Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood

(2003) **1/2


Finally

At the opening of Lep 6 we get a brief history of the Leprechaun. They were summoned by a king, along with other forest dwellers, to protect the king's gold from opposing armies, against which the king was otherwise defenseless. Word spread that the Leprechauns were pretty grim customers and gradually the threats to the king's riches subsided. When the king died, all of the Leprechauns went back to the forest.

Except one -- our villain. He stays the course and becomes tainted and evil over time.

Now back to the hood. At a construction site for a Compton community center, the Leprechaun is locked into a struggle with a fierce priest, armed with shamrock laced holy water and the Good Book. The priest prevails, sending the Leprechaun underground. The priest is mortally wounded in the fight.

One year later, we meet Emily. She works at a beauty salon and is desperately putting savings together to get out of the hood and to begin a new life. Accompanied by her spunky friend Lisa, she visits a fortune teller who informs her that she's about to come across fantastic riches, but that she should reject them lest she suffer terrible consequences.

Later, at the still unfinished construction site, she gets into an argument with Rory, her ex, and falls into a hole. Underground, she finds the Leprechauns treasure and hauls it up, generously agreeing to split it with Rory, Lisa, and their other friend, Jamie.

They have fun with their new riches --- moving into new apartments, buying new cars, dolling themselves up with new clothes and makeovers. But their free spending awakens the Leprechaun and he crawls out of the construction site dirt to hunt them down.

At one point, the quartet seeks Leprechaun advice from the fortune teller. Jamie asks why a crucifix won't help in their fight against the Leprechaun and is informed that it's because Leprechauns predate Christianity.

I did research while watching the Leprechaun movies. I read quite a few Leprechaun related websites and bookmarked the Wiki Leprechaun page (nothing on any of those pages about Leprechauns having an aversion to shamrocks, but maybe the people responsible for these pages haven't read the lore.) From what I've been able to gather, the first mention of Leprechauns didn't happen until the 1500's --- one full millenium after the death of St. Patrick.

Going off of the math in the Leprechaun movies, though, the Leprechaun had his millenial birthday on St. Patty's day 993 and 1993. So his actual inception was no later than 7 BC, maybe as early as 1007 BC or before. So yeah, according to the Leprechaun movie mythos, he did predate Christianity.

What that means though is that he also predated IRELAND. The island of Ireland was home to scattered tribes around 500 AD and wasn't recognized as a unified country until 1171, meaning the Leprechaun was at least 1,178 years old when Ireland first came into existence. So he's not so much a little Irishman as he is just a really huge fan.

To illustrate this point, it'd be like if Jesus were alive and well and were a Vikings fan. He'd put on his face paint and his parka and stroll out to the Metrodome screaming, "GO VIKES! THE PACKERS SUCK!!!"

And with that, my involvement with the Leprechaun franchise comes to a triumphant close.