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“I originally wrote it to be comedy-horror, and I said I didn’t want to do a straight slasher and stuff,” Jones recalled to ComicBook.com. “There is a director’s cut somewhere and I got to find it … The kids loved it, because I wanted it to be a kid’s horror movie, like Scooby-Doo, but live-action. The studio wanted more hard R, and when they saw how the kids reacted and it became this classic thing, then they [said], ‘Oh, we should have let you keep even more comedy.’ I had a lot of battles with the studio, but eventually it came out, I think, because of [star] Warwick [Davis], Warwick got the humor.”
While it might not particularly be known for its graphic violence, Jones noted that it was the inclusion of more violent scenes that sets the theatrical release apart from the director’s cut.
When speaking about the differences, Jones detailed, “It had the violence in it. They added inserts later for a little more violence, but there were actual scenes, cartoon things. There were scenes of the Leprechaun being run over by the truck and we don’t see them, and there’s tire tracks and he digs himself up and he’s got tire tracks down the back. A bunch of cute little scenes that they thought should be taken out. But it was my first-time picture. I didn’t have final cuts, so I had to listen to them. So there was some comedy taken out.”
The original film is described, “When a greedy tourist steals a Leprechaun’s pot of gold, the evil sprite goes on a murderous mission to get it back.”
The entire Leprechaun franchise is currently streaming on Hulu.
Would you like to see a director’s cut of the film? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
