Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (2003)

Movie Info

The only way to enjoy this movie

The Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) is back and looking for his gold.  The gold is the hands of a group of inner city friends who discovered it on a construction site and have decided to use it to make their dreams come true.  Unfortunately, the dreams are about to become a nightmare because the Leprechaun wants his gold and will stop at nothing to get it back!

Directed by Steven Ayromlooi, Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood (also called Leprechaun 6:  Back 2 Tha Hood) is a horror comedy blaxploition film.  The movie is a follow-up to Leprechaun in the Hood from 2000 but has no related characters or plotlines.  The movie was released directly to DVD and panned by critics.

There’s some weird stuff going down at the beauty parlor

The Leprechaun movies could generally be described as “bad”.  Leprechaun in the Hood had some genuinely entertaining moments and concepts (though still bad).  I had hope with Leprechaun:  Back 2 Tha Hood that these concepts would be expanded or at least revisited.  Neither really happened and this film just comes off as a bad blaxploitation movie.

Leprechaun in the Hood knew it was a bad movie and had fun with it by poking fun at other bad genres.  This movie feels a bit more like a throwback to the more horror based Leprechaun movies and as proven time and time again, the Leprechaun isn’t that scary.  The writing lends itself a lot to comedy but the jokes fall “short” by mostly playing off Davis being a little person.

The movie doesn’t have much star power, and Davis is the “star”.  It does get into that strange uncomfortable “is he being used or is he using them” aspect of performances of actors like little people.  There aren’t many dwarf actors who have made a name for themselves like Davis, but does things like playing leprechauns reinforce bad stereotypes?  Davis’ BBC show Life is Short played around a bit with this idea but it does leave viewers here a bit uncomfortable since it isn’t reflexive and mostly ends up with jokes about him being short.

No crystal ball needed to know that this is a stinker

This also looks like one of the cheaper entries in the series.  The previous entry was intentionally cheap, but this movie is chock full of scenes of people riding motorcycles, etc. to fill out a rather flimsy plot.  The Leprechaun make-up maintains its quality, but the special effects and horror are lacking.

Leprechaun:  Back 2 tha Hood isn’t a good film and not a very good sequel to a so-so entry in a bad series.  The movie marked the end of the franchise (at least for Davis for now) until it was revived in 2014 with Leprechaun:  Origins starring Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl of the WWE in the title role.

Related Links:

Leprechaun (1993)

Leprechaun 2 (1994)

Leprechaun 3 (1995)

Leprechaun 4:  In Space (1997)

Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)