The Leprechaun Series

“The Leprechaun” series which includes “Leprechaun 3: In Las Vegas,” “Leprechaun 4: In Space,” “Leprechaun in the Hood” and the unfortunate sub-sequel “Leprechaun Back 2 the Hood” constitutes perhaps the biggest inside joke between David Carter and me, spanning many years and many changes. Imagine the amount of inside jokes that could accrue in a close friendship that has continued on strong since 1988* and then those specifically pertaining to this chain of movies concerning an evil sprite on an epic quest for his 100 gold shillings spanning Las Vegas, outer space, and inner-city housing projects… It would be a gross understatement to say that these disastrous movies brought Dave and me closer together.

“Leprechaun 3” was the first one I ever saw and incidentally one of my first horror films as well. The Judycki brothers had rented it shortly after it came out in 1995 and Alexei and I watched the movie one weekend afternoon over at their house. Some of the scenes of the movie haunted me for days to come, especially the part where the woman with enormous breasts comes out of the television (possessed by the leprechaun) and electrocutes some horny old man, or when Leprechaun chainsaws a magician in half in front of an audience. I always seemed to have an urge to describe to my mom the scenes that for whatever reason affected me most, as though telling her would release a sense of guilt, a lasting fear of retribution for the voyeuristic pleasure I received from the movie. Or maybe I was just scared, as any youngster should be. Look at me now, totally desensitized, it’s really sick.

Years later, after I had properly acclimatized myself to horror movie gore and violence, I watched “Leprechaun” with David Carter. At that time it was practically the greatest thing to ever happen to us. We were in late elementary school. One cold spring Sunday afternoon my dad must have been away on business so I was hanging out with Dave and we were roasting hotdogs over a small fire in my front yard. If I remember correctly we were waiting for one of the Leprechaun movies to come on at 3pm on UPN channel 50. We began after that first experience an annual two-man St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Every mid-March we would rent the first in the series and match this selection with one of the others and watch both in succession while stuffing candy in our mouths and fucking up the Carters’ basement. We also performed this really homoerotic act where one of us would be on top of the pool table while the other lay on his back beneath it. Then the person on top would pour some carbonated soft drink and try to aim it for the other’s mouth while the person receiving would gag and laugh with glee. We would switch off top and bottom. The results were sticky and messy and now you can probably imagine why I referred to it as ‘homoerotic.’

“Leprechaun in the Hood” came out in junior high, a direct-to-video production that Dave and I were eagerly awaiting when we found out about it on the Internet. Our fellow classmate from Mexico named Joaquin told us he had a bootleg copy and we thought that was the funniest thing. A couple years later, after we’d already watched “Lep’ in the Hood” (part 5 in the series) for perhaps the third time, an inane sequel came out bringing the toll to six: “Leprechaun Back 2 to the Hood.” I don’t remember the first time we watched it, but from what I remember the little mean green guy was barely in it, yet for the sixth time actor Warwick Davis of “Willow” fame reprised his role.

Dave, Ryan Nicholson, and I were in Family Video the autumn of our senior year of high school, stoned undoubtedly, and browsing the movie selections. Dave picked up “Leprechaun Back 2 the Hood” and started to dramatically read aloud the back cover description in the well-known movie trailer voice-over. He was getting real into it until Ryan abruptly snatched the video from his hands and said exactly though unintentionally in the voice of a 5^th grade teacher, “David, you are making a scene!”

It stopped there. I didn’t hear about Leprechaun for years to come until my last day in Nanjing, China, December 13, 2008. I went to a pirated DVD shop on the other side of campus in the late afternoon. The sky was clear that day and the winter sun felt good. I was looking for Christmas presents for Seth and Dave. The gift I found Seth (refer to Sleepaway Camp) came right before the gift for Dave in a big stack of completely random DVDs. There it was, Leprechaun 1 through 3 in DVD amidst a sea of others and in my mind’s eye I saw Dave’s dreamy blue eyes and blonde locks of hair and I knew. I brought it back to the States, carefully wrapped it and victoriously presented it to him upon our reunion, but unfortunately the films were the wrong DVD region code, and would only play in a German DVD player. And that was the last I heard of the Leprechaun series, probably the last I will ever hear. We were drunk off Crown Royal brushing the Christmas tree aside in Dave’s living room and fiddling with the DVD player.

“I don’t think this is gonna work,” I said at last, regretfully. Dave called several video stores including the local Blockbuster and Family Video. "Hi," he said very charmingly, "Do you happen to carry 'Leprechaun 3'?"

Pause. " 'Leprechuan 3.'" Pause "No, I'm not looking for that one, I need 'Leprechaun 3' specifically," he said in a perfectly serious tone. "No, I'm actually not looking for 'Leprechaun 2', I need 'Leprechaun 3.'"

*Dave and I had periods of closeness and periods of, well, not-so-closeness. Looking back I see now it always depended ultimately upon whether or not we had the same home-room teacher. It seemed to switch every year. I always used to think it was a conspiracy conjured up by the school board to keep the two of us apart. In first grade we were both in Mrs. Devick’s class and were close as could be. The following year I was in Mrs. Satterthwait’s class while he was in Mrs. Benioff’s class. That year I thought Dave was a real prick, an attention-whore like no other. Everyone loved and idolized him and I was jealous. My family went to Sanibel Island, Florida that year for one last vacation together, and by that I mean both my parents went. This was a while after they had divorced, but they still hated each other and were at each other’s throats the whole time. Julian was a recluse in those days, but I remember I did an impression of Dave pompously walking across the schoolyard with everyone following him that had Julian laughing really hard. Dave is still an asshole to this day.