Hooptober... And Then There Were Nine

27th Kill

OK, don't get me wrong. I know this is a bad movie. And it's not as if I even enjoy it ironically. But there's just something about the space setting of this one that appeals to me. This spaceship they're on makes this feel like an episode of Red Dwarf - it's got about the same level of production design and some of those sets are very similar - so once I made that association, this was just like seeing another one of those episodes where something nasty gets into the ship and they have to run around trying to kill it or get away from it. Granted, it's nowhere near as funny as Red Dwarf but that show is a vibe as much as a good piece of comedy writing, so the recemblance is enough to give this some shine - to me, at least.

Also, I'm a sucker for space marines getting picked off. The fact that in this case it's Warwick Davis in period garb and bad make-up creates a weird dissonance, but it's still fun. I was going to say the film badly needs a huge slimy monster of some kind to really work - but then we get a great one in the final act!

Ropey acting, incredibly attractive women (Debbe Dunning - wowser!), cheap props, appalling puns, mean spirit - I wouldn't dream of recommending this to anyone but I kinda liked it. MVP has to be Guy Siner as the dastardly Dr Mittenhand - he's a better baddie than the Leprechaun, truth be told. And I love the reference to Doctor Who in his half-Dalek design (he's basically Davros) - I did wonder if that was unintentional but Brian Trenchard-Smith is Australian and so probably grew up watching Who - and then I noticed that Siner was actually in the cast of "Genesis of the Daleks" in 1975, the first time Tom Baker's Doctor came up against them.

Final note: as much as I liked this, it's pretty egregious that the top two entries on Brian Trenchard-Smith's Letterboxd filmography are Leprechaun 3 and 4 - Jesus, guys, he deserves to be remembered for other movies than this!

Best Kill (may contain traces of spoiler)

Most of the best stuff in this film centres around Guy Siner, including his death scene where the Leprechaun makes a smoothy of Dr Mitterhand's super-DNA-serum with some poisonous spiders and scorpions, and then injects it into his neck. A nasty way to die... or does he...?