Jennifer Aniston’s Recalls Her First Movie: 1993’s Leprechaun

It’s a little hard to know what went wrong with the ‘90s, but I’m pretty sure 1993 was when the rot really started to show. It was the year of The Last Action Hero, Super Mario Bros. and Cop and a Half. Okay, yes, Jurassic Park came out that year, too, but we all know that film was overhyped and is nowhere near as brilliant as people pretend. 1993 was also the year that Jennifer Aniston, later to become everybody’s favourite fiend (sorry, “friend”), graced the world with her presence in Leprechaun. Was it a comedy film? A horror? A parody? To this day, nobody is quite sure.

A Quick Recap Of The Story In Leprechaun

The film starts by explaining how Irish-American loser O’Grady found a pot o’ gold while burying his mom in Ireland. He brings the treasure back to his home in the good ol’ USA but also returns with the horrible little creature who owned it. After using the amazing power of a four-leaf clover to trap the Leprechaun in a crate, O’Grady promptly suffers a stroke and doesn’t get a chance to kill the pint-sized terror.

Fast-forward to 1993. Jennifer Aniston plays a spoiled teenage brat who moves into the O’Grady house. She clumsily flirts with pretty boy painter Nathan while pointless tag-along Ozzie and Alex release the creature from its crate and find the aforementioned gold.

Cue lots of silly moments as the Leprechaun terrorises everyone by… riding tricycles and go-karts as he attempts to track down his gold. He also kills a man by bouncing on his chest with a pogo stick, snaps the neck of a cop, and even rides a wheelchair at superspeed.

But, as any Scooby-Doo villain worth their salt can attest, it’s those meddling kids who cause him the real problems. One is that there’s a piece of gold missing from his collection, which the clueless Ozzie… ate. Yes, you read that right.

Jennifer Aniston’s Character In Leprechaun Is So Stupid

For viewers, the biggest obstacle is that Jennifer Aniston’s character in Leprechaun is so stupid she needs a brain transplant and refuses to accept what’s going on around her despite all evidence that she’s wrong about everything—and I mean everything. Still, she just so happens to find a lucky four-leaf clover, throws one of an endless series of temper tantrums, and the kids save the day. Hooray.

If you want the finest example of a bad idea made worse, Leprechaun is it. It doesn’t work as horror in any way and comes across as a watered-down version of Child’s Play. It doesn’t work as a comedy, either. The jokes are so painful that they’d make a 5-year old cringe with embarrassment. It’s not even a kiddie-friendly horror film because halfway through the film, everyone starts swearing like sailors for no reason.

Not only that, but Leprechaun‘s director, Mark Jones, seemed obsessed with showing Jennifer Aniston’s legs and backside in as many scenes as possible. Credit where credit’s due: At least she looks better in this than she ever did in her sitcom. Unfortunately, her character is such a brat that you’re instantly reminded of that snooty girl in high school who you wanted to decapitate with a blunt spork.

Poor Warwick Davis

The other actors do their best (which isn’t all that good), and you have to feel sorry for Warwick Davis, who followed up legendary sci-fi and fantasy characters like Wicket and Willow with the role of the Leprechaun. The guy is a cult favourite with fanboys, but, in this, he suffers from a bad costume and makeup job that’s about as scary as a jam doughnut. The script doesn’t help, as the Leprechaun seems incapable of any menace whatsoever as he sings little tunes and – I’m not kidding here – has OCD about polishing people’s shoes.

Warwick Davis told Dread Central that he actually enjoys the movies. “I love the Leprechaun movies and I love that people always ask me about them. We had no idea when we were making that first movie that there’d even be one sequel, let alone five, and even though we haven’t made a Leprechaun film in almost ten years, people still love them and talk about them a lot. That’s pretty incredible.”

Poor Jennifer Aniston

Leprechaun is a miserable excuse for a film – even with Jennifer Aniston’s bits on show. There are many bad horror movies out there that you can at least enjoy for a cheap laugh. This isn’t one of them. It makes you wonder why WWE Studios ever invested in a reboot. Then again, looking at their own other horror effort, See No Evil, it’s not hard to imagine. The best way to watch this film is with the screen switched off and the sound on mute.

What’s Jennifer Aniston’s take on Leprechaun today? Speaking to InStyle Magazine, Aniston remarked, “There are plenty of movies where you’re like, ‘Oh god, this is just… how am I going to survive this in my future?’ And then it’s a cult… ‘something’ because it’s so embarrassing.” She clarified that she wasn’t talking about Office Space, stating, “That movie wasn’t! That movie was special. I was talking about Leprechaun.”

Aniston revealed that she and Justin Theroux watched the film together during their time together, and she found it challenging to sit through. She’s not alone.