Leprechaun Returns is a 2018 SyFy original movie that serves as a sequel to the classic comedy horror film Leprechaun. The film is about Lubdan the Leprechaun terrorizing a college sorority after one of them woke him up by yelling into the same well where he supposedly died back in 1993. Yet another reboot of the Leprechaun film series, but many viewers found this movie a lot more faithful to the original film series (Leprechaun 1, 2, 3, In Space, In the Hood, Back 2 tha Hood) than Origins was, especially regarding the depiction of the titular character.
This is a movie all about gruesome, bloody killing - so beware of SPOILERS!! They will not be marked because this is a heavily violent, death-oriented movie or else the whole page will be whited out!
I WANT ME TROPES!
- The Alleged Car: The group's Toyota Prius. In real life, it was never known to be quick, but it can keep pace with contemporary traffic. It's portrayed in the film as electric and so slow that Lubdan is able to catch up with it while riding on a camera drone.
- Asshole Victim:
- Andy, he was a jerkass who made surprise scares.
- Meredith, as she was a Dirty Coward betraying everyone to Lubdan to save her own skin.
- Back for the Dead: Ozzie returns just to get killed off in minutes.
- Big "NO!": Ozzie when he realizes Lubdan woke up.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Before decapitating Matt with his drone, Lubdan quips that "audiences love lots of gore".
- Canon Discontinuity: Returns discards any sequels to the original movie from "Leprechaun 2" to "Back 2 tha Hood" where he went to Las Vegas and outer space by writing in Lubdan didn't wake up since 1993. Unless each Leprechaun is a different character except this one.
- Chest Burster: Happens to Ozzie as Lubdan invokes this.Lubdan: Papa?
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: The sorority thought that Ozzie was crazy and a weirdo... they later see why.
- Deal with the Devil: When Lubdan gets trapped in a circle of wrought iron, he offers Lila a wish in exchange for his freedom. He further tempts her (using her late mother's voice) that she can use the wish to bring her mother back. Lila declares that she just wishes him dead and shoves a hose into his mouth whilst Rose pumps the hose with clover juice; blowing the leprechaun to gory bits.
- Dirty Coward: Meredith admits that she sold Lila out to Lubdan because Lubdan offered to spare her life in exchange for giving up Lila's location. Lubdan points out that he only promised not to lay his hands on her.
- Dramatic Irony: Ozzie tries telling (or miming) to Lila that he was a key witness to Lubdan's initially defeat when a four-leaf clover was slingshotted into his mouth. If you watch the first Leprechaun movie, you'd know what Ozzie meant. Lila doesn't get any of it.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Lila and Katie succeed in escaping (though Katie's seriously injured from being impaled but fortunately through non-vital organs), Lila's only suffered a few cuts and burns and while Lubdan is still alive he's put off killing and pursuing them so that he can get his gold back. But then you realize that because Lubdan is still alive, he's now on his way to Bismarck to get his gold back. And even with only a tenth of his gold, he's ridiculously dangerous. If he reclaims all his gold, he'll get even more powerful. Or if he DOES get his gold back, he'll have no reason to kill anyone (though he might still want to). Your call whether Lubdan getting back all his gold will be for better or for worse. Though we'll have to wait and see if he does get his gold back or not.
- The End... Or Is It?: Lubdan survived at the end. He hitchhikes a ride on a chicken truck on its way to Bismarck, North Dakota so he can reclaim his gold.
- Exact Words: Ludban promised to not lay his hands on Meredith, so he kills her with a long-range method by hitting her with flying sprinklers.
- Friendly Zombie: Ozzie becomes a zombie ghost after the Leprechaun kills him.
- Giggling Villain: Ludban returns to this, maliciously giggling at every turn.
- Good Luck Charm:
- Ozzie has been carrying giant 4-leaf clovers around him living in constant fear of Lubdan's return.
- Lila wears a necklace her mother bestowed on her to protect her from harm (we mean the Leprechaun).
- Gorn: It's a lot gorier than the previous installments.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Lubdan literally splits Andy in half (vertically) between the front and behind.
- Hate Sink: Meredith is a rude, selfish stoner that can't be relied on by her friends and sells them out to save her own skin.
- Hollywood Darkness: The house the protagonists are in loses power more than once (due to a popped fuse, a prank, or other sabotages) and the movie takes mostly place at night.
- Homage:
- There's one to the shower scene from Psycho.
- The way Leprechaun is divided into tiny versions is similar to Ash's evil mirror counterpart in Army of Darkness.
- Whether by coincidence or design, the way the leprechaun is killed (a hose shoved in his mouth, something pumped into his body until he explodes) is similar to how Chucky was killed in Child's Play 2.
- There are also a few nods to the Crichton Leprechaun newscast
, including Rose theorizing that he's actually a crackhead who got a bad batch.
- Hostile Hitchhiker: Played for Laughs with Lubdan at the end; he holds up a sign saying "BISMARCK OR BUST" waiting for someone to give him a lift. A chicken truck driver comes along and relents to his pleas. Instead of harming the driver, Lubdan just sits and sulks over both his loss of gold and the loud, feathery birds he has to deal with for the remainder of the trip on the back of the pickup.
- I Will Show You X!: A tiny Lubdan stabs Rose in her breast with a hammer (the end with a claw), then he mocks "STOP! Hammer Time!"Rose: I'll give you geriatrics some hammer time!
- Laser-Guided Karma: Both Rose and Meredith's deaths are karmic. Meredith for being a Dirty Coward selling out everyone else to Lubdan to save her own skin (with Lubdan killing her anyways upon completion of the deal), and Rose for having taken Lubdan's gold to trade it in for cash she planned on using to upgrade the house.
- MacGuffin: Lubdan's gold. All that appears in the movie is the pot itself with no more than 20% of the gold Lubdan once had.
- Mailman vs. Dog: One of Lubdan's first victims is a mailman.
- Off with His Head!: How Lubdan greeted the mailman, though rather than decapitation it was by running his head over with his own mail carrier truck. He then decapitates Matthew with his own spy drone. The tiny Lubdans also drop Rose flat-face into a gold shovel-shaped trophy, impaling her in the head.
- Revenge of the Sequel: Lubdan's first intention when he returns? KILL, KILL, KILL!
- Sequel Hook: Lubdan surviving at the end leaves room open for sequels to come. In the older movies, Lubdan kept getting killed at the end.
- Shower Scene: Lila has a shower at one point. Lubdan, being the Troll that he is, silently stalks outside the shower for a few moments and then flushes the toilet.
- Spin-Offspring: Lila, the main protagonist of the movie, turns out to be the daughter of Tory Redding (played by Jennifer Aniston) who was the protagonist of the original Leprechaun movie.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Ozzie is killed off at the beginning when Lubdan uses his body as his ticket out of the well. Lila has mentioned that her mother Tory Redding has also passed.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: It turns out that fighting a bloodthirsty supernatural monster will traumatize you pretty badly, as this movie reveals that Tory spent the rest of her life paranoid about supernatural monsters coming to get her.
- Take That!:
- Lubdan retains his shoe-cleaning compulsion. Except if said shoes are Crocs, in which case he'll put them straight in the trash bin.Lubdan: Probably doin' fashion a favor killing that one.
- Lubdan sees the gang try to get away in a rather slow electric car. (The sorority girls are shown to be avid about the environment)Lubdan: That's the car of the future? Shit...
- Lubdan retains his shoe-cleaning compulsion. Except if said shoes are Crocs, in which case he'll put them straight in the trash bin.
- Tone Shift: Played with. There is little nudity or even F-word cussing in this movie. There was tons of nudity and profanity back in the original Leprechaun movies. Curiously, there's still plenty of bloody gore and violence, and Returns maintains the R rating as did the older movies. If anything, this reboot has a lot of bleeding and slicing to a level not present or absent on-screen in the older movies (which operated on a low budget and so on-screen bloodshed might not have been affordable).
- Twisting the Words: Meredith and Lubdan make a deal: if Meredith sells out everybody else, Lubdan shall not lay a hand on her. Meredith assumes this means Lubdan will spare her life - Lubdan then claims her assumption was wrong, he was being very literal about simply keeping only his hands off of her and stabs her in the mouth with a water sprinkler.
- Un-Reboot: After a poorly-received reboot, Returns goes back to the original continuity and discards the reboot entirely (along with every sequel to the original film before Returns).
- The Voiceless: Ozzie after he dies and reanimates as a zombie.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Lubdan now looks like a zombified version of the original Leprechaun played by Warwick Davis.
