Leaping Leprechauns
Sixty-six years ago a Leprechaun (Kevin Mangold) caused chaos in the town of Irish Channel, Louisiana until someone found in an old book the means of banishing him from their community. Young Karen O'Hara (Courtney Halverson) has never heard of this legend and so whilst out hunting with her Pops (William Devane) in the woods doesn't know not to pick the red clover she finds in a mystical area she has never seen before. But in doing so she frees the Leprechaun who starts terrorizing the town as they build up to their St. Patrick's Day celebrations. With Pop warning people it is the return of the Leprechaun his son, Karen's father, Sheriff Conor O'Hara (Billy Zane) won't have any of it until he has no choice to believe his dad and then try to deal with the town's Mayor who doesn't want the celebrations cancelled.
Let's see we have a small town which is due to have a big celebration which means tourists and tourists mean money for the Mayor. We also have an old legend which no one knows about except those who are old enough to be around when it all kicked off last time. And we have the trifecta of Grandfather, son the sheriff and his daughter all involved in saving the day. That series of elements could be the basis of just about any creature feature since creature features were first thought of and for the most "Red Clover" doesn't deviate from the path walked by the creature features which paved the way for this.
But sadly the distinguishing factor going on in "Red Clover" is that it is a low budget horror movie with a script which is far from perfect and an uneven nature which seems to suggest that director Drew Daywalt cherry picked the best scenes to try and make good and then just walked through the rest of the ordinary stuff. The thing is that every now and then "Red Clover" does grab your attention for a few minutes but just as quickly causes you to drift off as the nonsense of it all takes hold.
It is not just Daywalt who seems to be on auto pilot at times as both Billy Zane and William Devane deliver the same sort of generic performances that they have done in other movies. Then there is Courtney Halverson who has this look which is attractive but also determined which makes her interesting but unfortunately whilst she delivers a good performance it makes little difference in such an ordinary horror movie.
What this all boils down to is that "Red Clover" is for the most just a routine creature feature which every once in a while serves up something which breaks the monotony and grabs your attention. It means it is the sort of movie which you might watch whilst channel hopping late at night but not something you would set your schedule for.
