6) Red Clover
I’ve seen some pretty good After Dark series specials, and I’ve seen some pretty awful ones as well. Red Clover, originally titled Leprechaun’s Revenge, falls into the latter category, barely even watchable compared to those laughably cheesy SyFy specials that air every Saturday night. There’s an original idea present, one that tries to take advantage of the underused Leprechaun myth, but everything about Red Clover feels overly amateur and incredibly inexperienced, dragging out even the dumbest gags for what seems like hours on end. Leprechauns were once scary like Billy Zane was once a good actor – but Red Clover does nothing to make me believe either statement holds up today.
According to Red Clover, Leprechauns aren’t these jokey little Irishmen searching for gold and spitting one-liners, because they’re actually cursed fairies that are in fawn form. Pissed off after years of being trapped, this evil Leprechaun starts running free and killing townspeople, and by killing, I mean pulling actors off camera so a cheap splatter of blood can shoot against a wall. Yes, everything about Red Clover is low-budget, right down to the rubber creature suit and weak off-screen effects, and while some independent films are able to mask such setbacks, no amount of filmmaking trickery can hide the sad, silly state of Red Clover.
If you want to play a fun drinking game to this flick, drink every time Billy Zane makes you laugh. Disclaimer: if you play this drinking game, you will die 30 minutes into Red Clover. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.