They're Always After Me Lucky Charms... and My Life!

This episode unleashes the tiny terrors! We dive into three murderous takes on leprechaun lore:

• Leprechaun (1993) – Warwick Davis as the gold-obsessed killer terrorizes Jennifer Aniston and friends in a gloriously cheesy '90s slasher-comedy classic.
• Red Clover (2012) – A bloodthirsty leprechaun revives an ancient curse on St. Patrick's Day, turning a small town into a slaughterfest (aka Leprechaun's Revenge).
• Unlucky Charms (2013) – Aspiring models compete for a fashion gig but battle mythical killers, including a mischievous leprechaun-like Farr Darrig and his monstrous crew (aka Miscreations).

Grab your clover and watch your back! 🍀🔪

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Dad Bot of Horror. This is Butch Barr, your host. Again, no co-host, but we're working on it. So, welcome to episode 10 of season one. My goal was to get to 10 episodes, and I'm here. So I will congratulate myself. Welcome. Hopefully, you've listened to all 10. If not, hey, that's good too. So I've seen two movies, two horror movies, since the last time I've had a recording. The first one is called Whistle. Whistle is a movie where a bunch of high schoolers find something called a death whistle, and you know, something called a death whistle. Sure, why don't you blow it? So they do, and things happen. So I give this a six out of ten. It's on Prime, you'd have to buy or rent it. It's worth a watch, but I would wait until it's on some other streaming service where you don't have to pay for it. The second movie was called Cold Storage. This is for all intents and purposes a zombie movie. It's actually pretty good. Again, worth a watch. It stars Liam Neeson, Joe Carey from Stranger Things, and Georgina Campbell. And I'd give this a six out of ten, also. I think it definitely is worth a watch. So uh yeah, so those are two movies that I've uh watched since the last episode. So I will move on to um movie one of episode 10, which is Leprechaun from 1992. You can find it on Peacock, the production company is TriMark Pictures, the director is Mark Jones, the writer is Mark Jones. It stars Warwick Davis, Jennifer Andiston, and Ken Olent. The plot, an evil sadistic leprechaun goes on a killing rampage in search of his beloved pot of gold. Why this movie? With St. Patrick's Day solely moving upon us, I thought it was time for leprechaun movies. So each of the movies here has something to do with leprechauns. My favorite. Oh, how did I see it? So I know I saw this before Jennifer Anderson was a star, so I'm pretty sure I saw it on VHS. I'm sure I was walking around Clark's, I don't know if it was Clark's video yet or still Clark's uh appliance, and I'm sure that it just looked interesting because they do they were starting to do a lot of holiday horror movies. It was a thing. So this just looked kind of neat. My favorite kill, if I have one, if I have one, it's it's kind of silly. So there's a part in the movie where the leprechaun's in a house, and he's scaring an old lady. Oh, old lady, I call her an old lady, she's probably the same age I am. So a lady in her 50s, and he scares her down a flight of stairs to the cellar and and she dies. And it just it was just silly, and it's silly that she died, uh, falling down that way, especially the way she fell down. And it's funny because it's so funny that my wife even commented that you know, gosh, if she died from that fall down the steps, there was a lot more wrong with her than we knew. So, yeah, I thought it was kind of funny. So, the idea in this movie is that there's a guy in the beginning of the movie who tricks a leprechaun out of his gold, so he's rich, and he hurries back to his house, and he's got the gold with him, and he also, for some reason, leprechaun's with him, and the leprechaun's not happy that he got tricked out of his gold, so he wants his gold back, so he goes on a killing spree, but the guy locks him away, and new people eventually has a heart attack. New people buy the house and find his gold and accidentally let the leprechaun out, and shenanigans happen. So, this movie introduces people to some leprechaun lore. Some of it they made up, some of it is actually real. So, the idea is if you catch a leprechaun, it will show you where it has hidden its gold or give you three wishes. The thing is with the lore, is you have to remain, you have to keep eye contact with them. So they'll try to trick you into breaking eye contact with them, usually by pointing, oh, the gold's over there, and then you turn and look, and then now they're gone. Uh but in this, he said he tricked the leprechaun, so maybe they're not sticking with that port of the lore. So um the other thing is in this movie, they have there's a real thing where the leprechaun is scared of a four-leaf clover, and that uh a four-leaf clover can kill a leprechaun, which would mean why they're afraid of them. Um, I didn't find that anywhere in leprechaun lore. So that was totally made up. But um, I did find that leprechauns are known for being shoe cobblers, and in this particular movie, they I don't know if you hear something about this or what, but at one point they collect all these shoes and they start throwing all these shoes and he runs over to them and starts shining them. And so I don't think shining is part of it, and I don't think this is something where if he's chasing someone down, they throw a shoe, he runs over to it like he was in the movie. But it was kind of fun and it helped him get away in it. And I guess for the writers, it was a way to help our uh heroes in this. Now, when I say heroes, you know, think about this. The leprechaun got tricked, and the guy stole his gold. If someone would steal my gold, you know, came into my house and took my pot of gold, I'd be kind of mad too. I don't know if he I would kill people quite the way the leprechaun did, but I would do a lot to try to get my gold back. Yeah. So I kind of see where he's coming from. I'll just give him his his damn gold. And he'll leave you alone. It's as simple as that. I mean, and and I'm not even kidding. You know, at the end, well, towards the end, like Andison says, here's your gold, and he's over there counting it, and he leaves him alone. So, just you know, my thoughts on that. In the beginning of this movie, so as I told you, this guy comes home, he he tricked the leprechaun, he's got his gold, and he comes home, leprechaun follows him, and he tricks well, not he tricks, but using the four-leaf clover, he forces the leprechaun into a crate, and then he closes it up and he's hammering the lid on the crate. And I, you know, I'm pretty sure they must have used guides for him, but he was taking these nails that were like three, four inches long, and he's holding them there and he's knocking them in on like two hits, and that's amazing. Even with guides, even with guides there, you know, they could have drilled a hole there and all and they could have had a piece of tape there, and all I would have had to do was hit it through this piece of tape, which is not what it looked like he did. It still would have taken me five, six hits, and I probably would have hit at least two of my fingers while trying to do it. So it was pretty impressive. I I I was impressed anyway. So Jenna, Jennifer Anderson's character, and I don't remember her name in this, probably like Tori or something very I don't know, let's say obnoxious from the 90s. So he buys the house and he goes to help uh he hires three guys to help paint it. And uh house is in the middle of nowhere, and and it you know, it's you know, probably Indiana. I don't, I don't know, but it's in the middle of nowhere, maybe North Dakota, I don't know. And he hires these three guys, three guys painting, and uh one guy's a kid, and then uh there's Ken Olent's character, who's you know, a good-looking guy that in his 20s, and then there's uh a bigger, slightly older guy who is somewhere on the spectrum. He's obviously a little bit uh slower. So they're at the house and they're painting the house. Now, this is you know, the father called them in to paint the house, and the colors that were chosen were basically the same colors of Superman's you know, costume. It's uh you know, that Superman blue and then the red of like Superman's cape. That's what the shutter colors are, the red. The rest of the house is that blue. I mean, can you imagine a finished house looking like that? I mean, it would look like a freaking Lego house. I mean, seriously, it was like Lego blue, Lego red. That's what it would look like. But don't worry, they will never get the house finished because they were using brushes to paint everything. Like, I'm only assuming they were getting paid by the hour. That's why they were using brushes, because that's ridiculous. That's that's not how you get that particular job done. So at the end of the movie, there was a special thanks to George Lucas and Dan Quayle, which you would think is kind of weird at the end of a horror movie called Leprechaun. So uh Warwick uh was uh under contract to George Lucas. Um he had done Return of the Jedi and had done Willow, and he was under contract to Lucas, so Lucas needed to uh give permission for Warwick to be in this movie, which he did, of course. And then Dan Quayle cough, so he he helped expedite uh the work visa for Warwick Davis because Warwick Davis is a British citizen and uh he needed a visa to come here and shoot this movie. And apparently uh Dan Quayle helped help get it done, so he got a uh special thanks at the end of this movie. So speaking of Warwick Davis, he got top billing in this movie. For my generation, he was definitely the best-known little person out there. Definitely for my generation. I mean, yeah, and he was great, he was in a lot of things. The first thing he ever did, he was Wicked and Return of the Jedi, and that was really big. I mean, I remember like magazine articles about him playing wicked because he's just a little kid, you know, and it's a it's a big role dressing up like an Ewok, and and the Ewoks are a big part of this movie, and a reason why a lot of people don't like the movie. But don't blame Warwick Davis, that wasn't his fault. And after that, you know, he's actually Labyrinth as one of the uh goblins, I think. But eventually he went and was the title character Willow in the movie Willow, and which was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Um, I know uh I think it's more of a cult hit now, but I I mean I enjoyed the movie, it was okay. And Warwick Davis is still working today, so uh it he's just who he is, he's he's an actor and he's done a great job. He's and uh good for him. Now, for this movie, he did most of his own stunts, and strangely enough, he also convinced the director to uh lighten it up and make it more comedic. So if you watch a movie or having seen the movie, if you have, you'll notice I mean there's a lot of fun parts and a lot of you know silly parts in, especially with the Leprechaun character. And uh that was at uh Warwick Davison's suggestion because he thought uh he thought it would help. And I and I think that's what helps it become a cult classic the way it is, um, because it's fun to watch. Now, Jennifer Anniston. This was definitely pre-Friends. This was probably her second movie. I think the first one was a TV movie. She'd done some TV shows like Ferris Bruce Bueller's Day Off, the TV show. You can tell that that did not go well. But two years after this movie, Friends started up. So, and strangely enough, she kind of plays the same character. Um, in the beginning, if you remember her character and friends, Rachel is kind of spoiled brat. Her parents had provided everything for her, and she was gonna marry a dentist and just always have money. Um, and it seems like that was her character in this, where she was kind of a rich brat, you know, got anything she wanted, and uh and now bad things happen to her, and she's gotta adapt. So, and in both cases she does. Kent Olin. He was a guy, you know, he became kind of a character actor. He was never a leading man, and it was funny because he had leading man looks, and you'll hear this a lot from me about certain people, like they have the leading man looks, but something happened, like there was a reason why he never got that leading man the roles, or you know, like that those kind of jobs known for that, you know, like uh um you know, Tom Hanks, you know, leading man somehow, but this guy just never got it. It could have been this movie, could have sunk them. Um, there's a story of a guy I can't remember his name from The Warriors, the movie The Warriors. So, like after the Warriors, he was like the hottest thing out there, and for some reason he decided to do Xanadu um with uh Olivia Newton John, and it just tanked his career. Um, so this could have been it. This Leprechaun movie could have just killed him. And and the other actor in it was Mark Colton. Again, another great character actor. This is a chubby guy in a lot of movies that you've seen. He was in Teen Wolf, again, if you're going back to my time period, Teen Wolf and Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Again, you would a very recognizable character actor. So now I'm gonna move on to movie number two for season one, episode 10. And this movie's called Red Clover. It's from 2012. You can find it on Tubi and Plex. Production company is After Dark Films. The director is Drew Daywalt, and the writer is Anthony C. Ferrante. And you have to forgive me if I pronounce these names wrong. I'm doing the best I can. I mean, these seem pretty simple, but you know, it is what it is. It's starring Courtney Halverson, Billy Zane, and William Devane. The plot, a young woman accidentally releases a homicidal leprechaun while hunting, which brings back memories of her town's deadly pest. So, why this movie? Hey, it's got a killer leprechaun, and we're doing leprechaun movies. So, uh, yeah. How do they see it? I watched it for the first time for this podcast. There are not a lot of leprechaun horror movies out there that aren't part of the Warwick Davis leprechaun series. So, my favorite kill. Now, this was a tough one. There were two in this movie that I really enjoyed. The first one, the leprechaun runs over a guy with his own car. It's kind of silly because the leprechaun is not like the leprechaun in the movie Leprechaun. Like this thing looks like a creature, like an evil creature, like a wood spirit, evil creature. So, how this evil spirit wood creature knew how to get into a car and how to drive it and run someone down with, I've no idea, but it was hilarious. It really was hilarious. The second one, which I'm choosing again, they're kind of equal to me. There's a parade because they're celebrating St. Patrick's Day, and there's the queen of the on a float, and uh she's got a crown on made of gold. And this leprechaun creature is after gold. Because what happened was the you know, the great-grandparents of the people in the town kidnapped a leprechaun from Ireland, brought him over here to the States, settled down in whatever St. Patrick's Mill or whatever it was, and then they basically sucked gold out of him. Because in some cases, depending on the lore, leprechauns produce gold. So they just sucked all the gold out of him. So now that he's and and then they uh and then they uh basically trapped him. And now he's out free, he's getting as much gold as he can. And he's killing people getting in his way. So he's out there, there's a parade, the leprechaun comes and rips this crown made of gold off of the queen of the parade's head, and somehow he also rips out the back of her head, which is kind of neat. So, yeah, maybe I should be chuckling at that. Maybe, you know, maybe these horror movies have deadened me to some perverse farmers. Yeah, well, I'll get over it. So this movie introduces a whole bunch of like not true leprechaun lore. Uh, this one has horseshoes can hurt a leprechaun and can trap can trap them. Nope. Um, about that is in the lore anywhere. Uh, there's also like the the mark of the red clover, which is just absolutely made up, and I guess they just needed a title for the movie. I guess originally this was called Leprechaun. The movie was called Leprechaun's Revenge, but since probably people thought it was a sequel to Leprechaun, they decided not to go that way. Maybe they saw what happened with Halloween 3 and how much people hated it because they thought it was a sequel to Halloween, so maybe they decided not to do that. The Leprechaun, like I said, he looks kind of like an evil spirit. The the the practical makeup looked really good. You know, for for you know how inexpensive this movie was, obviously, to make. But the CGI stuff was was really bad. I mean, this was obviously a sci-fi network jobber. Um, so you know how that CGI stuff usually looks. Um, there's a lot of nuts stuff going on this movie. Um, but again, it's like a sci-fi network movie. That's the feel you get where the production quality is there, but like the acting and the story necessarily aren't. The best part in this whole movie, and I'm not kidding, the best part of this whole movie is Billy Zane, who plays a sheriff and the dad of the final girl. There's a moment where um it's like a father-daughter bonding moment, and she asks him, like, what happened to her mother? Like, apparently, this is something he never told her. So he tells a story about he and his wife going out Black Friday shopping for her to get her stuff. And he describes this Black Friday shopping, and he said, you know, we're we're going for stuff, and all of a sudden there's this, you know, it's like the crowd is all around us, and all of a sudden there's this big surge, and I lost your mother. You know, so I hear this and I'm thinking, like, thinking like, oh my god, she got crushed to death. That is really, I mean, I wouldn't even have told my daughter when we were shopping for her, like I would have just made something up that was, you know, maybe make your daughter now feel bad. But then, no, no, no, no, no, no. When he said he lost her mother, like he couldn't find her. He even went to the so far as to say, I even went to the lost and found. That is an actual lie he says when he lost her mother. I mean, it's just ridiculous. I mean, that's some of the nutso stuff going on in this movie. The stars, Courtney Halverson. She really hasn't done much since this movie. Billy Zane, I think most people can agree they saw him in Titanic. If you unfortunately saw Titanic, which again felt like a horror movie as I watched it. Um, he's been around the block. Again, another one of these guys that has like the the the lead actor looks. But like for him, it's just the talent's not there. I mean, I he's been in so many movies, but he's never been like the guy. You know, the well, the only one he ever was was The Phantom, which uh was a very disappointing uh superhero movie where he played the the the title character, the Phantom. Um I don't know. I don't know, I just never had it. And then uh William Devane is an incredible character actor who has been in everything and has been doing it forever. So the other note for this movie is that the writer, Anthony C. Ferrante, Ferrand, whatever, however you pronounce it, uh went on to direct Sharknado and many of the Sharknado sequels. So this is where he started. So you can definitely blame uh Red Clover for the Sharknado movies. So the last movie, the third movie and last movie in episode 10, season one, is Unlucky Charms. Yes, that is the title. It has a different title called like Miscreance, but uh this is how I found it, and it's from 2013. You can find it on Prime, Fossum, or Tubi. The production company is Full Moon Features. The director is Charles Band, and uh you'll start to recognize that name and know to stay away from those movies. The writer is Charles Band, Dominic Murr, and Kent Rowdybush. It stars Tiffany Thornton Thornton, excuse me, Seth Peterson, and Charlie O'Connell. The plot, five girls vie for a chance to model Diva D. D. Deville's fashion line, but they're soon competing for their lives against four mythical beings led by the mischievous Far Darig. Why this movie? I was told it had a leprechaun in it, and maybe it does. How did I see it? I was just looking for actually, I saw this before this podcast, so I forgot about that. I was just kind of looking for a horror movie that I hadn't seen, and this one looked ridiculous, so I watched it and I was right. The favorite kill. So one of the let's call them models in this movie is afraid of getting fat. And the guy that may have been the maybe the leprechaun then makes her so fat she dies. But I don't understand that. But like she just gets really, really obese, like her skin just expands, and it's just but then when they find her dead, she's skinny again. So I don't know. So I realized my third. Movie is usually like an independent horror movie, and you did hear me say is Full Moon Features, which isn't an independent production company, but most of their movies are as close to being independent as possible, like they do not spend a lot of money on these things. So the movie was kind of like America's Top Model mixed with a terrible horror movie, and I'm only guessing because I have never actually watched America's Top Model. So this movie could actually just be a show from America's Top Model. I really don't know. Didi DeVille is a black woman who is evil and killing to look younger. Um that does kind of remind me of Tyra Banks, and I believe she was a host of America's Top Model. Again, I've never seen it. The two main mythical beings in this are a Cyclops that somehow has magical powers and shoots beams out of his eyes, and a guy that looks like he could be a red leprechaun. So he could be the leprechaun in this movie. Leprechauns do wear red, although they are usually shown in green. So maybe the guy in the red was the leprechaun. Um, the other mythical creatures, um, the one was maybe a banshee, and I have no idea what the third one, uh, the last one, fourth one would have been. Not not a clue, not even not nope, none. So there is I love movies that have great lines that are ridiculous, like the first one about the six-page haiku, and this previous movie about he lost his wife. Sorry, it was so silly. I lost, I lost your mother. I even went to the lost and found. Anyway, this one's got a pretty pretty good one, too. So it's just to show how bad the writing was in this movie, and I'm paraphrasing this because I don't remember exactly how it went, but I'm paraphrasing this. So the Didi DeVille says to uh a model that won one of the competitions, you will be in a photo shoot with the photographer McGregor. He is world renowned all over the world. Yeah, well, if you're world renowned, that would mean all over the world. You're not world renowned in, you know, Kentucky. You're world renowned all over the world. That's the deal. So that was silly. Also, McGregor was Asian. So, hey, whatever. So the actors in this Tiffany Tiffany Thornton, I had to look her up on IMDb according to that. Um basically, she was in the Disney circuit for the while a while, and this is definitely not a Disney movie, so apparently she's trying to break out, or maybe as she got older, the Disney crowd was much less interested in her. Seth Peterson is another one of these character actors that kind of got around. I remember him best as Nate Weston, Michael Weston's brother on Burn Notice. And then uh the last and least is Charlie O'Connell, the lesser talented of the O'Connell brothers. And again, Seth Peterson and Charlie O'Connell, they both have like leading man good looks, but with Charlie, there's just no talent there. And I don't know what it is with Seth. Everything I've seen him in, I've loved him. So, and you know what? Character actors can have a great living and still be like one of these I know you from something, but you know, can still go see a movie without getting swamped for autographs. So good for them. So that's all I had for this week. Thanks for joining me on these 10 episodes. And I look forward to making more. And for all of you out there, have fun.