Horror Movie Review: Red Clover (2012)

Also known as ‘Leprechaun’s Revenge’ or ‘St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun’, it doesn’t matter what name you see it under…Red Clover is an awful movie with little entertainment value.

In the opening 5 minutes, Karen O’Hara (Irish, see?) accidentally unleashes an ancient Leprechaun while out hunting with her grandfather, Pop O’Hara. The town of Keening, Massachusetts has a bloody history involving this particular Leprechaun something that hasn’t been forgotten but has been hidden away.

Pop O’Hara knows all about this Leprechaun & as Karen was the one who unleashed it she will now die in 4 days (4-leaf clover…get it?) unless the Leprechaun is sent back to where it came from.

Oh & Billy Zane is the disbelieving sheriff who is also the father of Karen & the son of Pop. He is just awful…

Red Clover is a straight to TV, extremely low-budget flick so if you’re expecting good visuals I suggest you look elsewhere. That being said there is no excuse for just how poor some of the effects look, seriously, near the end the Leprechaun jumps onto a parade float. It is so badly done I had to re-watch it several times out of pure amazement.

Talking of which…the worst thing about this movie is the Leprechaun. My understanding is that they wanted to go with something that they considered more ‘creepy & organic’ but instead it ends up looking like a reject from Pan’s Labyrinth. This instance that modern Leprechaun movies move as far away from what an actual fucking Leprechaun looks like (I’m looking at you too, Leprechaun Origins) is infuriating.

If you worried that your Leprechaun is going to look too similar to the original Leprechaun movies here’s what you do…don’t make a Leprechaun movie. It’s hardly a mythical character that translates well into horror anyway & relies way too much on stereo-types (the first & only Irish accented character in the movie’s first line is “top ‘o the morning, to ya”).

It’s very hard to take any part of this movie seriously, the acting is sub-par, the story boring & dragged out to a depressing length. The movie wants to be a dark & twisted take on a legend but ends up being an embarrassing mess with few redeeming moments.

In fact, the parts I did enjoy I’m almost certain I wasn’t supposed to enjoy. Billy Zane…a name actor (fuck knows why, guess it was being in Titanic) as I said above is particularly poor. This was clearly a quick pay check but he endeared himself to me by being part of what has to be the most unintentionally hilarious moments in horror.

Sitting with his daughter in the car near the end of the film she decides to ask him about what happened to her mother. At no stage in the movie had this even come up & their relationship seemed quite strong throughout. Billy Zane proceeds to tell her a story about how he lost her mother in a Black Friday sale while trying to buy her a games console. She didn’t die he just ‘lost her’. I’m not even joking…I had to hear it twice because I thought I was imagining it. That there, is why this film isn’t a zero out of ten.

That & the high body count…everyone pretty much dies in this movie. Its gory & violent, this Leprechaun has no qualms about killing anyone & everything around it.

A terrible movie based around a very difficult & rarely enjoyable subject. What budget it had seemed to have been wasted on getting Billy Zane involved. He isn’t worth it but seriously…he lost his wife in a black Friday sale, that shit is unreal.