My Review of American Horror Stories: "Leprechaun"

 

Written by Joe Baken

Directed by Alexis Martin Woodall 

Hailey (to Colin): "People stopped believing we were real. That our gold was real. Which is why we had to resort to trickery."

I was anticipating and dreading this episode in equal measure. Would it evoke some horrible Irish stereotypes or be as bad as the majority of the Warwick Davies Leprechaun sequels? A little bit of both maybe.

I mean the whole plot for this episode could easily have belonged to that particular horror franchise. In the past, a man encountered a leprechaun (Anthony Rodriguez). In the present day, four idiots decided to steal from where they shouldn't have done.

The idiots in question being new dad Colin (Henry Eikenberry), security guard Declan (Daniel Zolghadri), slacker Finn (Angel Bismark) and the shit stirring Liam (Hudson Oz). Together they made up the Eastie Boys and their great plan was to steal from a bank where Colin's partner Hailey (Jessica Barden) worked at.

Jokes about heist movie tropes to one side, you had four guys who weren't half as smart as they thought they were. Needless to say as they broke into the bank to steal the gold, they found themselves going up against the leprechaun in question. Visually, it looked decent but not like the typical version you'd normally expect.

In fact this version seemed to lean more into the vampiric side of things. As the third act hurtled towards its conclusion, Declan, Finn and Liam all found themselves being slaughtered by the leprechaun. Liam of course tried to reason with it but only maddened the leprechaun by comparing it to a munchkin. That was a serious error in judgement.

However the interesting part of the episode of course was the reveal of Hailey actually being part leprechaun herself and yes, there were deadly consequences for Colin with that reveal. There's also a rather nice cameo for June Squibb as Grams, who soon found out that her granddaughter would do anything to keep her alive.

- Jessica Barden appeared earlier in the season as the titular Bestie. That was easily her better role but she's good here as Hailey.

- Fans of Only Murders In The Building also had Michael Cyril Creighton as security guard/drag artist Martin in this episode too.

- Leprechauns in this world need human blood to survive but hybrids like Hailey don't need it as much.

- Chronology: 1851 and 2024 Massachussetts. 

Again, I feel that Leprechaun had a lot of potential as an episode. The third act was the best part as well as the opening sequence but everything in between was just sluggish at best. It's mostly a wasted opportunity.

Rating: 6 out of 10