"As Shakespeare said, shit happens."
— Leprechaun
A sequel to Leprechaun released in 1996, that yes, is set in space.
Somehow, there's a Leprechaun in the depths of outer space who has kidnapped an alien princess in hopes of gold and glory. A team of Earthling space marines manage to defeat him, but Leprechaun sneaks into their spacecraft to cause mayhem.
This film has examples of:
- Alien Blood: Princess Zarina has blue blood — literally.
- Artistic License – Space: Characters are seen smoking in a spaceship in spite of the concentrated, pressurized oxygen inside it (since without it they'd be dead because space does not have oxygen). As a result, smoking should have caused the ship to become a cosmic light show.
- Badass Boast: The Leprechaun gives one."Small though I am, mighty is my spirit when bloody battle calls. Come at me with what you will. Shoot me, stab me, kill me a hundred ways. Still I fight on. I am eternal as the sun. I am a thousand demons from hell. Death and destruction are my game. Agony, is my name! AHAHAHAHAH!"
- Black Dude Dies First: Averted. Sticks the black Space Marine is one of the few survivors.
- Bloodless Carnage: There's next to no actual gore in the film, with the only blood we see being from the Leprechaun and Princess Zarina, and even then it's green and blue respectively. It's best exemplified when the Leprechaun smashes Harold's face with a metal tray; rather than his skull and brains being bloodily scattered over the wall, his face is flattened out Looney Tunes-style, before he falls over, dead.
- Captain Ersatz: Dr. Mittenhand has more than a few obvious similarities to Davros from Doctor Who. At least until he turns into a giant spider.
- Distant Sequel: Leprechaun 3 took place in the real-time 1990s. This film takes place in the far future.
- Explosive Decompression: How the Leprechaun meets his end.
- Fanservice: Princess Zarina flashes her breasts to the cast, and why?Tina: On the planet Dominia, when a woman of royal blood shows you her breasts, it's a death sentence.
- Tina herself loses her pants during the film's climax, spending the rest of the film running around in a t-shirt and panties.
- Books manages to get his shirt off in the final fight.
- Fingore:
- Leprechaun appears to Danny in a safety video mock-up, where he cuts off his left index finger off with scissors.
- One of Zarina's hands gets blown off early in the film, but soon regenerates itself thanks to her healing abilities.
- Flipping the Bird: The Leprechaun's disembodied hand does this to the survivors at the end of the film.
- Groin Attack:
- Kowalski dies this way - when his team initially believes to have killed the Leprechaun he goes over and urinates on the remains for fun, unaware that he is now infected with the essence of the Leprechaun, who proceeds to be reborn within Kowalski. Later on when Kowalski tries to have sex with fellow soldier Delores (Debbe Dunning of Home Improvement fame) what they both initially think is just his natural erection slowly becomes painful for him until they literally see something moving inside his pants - he then collapses, legs spread, belt going, pants unzipping as the Leprechaun forces his way out through Kowalski's penis, all while Kowalski screams in agony. Just before Kowalski dies (presumably from blood loss via his ravaged testicles) the Leprechaun quips "Let that be a lesson to ya laddie - always wear a prophylactic!"
- Later on in the film, the Leprechaun strikes Dr. Mittenhand's assistant Harold in the crotch after creating the illusion of the film's heroine Tina naked to trick him into opening the door.
- High-Heel–Face Turn: Princess Zarina joins up with the Leprechaun, only to reveal at the end that she's been secretly working against him the whole time.
- Human Aliens: Zarina, the alien princess who teams up with the Leprechaun. She looks exactly like the sexy blonde human woman who's portraying her; her only real difference being that she has blue blood.
- Ice Breaker: The mutated Dr. Mittenhand is defeated with a spray of liquid nitrogen, and smashing his frozen form.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Aside from Delores managing to shoot the Leprechaun to pieces when he just stands around and lets her do it, not one of the marines manages to successfully shoot anything during the course of the film. Even the Leprechaun himself has a lousy aim, the nearest he gets to a direct hit on any of the marines is hitting a beaker of acid, which then breaks and spills its contents on Tina's leg.
- Jumping on a Grenade: A grenade is accidentally thrown next to Zarina, and the Leprechaun dives onto it to contain the blast. His defeat is short-lived though as he later bursts out from the groin of a marine who pissed on his remains.
- Karma Houdini: Zarina is still alive at the end of the film, with no indication that she's reformed or even learned anything other than not to trust leprechauns.
- LEGO Genetics: Leprechaun puts a sample of Princess Zarina's blood, a spider and a scorpion into a blender, and injects the result into Dr. Mittenhand, who turns into a spider-scorpion mutant with a craving for flesh. Justified in that it was the Leprechaun who did it.
- Lighter and Softer: This is already a pretty silly series by horror film standards, but In Space is much nearer to being an outright comedy than any of the other films.
- Loves the Sound of Screaming:Leprechaun: Your shrieks, my dear, provide a perfect accompaniment to this romantic evening.
- Not Quite Dead: The Leprechaun is first blown apart by a grenade and later shot to pieces. Each time the marines think he is dead only for him to reform. In the end, decompression blows him to pieces again, but he still gives the survivors the finger implying he is still alive.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: The Leprechaun is never referred to as such; the main characters just assume he's some kind of alien.
- Numbered Sequels: With a subtitle that drives home how silly things have gotten.
- Patricide: Zarina is willing to kill her father to become queen.
- Recycled In Space: Oh, hell yes. This is most likely one of the silliest usages of this trope by far, and that speaks volumes.
- Squashed Flat: A pan is thrown at Harold's head with such force that it is flattened against the wall from the impact.
- Stripped to the Bone: Mooch ends up like this after Leprechaun slashes open his protective suit, and he is exposed to flesh-eating bacteria.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: How Leprechaun gets defeated.
- Vasquez Always Dies: The movie features a platoon of Space Marines with two women among their ranks: a Botoxed and boob-jobbed blonde and a brunette tomboy. Guess which one dies.
- Was Once a Man: This happens twice to Dr. Mittenhand. The first time is before the events of the movie, where some nebulously explained experiment leaves him as a head and right arm attached to a life support system. The second time is when the Leprechaun injects him with a mixture of Zarina's blood and liquidized spider, turning Mittenhand into a giant spider monster.
