Before he went to the hood, went to space, went to Vegas and somehow kept coming back for more gold, the Leprechaun was just a pissed-off little Irish monster terrorizing Jennifer Aniston and anyone foolish enough to get between him and his coins. Released in 1993, Leprechaun is exactly the kind of B-movie horror that used to populate video-store shelves: cheap, weird, funny, occasionally nasty and completely unconcerned with whether anyone considered it respectable. Writer-director Mark Jones takes a creature from Irish folklore, gives him a collection of terrible rhymes, sharp teeth and an unhealthy attachment to precious metals, then turns Warwick Davis loose. That's pretty much the movie. That's also pretty much why it still works.
The plot operates on the sort of logic best left unexamined. A bag of gold has been stolen from a Leprechaun, the Leprechaun wants it back, and everybody standing between him and his property is going to have a very bad day. Jennifer Aniston, in her first feature-film role, plays Tory, who arrives with her father at a rundown farmhouse and soon discovers that country living includes considerably more homicidal Irish folklore than advertised. Watching Aniston here now is half the fun. This is pre-Friends, pre-superstardom Jennifer Aniston running around a low-budget horror movie while Warwick Davis tries to murder people over gold coins. Cinema occasionally gives us gifts we do not properly appreciate at the time.
Davis, naturally, is the whole show. The movie might be called Leprechaun, but without him it probably would have disappeared into the same VHS graveyard that swallowed hundreds of early-'90s horror pictures. He commits to every growl, rhyme, cackle and ridiculous threat as if Shakespeare had personally written the screenplay after several pints of Guinness. The makeup remains wonderfully tactile, the kills have that handmade B-movie charm, and Davis manages the difficult trick of being funny without completely surrendering the character's menace. He's ridiculous. He's creepy. He's frequently hilarious. Most importantly, he seems to be having a hell of a time, and that enthusiasm becomes contagious.
None of this means Leprechaun is secretly a great film. It isn't, and trying to make that argument would spoil the fun. The pacing wanders, characters make decisions that would embarrass the average slasher victim, and the mythology appears to have been assembled according to whatever the next scene requires. Who cares? This is a movie where a murderous Leprechaun searches for his gold while speaking in rhymes. You either surrender to that nonsense or you have wandered into the wrong movie. More than thirty years later, its lack of polish actually makes it more enjoyable. There is no sleek franchise machinery here yet, no mythology desperately being protected and no cinematic universe waiting around the corner. There is Warwick Davis in makeup, Jennifer Aniston wondering how her career came to this before it had technically even started, and a bunch of filmmakers trying to stretch every dollar until it screams.
Lionsgate Limited's 4K SteelBook is consequently an absurdly lavish way to revisit such gloriously disreputable material, which somehow feels appropriate. The corrected 4K presentation gives the film Dolby Vision, while the two-disc set piles on both new and archival supplements, including Leprechaun Lore: Genesis of a Cult Classic, a feature on the makeup effects, first-day-on-set footage, the old Vidmark VHS promotional screener, commentaries and additional behind-the-scenes material. Thirty-three years after a tiny monster went looking for his stolen gold, Leprechaun has received the deluxe treatment nobody standing in a video store in 1993 could possibly have imagined. It hasn't become sophisticated with age. Thank God. It's still stupid, scrappy, cheap, cheerfully mean and enormously entertaining—the sort of B-movie that knows exactly where its pot of gold is buried.
Lionsgate Limited Exclusive SteelBook / 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital 4K
Home Video Distributor: Shout Factory
Available on Blu-ray - May 19, 2026
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
Video: Native 4K; Dolby Vision, HDR10
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1; Dolby Digital 2.0
Discs: 4K Ultra HD; Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set
Region Encoding: 4K region-free; blu-ray locked to Region A
After stealing a bag of gold from a leprechaun, Dan O’Grady thinks he has managed to imprison the murderous creature and keep its treasure for himself. Years later, Tory and her father move into the property, inadvertently setting the little monster free. Now the Leprechaun wants his gold back, and anyone standing between him and his coins is going to discover just how nasty this particular piece of Irish folklore can be.
Warwick Davis stars as the title terror, with Jennifer Aniston making her feature-film debut as Tory in the 1993 horror-comedy that somehow launched an eight-film franchise. Lionsgate Limited brings the original Leprechaun to 4K UHD in a two-disc SteelBook edition featuring new artwork from Phantom City Creative, a Dolby Vision presentation and a collection of new and archival supplements. Lionsgate Limited
VIDEO
Leprechaun arrives on 4K UHD in its original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio with Dolby Vision, housed on a 100GB disc. And there is something wonderfully perverse about seeing a movie this proudly cheap receive the deluxe 4K treatment. The increased resolution does absolutely nothing to disguise the modest production—it actually celebrates it. Makeup, facial textures, costumes and the clutter inside the farmhouse are much more apparent, while Warwick Davis' wonderfully grotesque Leprechaun makeup gets the biggest boost. The practical nature of the effects is allowed to remain practical rather than being scrubbed into something unnaturally slick.
The Dolby Vision grading gives the picture a richer sense of depth, particularly in darker interiors and nighttime sequences, while daylight exteriors have a pleasingly natural appearance. This isn't suddenly going to look like a $50-million production, nor should it. What you want from a catalog 4K like this is a presentation that preserves the texture and character of the original photography rather than trying to reinvent it. Leprechaun still looks like Leprechaun. It just looks like somebody finally cleaned the gold.
AUDIO
The corrected Lionsgate Limited release includes an English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track along with the original theatrical stereo mix, with English, Spanish and English SDH subtitle options. The 5.1 presentation opens things up without turning this modest early-'90s horror movie into something it never was. Dialogue remains clear and centered, the score receives some additional room to breathe, and the Leprechaun's assorted attacks, cackles and general acts of supernatural vandalism get enough surround activity to keep the track lively.
Purists should be especially happy to see the original stereo mix included. In fact, there is a certain charm to watching the movie that way. Leprechaun was born to live on VHS in a video store with a lurid box promising considerably more terror than the movie could possibly deliver, and the theatrical stereo track retains some of that original personality. Either option gets the job done; the TrueHD 5.1 provides the fuller home-theater experience, while the stereo mix gives us something closer to 1993.
Supplements:
Commentary:
- None
Special Features:
This is where the Lionsgate Limited edition becomes especially attractive. The set combines four newly produced or newly included supplements with the substantial collection of extras carried over from previous releases.
- Leprechaun Lore: Genesis of a Cult Classic — A new retrospective looking back at the unlikely creation and enduring cult reputation of the original film.
- Designing Mischief & Mayhem: Special Effects Makeup — A welcome examination of the practical makeup and effects work that created Davis' memorable little monster.
- Leprechaun First Day on Set: Behind-the-Scenes Footage — Vintage material from the production, and precisely the sort of archival discovery that makes revisiting a movie like this worthwhile.
- Vidmark Entertainment VHS Promo Screener — Maybe the most nostalgically perfect extra imaginable for Leprechaun. If you remember Vidmark boxes staring back at you from video-store shelves, this is practically a time machine.
- Audio Commentary with Mark Jones and Gabe Z. Bartalos — Writer-director Jones is joined by special makeup effects creator Bartalos.
- Audio Commentary with Warwick Davis — Davis gets his own track and offers another perspective on the film and the character that became one of his signature roles.
- The Leprechaun Chronicles Part One: Beginner's Luck — The previously released documentary examining the making of the first film.
- Behind-the-Scenes Footage
- Theatrical Trailer
- Still Gallery
Taken together, that's a surprisingly healthy package for a movie that probably wasn't being discussed in terms of long-term cinematic preservation when it arrived in 1993. The new material is worthwhile, but including the old commentaries and documentary prevents this from feeling like an upgrade that asks collectors to sacrifice material they already owned. And that old Vidmark promotional screener may be the perfect final touch. Leprechaun belongs to the video-store era, and Lionsgate seems perfectly happy to celebrate that rather than apologize for it.
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