So it's come to this: Leprechaun in Space. Get ready.

Normally, this is the part of the review where I give some sort of information on the film.  However, we're going to do something a bit different this time - some boring life and times of Jon Lickness storytime.  Hopefully no one wants to slit their wrists two minutes from now.

It's been three weeks since my last review, and in that time, I moved.  At 29 years old, I'm now the owner of an honest-to-christ HOUSE, and it's awesome.  I've got the horror collection on prominent display, I've got all 30+ Batman trade paperbacks firmly planted in my living room of all places, and I've got DISH Network and, by proxy, the ability to order wrestling pay-per-views from my living room instead of my goddamn laptop.  But that's not the most important thing.  That would be the fact that, for the first time in my life, I now have a place to put a brand-spanking new HDTV.  Which means that, after all of my bitching and moaning about Blu-Ray technology, I finally have something that can play it in the format that it's intended for.  And...it's awesome. 

I don't own any Blu-Ray discs yet, but I've been rewatching a lot of my long-neglected DVDs lately in glorious upconverted-to-1080i format.  It's really been an eye-opening experience.  Even better, summer dumbass blockbuster movie season is officially over - we've got Halloween Horror Season on the horizon, we've got The Possession opening in theaters today, we've got that new Clint Eastwood-Amy Adams baseball flick that looks all kinds of awesome.  In short, my love of movies has been rekindled.

So, with that, the first HMM review from the brand-new Lick Ness Monster HQ - Leprechaun 4: In Space.  I've heard a LOT about this movie - released in 1997, Filet-o-Fish budget - so let's just get right to it, shall we?

THE MOVIE!!

Welcome to an indeterminate date in THE FUTURE.  You know how Aliens had a group of badass space soldiers on an intergalactic search-and-destroy mission?  Well, this movie has the same thing.  Only they're much, much more annoying.  Their leader is Sergeant Hooker (Tim Colceri), a dude with a metal plate protruding from his skull who also uses the phrase "son of a bitch" more times than anyone I've ever known save for my high school gym teacher. 

Before I get going further, I should point out that I actually recognize a couple of people making up this film's Marine Corps.  The first is Debbe Dunning as the sluttish Costello, best known as Heidi from Home Improvement and the source of much, much private joy in the life of the adolescent Lick Ness Monster.  The other is Miguel A. Nunez Jr. as cool guy Marine "Sticks," , known to most as the star of the godawful comedy Juwanna Mann but best known to me as one of my favorite Friday the 13th victim characters of all time - little Reggie's older brother Demon.  Those damn enchiladas will kill ya.

That little bit of exposition out of the way, these guys are on their way to a planet called Ithacon in order to eliminate a creature causing problems for Earth's mining operations.  Three guesses as to just what creature we're talking about.

Yup, it's the Leprechaun, presumably making life miserable for the talked-about-yet-never-seen-because-the-budget-won't-allow-it mining company in order to pad his pot o' gold.  Or something.  In addition, he has also resumed his mating interest from Leprechaun 2, as he has somehow managed to kidnap an alien princess named Zarina (the insanely hot Rebekah Carlton) for the purpose of wooing her, murdering her father, and eventually marrying her to become King of the Universe.  Seriously, that's implied.  This time, it's not just for gold.  It's for THE WORLD.  Capitalization alert.

And...the Marines soon arrive.  I should mention that the main characters in our protagonist group are nice guy Sergeant "Books" Malloy (Brent Jasmer) and friendly medical officer Tina Reeves (the rather fetching blonde Jessica Collins, of Tru Calling relative fame).  Of the entire cast, they're the only ones who don't immediately stand out as future Leprechaun fodder, and the director does his damndest to convey some sort of romantic tension between them throughout the film.  Considering that Brent Jasmer doesn't even have a hyperlink on Wikipedia, this sweeping love story doesn't go too well.  I should also point out that Collins' character was sent for the mission at the last minute by Dr. Mittenhand (Guy Siner), a disembodied head who periodically appears on a video screen to give our characters various orders, all while talking like the most aggravating James Bond villain you've ever heard.

While Warwick Davis puts his best pimp on Zarina (he actually manages to win her over after promising her the fortune that her hapless father lost - her character really isn't portrayed sympathetically in the least bit, she's a spoiled brat and almost as power hungry as her pint-sized suitor).  And I'll say this for high-definition - it really makes the cardboard sets stand out.  With the power of 1080i pixelation, Ithacon looks like a honeycomb representation of a planet.  Or something. 

With very little intrigue, one of the greedier Marines happens upon a huge treasure trove of gold.  Or rather, a psychic representation of gold delivered by the Leprechaun.  This leads to our first kill (lightsaber to the shins - nice), followed by a gunfight that results in Zarina being shot and the Leprechaun being blown to bits by a grenade.  Allegedly. 

Alright, folks, we're about to enter Act Two.  I hope I'm not coming across too exasperated quite yet.

The Marines - and Dr. Reeves - take the body of Zarina back onto the ship under the orders of Mittenhand with the premise of "improving relations with her home planet."  Seems like a sound enough plan to me.  In celebration of their successful mission, the soldiers soon enough begin a big, rocking '80s movie style drunken blowout.  Hilarious in and of itself, but we also get the glory of Debbe Dunning dancing in a very sexy fashion.  +2 points for the movie, right there.  Dunning is able to seduce one of the Marines - named Kowalski - and leads him away from the party for some hot coitus, and it's here where we get a scene for the ages.

So, after the Leprechaun was blown up on Ithacon, Kowalski decided to urinate on his remains.  Apparently, this led to some sort of Leprechaun-y possession of his unit that manifests itself at the absolute worst time.  He and Dunning begin making out on some remote section of the ship, and the action starts to get heavier.  Before he can seal the deal, however, the almighty crotch demon AWAKENS, as a bulge appears and...Warwick Davis pops out of a man's penis.

You know, this series is quite terrible, but I'll give them this - every film has given me one sequence that I'll never, ever forget.  The first had Jennifer Aniston and Company beating down the Leprechaun Rodney King-style.  The second had the lawnmower blade kill.  The third had Warwick Davis interacting with an Elvis impersonator.  And now we've got perhaps the most wacky moment yet - a horror villain being reborn after being pissed on and emerging from the sexual organs of the offending character.  As far as horror movie villain regenerations, I'd say that this is the best of all time.  Sorry, flaming dog urine from Nightmare on Elm Street 4, there's a new champion.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Dunning runs back to the rest of her team and kindly informs them that there is a murderous stowaway on their ship.  Through some means that I didn't quite catch - mainly because I was half-asleep by this point - they determine that the Leprechaun is located in the ship's waste disposal unit where another of the meatheads is killed off.  It isn't a very creative death - his hazmat suit taken off while in the waste disposal chamber, leading to some off-screen skeletonizing.  It seems to scare the other characters quite a bit, however, as they soon do their best Monty Python impression and decide that running away is the best course of action.

Back on the bridge, we get a Vince Russo-style swerve, as it turns out that Dr. Mittenhand reveals that he has been on board the ship the entire time.  Due to a computer experiment gone horribly awry...well, he looks like this.

Yep.  Having discovered that the blood of Princess Zarina's species has regenerative powers, he has plans on using her preserved carcass to repair his mutilated body, and while the Marines want to abort the mission, this guy makes it quite clear that retreat equals treason, and even offers them a cut of the mining profits if they stay and attempt to kill the intruder.

And there you have it, kids.  Our characters begin to split and pair off in search of the Leprechaun - who in turn is looking for his bride-to-be and ticket to ruling the galaxy.  This means that we get several more death scenes as Warwick DAvis makes short work of several more cast members.  He crushes a Marine under a metal structure, drops Debbe Dunning to her death, and cartoonishly flattens Dr. Mittenhand's lecherous assistant's face after convincing him that Tina has shown up at the door completely stripped of her clothes.  I should also point out that this guy attempted to grope the unconscious body of Princess Zarina only to be interrupted by Dr. Mittenhand before he could complete the fondling session.  So this is really a cheer-out-loud death.

Zarina awakens, and immediately orders her husband-to-be to destroy Dr. Mittenhand. He responds by injecting Mittenhand with a mixture of Zarina's regenerative blood along with spider and scorpion specimens.  In a movie full of sound plans, this is by far the best.

Okay, get ready for another Amazing Scene.  The remaining protagonists (for those keeping score, we're down to Books, Tina, Sticks and Sergeant Hooker) burst back onto the main bridge to find only Zarina.  The Leprechaun appears behind them and takes Hooker as a hostage.  This SHOULD have been the end of the scene, but it gets so much better.  Zarina unsnaps her bra and shows her funbags to the protagonists, then goes off on a long-winded soliloquy where she instructs them to "look upon these and despair."  At least that's kind of what I remember - there were boobies on my television screen.  After popping her top back together, she departs with the Leprechaun and the now captive Hooker, and we get perhaps the best movie line of all time, delivered by Tina: "Don't get too excited, boys.  On Dominia, a woman of royalty showing you her breasts is a death sentence."  Ladies and gentlemen, we have the best excuse for gratuitous nudity in motion picture history.

"Look at these.  You're DEAD!!"

The Sergeant Hooker death scene follows which, while not quite an Amazing Scene, is still pretty out there.  Dig this - the Leprechaun convinces Hooker that he is a drag queen and uses his magical powers of coercion to puppeteer him into duking it out with the rest of the crew before eventually getting his head cracked open.  And he's a CYBORG.  Aliens ripoff alert.  Thus concludes the screenwriter crack alert portion of Leprechaun 4: In Space.

Okay, where are we at now...so the Leprechaun and Zarina head to the cargo bay in search of his stolen gold (yep, this movie does feature the tried-and-true "looking for ME GOLD" story, albeit much less emphatically than the previous flicks).  While en route, our terrible twosome (dodges tomatoes) activate the ship's self-destruct mechanism and get into their first lover's quarrel, which prompts the Leprechaun to psychically convince Zarina that she has a huge collection of warts on her face before knocking her out with his trademark shelale.  Soon after, he finds his gold, but it has been shrunk by one of Dr. Mittenhand's inventions. 

Speaking of Dr. Mittenhand...he has managed to sneak back into the movie.  Actually, sneak may be the wrong word, since the injections suffered at the hand of the Leprechaun have turned him into a bizarre man-spider-scorpion-slime-gloppola monster contraption.  It's yet another one of those things that has to be seen to be believed in the Leprechaun series, but there it is - a man-spider-scorpion-slime-gloppola monster on my television.  And it just makes me that much happier.  What this means from here on out - we now have villain #3 in the form of this guy wandering around the bridge looking to exact revenge on his former subordinates.  All while screaming in the most slimy manner imaginable.

Well, we're now firmly stuck in "Movie Self-Destruct Mode" by this point.  You know what I mean.  Lots of flashing red lights and computer voices from this point out.  Unfortunately for yours truly, there's yet more fascination to recap.  Sticks makes his way to the escape shuttle (I think) and gets trapped by Mittenspider's webbing.  Meanwhile, back in the cargo bay, Books and Tina run into the Leprechaun, where Tina blows the Leprechaun up to several times his own size with Mittenhand's enlargement ray.  I'll say this...it's moderately amusing to see Warwick Davis stomp around on a set in forced perspective.

The Giant Leprechaun (just typing that makes me happy) begins stalking our heroes, who decide to split up (geez, what's with these people and splitting up?).  Books remains behind to duke it out with his giant foe while Tina heads through the air ducts to attempt to halt the auto-destruct.  While crawling through the ducks, a hilarious moment is presented as Mittenspider attacks and rips off her pants in a smooth, easy motion.  Seriously, you wouldn't think the guy was AIMING for seeing the woman's panties up close and personal...but there's his hand, acting as an extremely efficient hook.  The bonus?  The admittedly hot Jessica Collins running around in her underwear for the remainder of the movie.  Shits and giggles all around, I must say.

Alright, kids, we're almost there...THE GRAND FINALE.  A stunningly non-scary game of cat-and-mouse ensues between Books and Giant Leprechaun, wherein Books finds the now-hot-again Zarina and, for mysterious reason, carries her away to relative safety.  I've got to say, this doesn't make much sense, and really isn't satisfying.  This woman spent much of the movie being an unlikable bitch, assisted the main villain in killing some of the heroes...and now here's our chunkheaded main dude lifting her to salvation.  As bad as the movie is...this might have left a worse taste in my mouth than anything else.  And that's saying something.

Tina - who, if you need to be reminded, is running around in tiny panties - makes her way into the escape shuttle, finding Sticks in his webified state...and one pissed off spider/former boss behind her.  A brief struggle ensues, and Tina wins out, freezing Mittenspider with liquid nitrogen before giving him the Terminator 2 treatment, shattering him into a million pieces with a gunshot. 

And...that's pretty much it.  Books makes his way to the bridge, Tina manages to figure out the disarm password to halt the self-destruct, the Leprechaun is shot out of the ship's airlock and explodes, Books and Tina kiss and confirm their mutual attraction, and we get our semi-humorous ending, as the Giant Leprechaun Hand gives the camera the middle finger.  Very apt, considering the 93 minutes that preceded this.  Although I've got to say...I'm surprised that Miguel A. Nunez managed to survive this movie.  Demon rises!

FINAL ANALYSIS: If you're not expecting much, you won't be disappointed.  I wasn't expecting much from Leprechaun 4: In Space.  According to some folks on the good ol' interwebz, this is the worst movie in the entire series.  I wouldn't quite go THAT far - it's hard for me to imagine something worse than the incredibly mean-spirited second film.  Having said all that...yeah, this flick is pretty bad.  The characters are terrible and not very likable, the scares are nonexistant, and the acting...yeesh.  ESPECIALLY the guy who plays Books.  He's K-Stew levels of bad.  Having said that, the AFOREMENTIONED Amazing Scenes, somewhat different storyline and plethora of hot chicks that this movie parades out are all entertaining in their very different ways.  Not enough to recommend this flick on any level, but hey, it's better than, say, The Devil Inside.  * 1/2 out of ****.