Leprechaun Series Locale #5: THE HOOD!

Okay, kids, we've come to this.  Up until this point, the Leprechaun series had gone...essentially every other direction it could have gone, really.  The countryside.  The big city.  Las vegas itself.  Outer frickin' space.  In a series where really little changes other than the locale, sooner or later, it had to reach this. 

Ahhh...Leprechaun: In The Hood.  Coming to video store shelves in early 2000, this particular entry in the [i]Leprechaun[/i] saga is a real mixed bag - some fans see it as a welcome change of pace for the franchise, others think it's just as crappy as the first four installments.  Me?  I'm not quite so sure.  The mood significantly different than anything I've seen from the series thus far, but as we've learned, different does not necessarily always mean better.  I'd have to say that this law is fully in effect here. 

Oh, and Ice-T is in the flick.

I've gone through a very weird pop culture fandom journey with Ice throughout my existence.  As a kid, I used to love the hell out of his song "Colors" to the point where my brother once got royally pissed off at me for keeping his "Cool Rap" compilation cassette tape (remember those?) too long.  Around my teenage years, I was a big fan of his film Surviving the Game which once got shown on MonsterVision for some reason or another (it wasn't really a horror film, so don't ask me).  And lately...I don't know, I won't change the channel if Special Victims Unit is on.  While I enjoy his rapping (although LL totally owned his ass in their early-'90s feud), watching him in this movie, it legit amazes me that he ever got the role on SVU.  Everyone else's milage may vary, but I don't find acting to be the guy's strong point.

THE MOVIE!!

The film opens with a truly epic confrontation.  Two jive soul bros (one of whom played by T, the other one a nonentity whose name I won't even bother to learn) are looking for lost gold.  In a captivating bit of continuity, the Leprechaun is trapped in a statue exactly like the one seen in Leprechaun 3 surrounded by his pot o' gold and bound - just like in said third film - by a necklace around its neck.  Before the first dissolve hits, random idiot is dead, Ice-T has managed to subdue the Leprechaun threat, and we've already had more afros than legally allowed in 34 states. 

Flash forward twenty years, which unfortunately means that we have to meet our protagonists for this particular go-round.  Our lead guy - Postmaster P.  Occupation - rapper with Positivity (hence the P).  He's played by Anthony Montgomery of Star Trek: Enterprise, and for what it's worth, the dude actually puts every bit of his somewhat suspect acting chops into the role of a rapper bucking the trend of gangsta.  His buddies, however, aren't as likable - there's impulsive Stray Bullet (Rashaan Nall) and idiot Butch (Red Grant).  See those one-word character descriptions?  That's pretty much all you need to know.

Moving right along, here's your basic setup - these guys are desperate to get played and make it, and in this movie's fictional universe, the best way to make it is through record producer Mack Daddy O'Nassus.  O'Nassus, is, of course, Ice-T himself, now twenty years older and relatively wiser.  He's also the possessor of the Leprechaun's magical flute, which has a sort of mind-altering power over anyone who hears it.  Long story short, they perform for T, he wants them to change their act, and they refuse.  Only since we need a better setup than that, Stray talks Postmaster and Butch into raiding Mack Daddy's pad (where the Leprechaun statue now resides, along with the flute) for loot, a process that results in Postmaster shooting O'Nassus dead and wandering off with both the necklace and the flute, awakening the Leprechaun in the process.

Want some unintentional hilarity that nobody could write?  This movie, with oodles of ghetto slanguage and "N" words aplenty, was written by a guy named Mark Jones.  Yeah.

I'm going to do my absolute damndest to streamline the remainder of this review, partly because I'm tired and partly because you're likely really, really bored.  Ice-T actually SURVIVED the shooting (his big gold Cross stopped the bullet), meaning that he's plenty pissed off at the wannabe rappers who raized his belongings.  After sharing a joint with the Leprechaun (seriously), the two declare a truce as they have a common enemy in the three schlubs who made off with their treasures.

So here's your film for the next thirty minutes or so:

(1) Ice-T marauding around, doiong his best to look menacing while getting revenge on our (*sigh*) heroes;
(2) Postmaster (who is struggling with guilt after reniging on his Positivity platform by using guns and stealing from Mack Daddy), Stray and Butch utilizing the mind-altering power of the flute in a few rap cadences while on the run from Mack Daddy;
(3) Warwick Davis, once again exceptionally watchable in this film despite the expectedly awful story, attempting to reclaim his flute. 

Of course, there's plenty of blips on the radar along the way.  More than a few people get offed by the Leprechaun, including not one but TWO pawn shop owners (one of whom played by the same guy who couldn't pronounce George Costanza's name in the Chinese restaurant) and a drag queen whom the protagonists briefly shack up with.  Don't ask.  Truth be told, they aren't very creative murders; certainly nothing along the lines of that legendary lawnmower blade scene from the second film.  Then again, few horror movie deaths are.  All things added up, the death toll this time is pretty pedestrian, so don't go in expecting any sort of bloodbath.  The best death is one of Mack Daddy's goons, who gets psychically shot by the Leprechaun, complete with Ice-T looking through the bullet hole.  

If you can't tell, this movie' second act consists of a whole heap o' tedium, so let's just warp ahead to the final trimester, shall we?  The Leprechaun and Mack Daddy track the trio to a church where they've holed up.  The brief partnership between the two bad guys ends here as Ice-T cuts a vicious Bobby Lashley-style promo on his diminuitive friend.  Mack Daddy himself manages to evade harm after the AFOREMENTIONED goon gets excavated.  Meanwhile, our heroes manage to trap the Leprechaun in a safe, but this only winds up REALLY pissing him off.  Leprechaun's response?  Simple - conjure up some Zombie Fly Girls!

Seriously, that's actually what he says.  These chicks become his loyal servants for the remainder of the film and, to be fair, they're pretty smokin' hot.  They have powers much like the Leprechaun does, and their eyes light up mystical green to signify their allegiance to the little dominator in buckled shoes.  Popping this movie in the ol' DVD player, the last thing I expected were three characters named Zombie Fly Girls, but there they are.  Pure genius.

Meanwhile, Postmaster, Stray and Butch are keeping their rap career going despite the mortal threat against their lives, and utilize the flute to impress a record executive into letting them into some kind of rap contest in LAS VEGAS, BABY (/Heath Slater).  Almost immediately after hearing this, the Leprechaun - Fly Girls in tow - shows up to reclaim his flute, forcing Stray to shoot himself in the process.  I ACTUALLY thought this movie was going to end on this admittedly down note, but nope - we've still got the mother of all finales to talk about.

Remember how I said in my last review how every film in this series has given me at least one thing that I'll never, ever forget?  Well, this movie is no different.  Butch buys a copy of "Leprechauns for Dummies" (seriously) and has concocted a truly masterful plan - get the little guy to smoke some four-leaf-clover-infused weed.  Four-leaf clovers, if you'll recall from the extensive lore of the Leprechaun series, are one of the many weaknesses that the screenwriters have dreamed up.  Butch has also discovered the hotel that the Leprechaun is staying at, and that he's basically a pimp now.  Amazingly enough, this is actually shown, as the Fly Girls bring him a new, um, employee to service him.  Yeah.  Leprechaun loves him some pussy.  The final cog in the plan - how to get close to the Leprechaun?

Why, of course - dress up like hookers and make their way up to the Leprechaun's room.  Now, I've never seen the movie White Chicks, nor do I have any plans on reversing that fact, but I do know this - the Wayans Brothers looked absolutely, positively nothing like human females in the commercials for that epic film.  And, well, Anthony Montgomery isn't much better.  Amazingly, despite this, it goes off practically without a hitch, as the Leprechaun smokes some of the clove-infused weed that the dragified Postmaster and Butch bring, putting him to sleep. 

They immediately grab the whistle and scamper off, only to be stopped by the returning Mack Daddy, who shoots Butch.  Red Grant gets the opportunity to show his Charlton Heston-style acting chops here with a death soliloquy that rivals anything in Shakespeare, dammit.  A tense standoff ensues in which Postmaster wrestles with his inner morals, brandishing a gun on Mack Daddy and debating whether or not to blow the sucker away...and he decides to go ahead and do it, thinking he has escaped with the flute and his ticket to rap superstardom. 

BUT THE TWIST IS (blatantly stealing from Troy Steele's awesome "Blogger Beware" website): The Leprechaun has recovered from his weed stupor, surprising Postmaster and reclaiming the flute.  He also manages to blow away a not-quite-dead-yet Mack Daddy (Jesus, how many lives does that guy have?) with another psychic bullet before entrancing Postmaster as another one of his slaves, leading to a legendary closing rap montage as Warwick Davis gets down with his bad self and unleashes "Lep in the Hood."  All things considered, Davis raps about as well as anybody I've heard in at least ten years.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Well, this one is...interesting.  I'd been looking forward to this movie in the series due to what I thought would be a dark and atmospheric "hood" tone.  That's not what I got, but what are you going to do when you're given a budget of approximately 75 cents in Mallow-Cup money.  I've got to hand it to Anthony Montgomery, who actually turns in a pretty good performance - it may not have come across in the review, but he's believable as a rapper who wants to take positivity to the charts (something that I'm firmly on the side of, for the record) wrestling with selling out and living the dirty lifestyle.  As usual, Davis looks like he's having even loads of fun.  I know I've said this numerous times, but you can really tell that he LOVES the character that he plays.  Everything else, though, is pretty much a wash.  None of the other characters are likable, the story is preposterous even by direct-to-DVD horror standards, and the scares are once again nonexistant.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  * out of ****.