they finally got the formula down pat.  It’s as if director Brian (Night of the Demons 2) Trenchard-Smith said, “The audience wants to see nothing but the Leprechaun killing people then saying funny rhymes afterwards, so by God let’s give it to them!”

 

3 finds Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) in Las Vegas.  Scott (John Gatins) loses his college tuition at the roulette wheel until he gets a hold of one of the Leprechaun’s gold coins.  He makes a wish on the coin to be on a winning streak and it comes true.  An incompetent magician (John DeMita) and a haggard looking casino worker (Caroline Williams from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) quickly steal the coin to get their own wishes.  This of course doesn’t set well with the Leprechaun, and he makes sure that their wishes backfire drastically.

 

Leprechaun went to Hollywood in Part 2, so Vegas was a natural setting for the little bugger.  As with the previous installment, the rules are all different from the original.  This time instead of shamrocks or wrought iron being the bane of the Leprechaun’s existence, it’s his gold that is his Achilles Heel.  He also awakens from being imprisoned in stone by a magical amulet, which is different from his tree house prison from the last picture. 

 

In addition to the inconsistencies in the Leprechaun lore, the film also takes too long to get going.  Far too much time is spent on the Indian pawn shop owner who does battle with the Leprechaun in the first act.  I did like the part where he bit the guy’s ear off though.  (“I like Indian food… so spicy!”)  Once Gatins gets a hold of the Leprechaun’s loot, the film really starts to cook. 

 

What makes Leprechaun 3 so memorable is the rhymes.  This one has the best of the entire series.  (“With all of this killing, I’ve lost me schilling!”)  The funniest ditty comes right after Leprechaun kills Williams.  She wishes for a perfect body, and he makes her boobs, lips, and butt grow to enormous proportions until she literally explodes.  Afterwards, Leprechaun quips, “What a lovely lass, I had to blow up her ass!”

 

There’s also a lot of random bizarre shit in this movie that I enjoyed.  Like the CD-ROM program that tells the Leprechaun’s back story.  That was original.  There was also a quirky kill in which Leprechaun made a gangster’s fantasy dream girl turn into a cyborg with boobs.  It didn’t make a lick of sense, but it was cool nevertheless.  The weirdest thing about the flick though is the subplot involving the hero being bitten by the Leprechaun and becoming a Were-Leprechaun.  How much Mad Dog 20/20 do you have to drink before you come up with THAT idea?

 

I also liked how Leprechaun runs around Las Vegas (“Golden Nugget!  I’d like one of those!”) and nobody even blinks.  The best of these scenes comes when he runs into an Elvis impersonator who says, “Nice shoes, do they come in blue suede?”  These exterior shots also provide us with a good look at Las Vegas’s Fremont Street in the ‘90s.  I was there recently in ‘07 (when I got married) and the downtown section has definitely taken a turn for the worse, so it was nice to see the old part of Vegas perfectly preserved in time.

 

Leprechaun 3 delivers on the gore (the bloodiest scene is when he saws the magician in half), clever kills (he turns a guy into a human slot machine), and hilarious rhymes (“For that trick, I’ll chop off your dick!”).  The flick also contains some intentional humor that’s actually quite funny.  (Like the Mafiosos who have a debate about boxers vs. briefs.) What more could you possibly want from a Leprechaun movie?

 

Trenchard-Smith also directed the next installment in the series, Leprechaun 4:  In Space.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN 2 (1994) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 20th, 2009)

Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) is back.  This time he’s in Hollywood looking for a bride.  He sets his sights on the virginal teenaged Bridget (Shevonne Durkin), much to the chagrin of her boyfriend Cody (Charlie Heath).  Leprechaun chains her up in his magic tree house and prepares for his wedding while Cody desperately to convince his drunken Uncle Morty (Sandy Baron) that Leprechauns are real.

 

Leprechaun 2 is a step up from the first film in terms of production design.  It’s a lot slicker looking and actually feels like a real movie.  I can’t really say it’s traditionally what we would call a “good” movie, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t have me in stitches.

 

I think what makes Leprechaun 2 work is Baron’s performance as the drunken Uncle Morty.  This guy is great.  He looks and acts like George Carlin’s evil twin or something.  His best scene comes when he tries to cheat Leprechaun out of his gold.  (“I could ask for a million dollars… I could ask for a BILLION dollars… but no!  I want your crummy pot of gold!”)  Leprechaun gives him what he wants and makes his pot of gold magically appear in Morty’s belly!  There are a lot of negative things you can say about this movie, but they are easily forgivable because the sight of a crock of gold magically appearing inside of an old dude’s stomach is fucking hilarious. 

 

There’s also a great scene earlier in the picture where Morty gets into a drinking contest with Leprechaun.  Afterwards, Leprechaun crawls into a coffee bar and drinks a bunch of java to sober up.  When the obnoxious barista gets on his nerves, Leprechaun scalds him to death with an espresso machine!

 

Another death scene that gets some laughs, both intentional and otherwise comes when Leprechaun makes one of Cody’s friends think that Bridget is seducing him.  She rips off her shirt and the guy moves in closer to her chest, unaware that it is just one of Leprechaun’s illusions and he is really putting his face into some whirring lawnmower blades.  While this scene is funny enough as is, what makes it downright hysterical is the fact that it features what has to be hands down the worst body double in film history.  Durkin obviously has pale skin and small breasts, but when she takes off her shirt, she miraculously has a dark tan and huge silicone implants.  It becomes even more apparent when the editor keeps cutting back and forth from her face to her tits.  Of course, her boobs are merely an illusion created by the Leprechaun, so it kinda makes sense that her tits wouldn’t match her body.  Because of that, I guess I can give this scene a Mulligan.  That still doesn’t mean it isn’t uproarious.

 

As you can tell, most of this movie is entertainingly stupid.  Some of it is downright disturbing.  Like the scene where Leprechaun threatens to consummate his wedding with Bridget and licks her face.  (“Kiss me, I’m Irish!”)  Then there’s one part that will just make you want to puke.  Leprechaun he tells her, “We’ll have to make many changes to your face.  The wee ones won’t suckle if you don’t look like them!” 

 

Be glad this movie spared you the sight of Leprechaun babies suckling at the teat.

 

For whatever reason, Leprechaun 2 makes up a whole bunch of new rules regarding the Leprechaun.  For example, he can only be killed by wrought iron, but in the first film it was a four-leaf clover that did him in.  Leprechaun even has some stupid rules regarding marriage.  He’ll only marry a woman who sneezes three times without someone saying, “God bless you”.  (“She sneezes one, she sneezes twice; she’ll be my slave when she sneezes thrice!”)

 

The filmmakers also made some glaring continuity errors too.  In the beginning, Leprechaun gets trapped inside a magic tree for a thousand years.  But the first movie ended with him being trapped inside a well!  He also said in the original that he was 600 years old, but he claims to be 2000 in this one.  I hate it when they do shit like that.

 

A couple of inconsistencies aside, Leprechaun 2 is fun for the most part.  The series was really gathering steam at this point, with Part 3 being the crown jewel of the franchise.  It’s even better when you play this Suggested Drinking Game:  Take a shot of Irish Whisky every time Leprechaun says, “I want me gold!”

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN (1993) ** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 19th, 2009)

Leprechaun was Jennifer Aniston’s film debut.  It’s kind of a shame that she never made another movie quite as good as this one.  She’s fairly decent in this flick and you can only imagine how good of a scream queen she could’ve been had she not starred in that Friends bullshit.

 

The plot has a centuries old Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) terrorizing a bunch of people at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.  The murderous munchkin is looking for his gold and he’s prepared to rip off someone’s face if they don’t produce his coins in a timely manner.  Naturally the only thing that can kill a Leprechaun is a four-leaf clover, so the precocious brat of the group slingshots it into the Leprechaun’s mouth; causing him to melt.

 

Leprechaun has its share of chuckles.  I for one think it’s pretty hilarious that a shamrock is to the Leprechaun what a cross is to a vampire.  (They even have to “believe” in order for it to work.)  While a Killer Leprechaun is a promising concept, not much is really done with it to make the film completely worthwhile.  It also doesn’t help when the characters are all annoying.  (The know-it-all kid, the slow-witted handyman, the shrill vegetarian chick, the hunky painter, the useless father, etc.)

 

The biggest problem with the flick is that the tone is all out of whack.  Sometimes the film is extremely silly (Leprechaun eats some fake Lucky Charms at one point), and other times, things are played completely straight.  Thankfully, the sequels would take the formula and run with it.  They invented new rules, ignored continuity, and gave Leprechaun more silly rhymes, which resulted in bigger laughs.

 

The reason to watch Leprechaun is for Warwick Davis.  This is hands down his best role.  Fuck Willow.  He’s great in these movies.  They don’t give him a lot of funny stuff to do in this one (besides ride a tricycle in fast motion) but he does have his moments.  I like how he had OCD and frantically polished people’s shoes.  There’s also a great scene where he uses a pogo stick to jump up and down on a pawn shop owner’s chest.  (“This old man, he played one, he played pogo on my lungs!”) The highlight of the flick though comes when a cop pulls Leprechaun over for speeding in a Power Wheels car.  Their dialogue is priceless. 

 

Cop:  “Aren’t we a little young to be out this late?” 

 

Leprechaun:  “I’m 600 years old!”

MARK OF THE DEVIL PART II (1974) ** ½

Lady Elizabeth (Erika Blanc from The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave) looks on in horror as her husband is murdered while attempting to stop a witchfinder named Natas (Reggie Nalder) from drowning a woman accused of witchcraft in an icy lake.  Natas is the right-hand man of the head witchfinder (Anton Diffring), and they conspire against Elizabeth to silence her.  They even accuse her young son of consorting with witches and have her imprisoned.   

Mark of the Devil Part II mixes in a bit of Nunsploitation into the old tried-and-true witch trials and torture scenes.  If you’re into seeing bald horny nuns being whipped and raped, then this will rocket up your must-see list in a hurry. 

Even though Reggie died in the first movie, he appears here playing a different but very similar character.  The filmmakers knew his slimy performance was one of the best parts of the original, so they weren’t about to make a sequel without him.  Similarly, Johannes Buzalski also returns as the witchfinder’s advocate, except his eye that gouged out in the first movie has miraculously grown back. 

While Nalder cuts an imposing figure, sadly, Herbert Lom and Udo Kier’s absence is felt.  Diffring’s prissy aristocratic demeanor is definitely lackluster when compared to Lom’s vile performance.  At least Blanc is good in the lead.

Even though I’ve seen the original numerous times, I somehow never got around to seeing this one.  It isn’t necessarily bad, but like most sequels, it’s a step down in quality from the first film in just about every department.  I did like the scene where one of the burly executioners gets mad when he learns Diffring is torturing people who oppose him under falsified accusations because it gives the torture business “a bad name”!

Speaking of torture scenes, they still have a kick to them.  The most memorable moment comes when a woman is lowered spread eagle onto a sharp stake.  In another, a priest is fitted with what looks like a pair of flaming iron Crocs.  Blanc is placed on the rack as well, and there’s a messy decapitation.  Again, it’s not as good as Part I, but if you dug it the first time around, well… here it is again. 

AKA:  Witches:  Violated and Tortured to Death.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970) ***

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

The ads said: “Positively the most horrifying film ever made!” Not really, but the film has many unsettling scenes of torture. It takes place during height of the Salem witch hunts. We get to see fingers cut off, tar and feathering, and witches burned at the stake. And that’s the first five minutes! 

Herbert (The Pink Panther movies) Lom comes to a small village and takes over as Head Witchfinder for Reggie (Salem’s Lot) Nalder. At first, he seems more reasonable than Nalder, but soon resorts to even worse tactics. Udo (Andy Warhol’s Dracula) Kier is Lom’s protégée, who’s in love with a sultry bar maid. When she spurns Nalder’s advances, he accuses her of being a witch and has her imprisoned. The townspeople revolt and in the downbeat ending, Lom (who we find out is impotent) escapes and the heroic Kier gets lynched. The original ending had all the murdered torture victims rising from the grave to get revenge, but the distributor hated it so much he burned the negative!

The graphic torture scenes include finger crushing, whippings, girls topless on the rack, bare asses on spikes, Chinese water torture, and in the film’s most famous scene, a girl’s tongue is ripped out. The film is at its best when showing this stuff in gory detail but is also effective at showing the hypocrisy of the witchfinders. Lucky as hell first run theater patrons got free Mark of the Devil Vomit Bags when they saw this in 1970. The first film “Rated V for VIOLENCE!”

AKA:  Witches are Tortured to Death.  AKA:  Austria 1700.  AKA:  Hexen.  AKA:  Burn, Witch, Burn.  AKA:  Satan.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

I’ve always thought of Mark of the Devil as Witchfinder General’s trashy cousin.  That film had class, style, and a terrific performance by Vincent Price.  This one is exploitative, grisly, and has Herbert Lom chewing the scenery.  Still, you’ve got to admire the way the film rubs the audience’s nose in the deprived excess.  The torture scenes still pack a punch (especially the justifiably famous tongue tipping scene), even if the stuff in between them is decidedly less than gripping. 

4K UHD NOTES:

This is another fine remastering by Vinegar Syndrome.  They cleaned it up nicely, but they left in just enough grain to make it look like you’re watching it at a drive-in.  The colors look especially great during the psychedelic swirling that occurs right before Lom’s assistant gets his eye gouged out.  Too bad it didn’t come with a commemorative barf bag.

IMAGINARY (2024) * ½

Blumhouse had a hit last year with a movie about a killer toy.  Of course, you all know the flick I’m talking about, the instant classic M3GAN.  Now, here they come again with another horror film about a killer toy.  Sadly, lightning didn’t strike twice with the tepid and forgettable Imaginary. 

You know, I thought it was going to be good for a while there, but it turned out that it was just my imagination. 

Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moves back into her childhood home with her blended family in tow.  Before long, her young stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) finds an old teddy bear and names him Chauncey.  Naturally, we learn Chauncey is evil (or I should say, the characters learn as the audience knows what’s up from the start), and when he whisks her away to Imaginationland, it’s up to Jessica to rescue her. 

Imaginary is a limp hodgepodge of M3GAN, Child’s Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, Beetlejuice, Insidious, and a Snuggles TV commercial.  Director Jeff (Kick-Ass 2) Wadlow seems to be more interested in ripping off other movies than fleshing out an original mythology of his own.  He does deliver one fun scene where Chauncey attacks a druggie neighbor, but it was already more or less shown in its entirety in the trailers.  The scenes in the MC Esher-inspired “Neverever” are especially derivative and drag like a sumbitch.  The gratuitous fake-out ending also adds unnecessarily to the already bloated running time.

The acting is crummy across the board.  Betty (Carrie) Buckley is particularly annoying as the nosy neighbor who spews an ungodly amount of exposition.  In fact, Chauncey himself is probably the best actor in the whole movie.  Even though he is mostly silent in his close-ups, his expressions speak volumes.  Too bad his final form looks like leftovers from Five Nights at Freddy’s.  Whenever Chauncey’s original form isn’t on screen, Imaginary is nearly unbearable. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: READY TO RIDE (1992) ** ½

FORMAT:  VHS

Penthouse Video was always slightly more risqué than the similarly themed Playboy tapes, if only because the models’ pubic regions were trimmed and/or bare so you could see glimpses of their genitalia.  In the age of internet porn this will all probably seem rather chaste.  However, if you were a teenage boy in the ‘90s (as I was). the Penthouse Video tapes were where it was at. 

The tape kicks off with previews for other Penthouse Videos such as Satin and Lace, Fast Cars Fantasy Women, and Passport to Paradise.  Then the main attraction begins.  It’s a collection of hit-and-miss motorcycle-themed vignettes of nude biker babes. 

The first one is called “Biker Chicks” (** ½), and it plays like a naughty rock video version of The Violent Years.  Three sexy biker babes roam the countryside, accosting and hogtying unsuspecting men (and women) before having their way with them.  The ladies all look great in this segment, but the MTV editing kinda prevents it from gathering up much steam. 

Next, we have “Satin and Lace” (** ½), a black and white sequence where a biker dude bangs Monique Gabrielle on the back of his motorcycle.  While this scene begins promisingly enough, there’s not a whole lot to it and it’s over before it really begins. 

“Bar Dance” (***) is a fun sequence where two hot blondes become bored by the dates, pop a quarter in the jukebox, and start stripping on the bar.  This one effectively straddles the line of fantasy and “Letters to Penthouse” style of straitlaced people having a wild encounter, although you have to wait till the very end to see how it fits into the overall biker theme. 

Then, a pre-porn, pre-tattoos Janine does a sexy dance in a studio on and around a motorcycle while clad in leather in “Locked in Leather” (** ½).  Like the first segment, this is little more than a rock video, but you know, with boobs. 

“Bikers and Guys” (**) is up next, and it’s a leisurely paced assortment of random scenes of girls (one of which is Julie Strain) slowly disrobing for the camera while a lazy blues guitar plays on the soundtrack.  Oh, and occasionally some guys on motorcycles ride by.  This scene just feels like filler and worse, looks like it may have been cobbled together from outtakes of a previous Penthouse video.  Even though it ends with Strain straddling a biker dude and dry humping him, it still isn’t all that entertaining or hot. 

After that, we have “Daydreaming (** ½) where a motorcycle mechanic has hallucinations of Julie K. Smith dressed (and undressed) as Marilyn Monroe.  Julie looks great here all done up as Marilyn, but there really isn’t a whole lot to this unusually short sequence. 

This is followed by yet another faux MTV rock video segment, “Fire and Water” (**) featuring more bosomy biker babes.  Again, it just feels like filler, and some of the footage was even recycled from previous segments. 

A hitchhiking hippie chick gets picked up by a biker who bangs her in the woods in “Flower Child” (**).  This segment is kind of tame and pretty lame, and the slow rock song on the soundtrack is awful. 

A morbidly obese biker stops reading Penthouse to play a rock cassette which summons Penthouse Pets out of thin air who then strip for him and his buddies in “Biker Gang” (** ½).  The Pets are hot, and there’s some good energy in this scene, but the fat grubby biker dudes are kind of hard to take. 

Julie K. Smith is back to do some “Solo Dancing” (****) in another rock video segment.  She has a lot of energy as she shimmies and shakes in front of a motorcycle.  I’m a big fan of Julie’s and this sequence gives you just about everything you could hope to see from her.  The close-ups of Smith ripping her mesh outfit and baring it all for the camera are particularly hot.  Although this segment is kind of short, it’s definitely the highlight of the tape. 

Julie Strain is the focus of the final segment, “Ready to Die” (**).  She entices the grubby bikers from the earlier segment, and they chase her on the highway with their bikes.  Once they finally catch up to her, she lets have their way with her.  Then, we find out it was all a dream!?!  HUH!?!  This one just goes on way too long, and not even the sexy allure of Julie can save this unsexy, meandering sequence. 

Ultimately, Ready to Ride might not be one of Penthouse’s best videos, but the fact that it features such soon to be porn luminaries such as Janine and Tiffany Mynx and B-Movie Queens like Julie Strain, Julie K. Smith, and Monique Gabrielle will make it well worth watching for their legions of fans. 

AKA:  Penthouse:  Ready to Ride.