Editorials
Leprechaun vs. Candyman?! Seven Planned ‘Leprechaun’ Movies That Never Happened
The Leprechaun franchise is a fascinating oddity of a series. While Friday the 13th, Child’s Play, Halloween and the rest have all had their weird twists and turns, none of them have taken so many weird turns with such regularity as this one. It’s a bizarre series because, really, it isn’t a series in any way, shape or form. If anything, it’s an anthology.
Before now, with the recent release of Leprechaun Returns, there had previously been no direct sequels. Each one had only the unifying factor of Warwick Davis as the titular villain—with the exception of Leprechaun: Origins, of course—but none of them have any continuity from one to the next. Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood isn’t even a sequel to Leprechaun In the Hood. Yet, because of this, it’s one of the most creatively freeing independent horror series ever. All it takes to make a Leprechaun flick is to think of a setting or scenario that would be funnier if the Leprechaun were added to it, and (budget permitting) go from there.
Leprechaun: Origins stretched the loose confines of the franchise even further by removing the character played by Warwick Davis, the one thing present throughout each entry, and dropping the comedic approach in favor of a gritty, intentionally humorless and wholeheartedly serious take on the concept of the Leprechaun. Because of that, in addition to being the first direct sequel in the franchise ever, Leprechaun Returns is also the first “true” Leprechaun movie since 2003.
But, as luck would have it, for each tongue-in-cheek, cartoonish and pun-fueled Leprechaun movie we have, there’s another we don’t. There have been several attempts to take the franchise in new directions over the years that are still unseen to this day. These projects range from the expected “Leprechaun in X Scenario” movies to weird and inventive ideas that were only ever half formed and even crossover films with other iconic, but affordable horror characters.
It’s hard to know exactly what any of these movies would look like, but that’s precisely what makes them interesting. Each of these seven ideas are completely different from one another. Leprechaun is a series that’s at its best when it leans into its inherent goofiness and it’s easy to imagine many of these unmade projects would have adhered to that golden rule.
Leprechaun in the White House
When Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Leprechaun 3 was released, it was the most successful straight-to-video horror film of 1995 and it remains a fan-favorite even now. Because of that, he went right on to direct Leprechaun 4: In Space as well. Despite that one-two punch, Trenchard-Smith never directed another Leprechaun entry, though it was not for lack of trying. He did have a pitch for Leprechaun 5, as it turned out, and that idea would have seen the Leprechaun finding his way into the White House. As the director has noted, his version would have seen the little imp infiltrating an oafish but well-meaning first family. This was, after all, the Clinton era and Trenchard-Smith was a fan of the president at the time.
While the timing was far from as perfect a chance for satire as it would have been during the Bush years or, say, now, Leprechaun in the White House had a lot of potential just based on the concept alone. Unfortunately, Trimark thought it was “too out there,” which is pretty flabbergasting considering that this was coming right on the heels of the space movie. This isn’t the only horror franchise that tried to invade the White House, either, as Stuart Gordon also attempted to bring in Herbert West to reanimate the president in House of Re-Animator, which also unfortunately never happened.
Candyman vs. Leprechaun
Candyman is one of the best horror films of the 1990s. It might even be the best. Leprechaun, for all of its charms, is not. Other than supernatural central characters with vaguely defined powers, these two franchises have nothing to do with one another. They’re completely different on a tonal and stylistic level. It seems absurd and impossible that this crossover would actually have ever been considered. But it was, at least briefly. Tony Todd has famously said that, in the slow period after Candyman 3 that saw us bereft of any Candyman film until the upcoming reboot, the studio pitched him on the idea of a crossover with the Leprechaun franchise as this was on the heels of Freddy vs. Jason and they happened to own both characters. But he immediately turned down the idea.
Obviously, there are a few things that have to be considered in this head-scratching matchup. First and foremost, what would the Candyman want with the Leprechaun’s gold? Would whoever stole the gold be somehow related to Candyman, as that was who the Candyman targeted in both of his sequels? What about the height difference? Tony Todd isn’t just a man of average height, he’s a tall, tall man. Considering the budget this would likely have been produced for, it’s hard to imagine that it would have made fans of either franchise happy.
Leprechaun in the Old West
This idea was frankly genius and I’m always going to be a little bit bummed that it never came to fruition. After In the Hood and Back 2 Tha Hood, a few years passed before there was any serious talk of another Leprechaun movie. When the idea finally came, it came from none other than Darren Lynn Bousman, who was just coming off the massive success of Saw II, III and IV at the time. The idea was to do a period piece, taking the Leprechaun back to the Old West in the days of the California Gold Rush.
It’s so simple and yet it’s so obvious. It’s still amazing that nobody else ever jumped on this, even after Bousman. Maybe if Returns reignites the franchise (and I hope it will) we’ll see another crack at this. The idea of the Leprechaun taking on old-timey gold miners is too good to go to waste. In terms of a creator coming off a huge success to tackle an oddball franchise, this feels very much like the “S. Craig Zahler is writing a Puppet Master movie” of its day… only that one actually wound up happening.
Warwick Davis’s Leprechaun Pitch
For many, it was bittersweet going into the new Leprechaun without Warwick Davis, as he has defined the role for so many years. There was a time when he was completely invested in the character, even after landing huge gigs like the Harry Potter films. After Back 2 Tha Hood, he had his own ideas for where the franchise should head, at one point noting that he wanted to finally be introduced to the Leprechaun’s entire family, including a wife, children, parents, etc. If it sounds like Eddie Murphy’s schtick in The Nutty Professor, well, that appears to be entirely the point.
It would have admittedly been hilarious to be introduced to the extended Leprechaun clan à la The Klumps, especially with Davis portraying each character himself. This would also have shed some new light on Leprechaun 2, which saw the Lep attempt to claim an unwilling bride, if he’d been neglecting to mention the fact that he was already married the whole time.
Leprechaun vs. Wishmaster
It’s much harder to say if this was ever actually in as remotely serious consideration as Candyman vs. Leprechaun. This idea first spread after an extremely well cut trailer started circulating the web, a fan trailer using clips from both franchises, which is commonplace and not usually an indicator that anything official might actually be happening. But there were a lot of rumors at the time that someone had cut the trailer to pitch as a sizzle reel to Lionsgate. The trailer even got spotlighted on Fangoria’s website and Ain’t It Cool News at the time.
The thing that gives the slightest bit of credibility to the idea is the fact that both franchises were under the same umbrella and that they had clearly wanted to try and cross over the Leprechaun with other properties given the attempt at Candyman. While that idea didn’t make any sense, Leprechaun vs. Wishmaster could honestly have worked. Both series had similar tones and styles, and cost about the same to make. A crossover between the two could have actually had potential to be, at the very least, an entertaining watch.
Leprechaun: Origins 2
Like most horror reboots, Leprechaun: Origins was planned to be the launching point for a whole new franchise. And, like most horror reboots, it wasn’t. Even now, most rebooted horror series have at best spawned one follow-up before simply being rebooted again. Both Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre did this. But when WWE films picked up the rights to Leprechaun, they wanted to take it seriously, both in terms of handling the property and in terms of their approach to the story. Most fans considered the latter idea to be a mistake. While there’s something interesting in the idea of the folkloric Leprechaun rather than the stereotypical one, this is a concept that needs a degree of humor in order to work.
The very intentional decision to strip what had always been a comedy-horror series of all its comedy in favor of doubling down on grit and intensity did not prove to be a hit. Even though newcomer Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl was barely glimpsed and had no lines in the feature, he expressed serious interest in reprising the role for future sequels had they actually wound up happening. They never did.
Vamprechaun
Alright, this isn’t technically a Leprechaun movie but it might as well have been and definitely earns its spot on this list, considering that it’s a movie about a killer Leprechaun from the original feature’s writer/director Mark Jones, with the intention of Warwick Davis starring in the title role. It wouldn’t have had anything to do with previous Leprechaun movies, but again, they’d never had anything to do with each other in the first place. The central conceit is brutally simple and exactly what you get from the title: it’s about a Leprechaun that is also a vampire. The idea of Davis basically playing the same character he’d done six times before, but this time in a tuxedo and cape and drinking the blood of his victims between limericks, just sounds so entirely watchable. It’s a shame that this one never came to fruition.
To be fair, though, it came closer than anything else on this list. Jones was dead set on making Vamprechaun a reality and checked with the attorney he had hired for the project, who also helped him raise the funding for the film, to make sure there would be no legal troubles from the owners of the Leprechaun franchise. This all stopped dead when Jones then sued the man as, according to Jones, he turned out not to be a real attorney.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on December 11, 2018.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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