This is the second best film in the franchise, with part 2 being my favorite. I’m glad to report that this final (hopefully) installment is very watchable and not as annoying as other entries. With this one they threw out the annoying leprechaun rhymes and settled on a normal, likeable cast. Tangi Miller, as Emily, and Sherrie Jackson, as Lisa, are two beautiful and talented actresses which really make this film rise out of the muck that past entries created. Follow me, dear reader, back 2 tha hood!

The main cast consists of four youths living in the hood. Emily and Lisa both want to move on to greater things like a college education and stable living. Jamie, is the goofy dude that just wants to smoke weed. He has a crush on Lisa. He’s ten times more likable than the jester character, Butch, from the previous hood film. Then we have Emily’s ex-boyfriend, Rory, which is a drug dealer who often butts heads with a local gang. Early in the film the girls consult a psychic which informs them that they will come across a large amount of riches but that they must deny it because it is dangerous and will put their lives in peril.

There’s one thing that made little sense but didn’t hurt the film much though. Jamie mysteriously finds four leaf clovers in his weed supply. This is leprechaun bane and we know it will come into play later. Emily soon stumbles upon a small treasure chest of leprechaun gold when she drops into an underground cavern at a building site in the city. She’s nice enough to split the gold four ways, yes, even including her ex in on the bounty. I’m telling you, I really liked this group of friends, and the girls in particular. From this point forward you can pretty much guess that our mischievous little green man will use his magic tricks to get his gold back and kill folks. We see him laid back, smoking bud from a bong at a house party. But when he senses his stolen gold is near he becomes murderous. The killings are fair and at times handled with humor; like when he uses a cop’s amputated leg to drive the car because his own feet don’t reach the pedals.

In the third act they really try everything to kill the green fucker. We see him mowed down with several semi automatics, thrown into a furnace, and stabbed several times. I won’t get into which characters survive and which don’t because I really liked these guys a lot and I know you will too, so why ruin it this early? One of the friends hatches a clever plot to kill the leprechaun using the four leaf clovers mentioned earlier. The plan turns out not to be foolproof and the psychic lady from the beginning helps them battle it out with her own magic. It becomes a decent battle.

If you have been following the series up until now I see no reason why you shouldn’t finish it up here. Director and writer Steven Ayromlooi serves up a good ending to a less than stellar franchise. Back 2 tha Hood is much better than the first Leprechaun film. That’s embarrassing. Anyhow, I’m glad I stuck with it, taking my (unfair) share of poisonous celluloid, but now it’s all over, and I’m glad the end was kind.

- Jorge Antonio Lopez