LEPRECHAUN

In 1983, Dan O'Grady returns home in North Dakota from a trip to his native Ireland, where he captured a leprechaun, who then gave him a pot of gold in accordance with the leprechaun code. After burying the gold, O'Grady discovers that the leprechaun has followed him home and murdered his wife. O'Grady uses a four-leaf clover to suppress the leprechaun's powers and trap him inside a crate. Before he can burn him, the leprechaun makes O'Grady suffer a stroke.

10 years later, J. D. Redding and his teenage daughter, Tory, rent the O'Grady farmhouse for the summer. Contract workers Nathan Murphy, his 10-year-old brother Alex, and their dim-witted friend Ozzie Jones help re-paint the farmhouse. In the basement, Ozzie hears the leprechaun's cry for help. He accidentally brushes the clover off the crate, freeing the leprechaun. After failing to convince the others that he met a leprechaun, Ozzie spots a rainbow and chases it, believing that there will be gold at the end. Alex accompanies him. Ozzie finds a bag of one hundred gold coins. After Ozzie tests the gold and accidentally swallows a coin, they stash it in an old well.

At the farm, the leprechaun lures J. D. into a trap by imitating a cat, biting his hand. The others rush him to the hospital. Alex and Ozzie visit a pawn shop to see if the gold is pure. The leprechaun kills the shop owner. He steals a go-kart and returns to the farmhouse, getting pulled over by a police officer on the way back for speeding. The leprechaun kills the officer, returns to the farmhouse, and searches for his gold. Leaving J. D. at the hospital, the group returns to the farmhouse. Finding it ransacked, Nathan checks outside and is injured by a bear trap set by the leprechaun. The group fights the leprechaun with sticks and stones.

After finding a shotgun in the farmhouse, they repeatedly shoot the leprechaun, to no avail. They attempt to flee the farm, but the leprechaun has sabotaged their truck's engine. After ramming the truck with the go-kart, the leprechaun terrorizes the group. Ozzie reveals that he and Alex found the gold. Tory recovers the bag from the well and gives it to the leprechaun. They leave for the hospital. Counting his gold, the leprechaun discovers that he is missing one coin and resumes menacing them. Ozzie realizes he wants the coin he swallowed, but Tory refuses to sacrifice Ozzie to save the group and says they have no choice but to kill the leprechaun. Ozzie says O'Grady, who was taken to a nursing home after his stroke, might know how to do so. The group distracts the leprechaun by throwing dirty shoes around, which he cannot resist shining, while Tory gets into her Jeep and drives to the nursing home.

At the nursing home, the leprechaun pretends to be O'Grady. After chasing Tory to an elevator, the leprechaun throws O'Grady down the shaft as Tory flees. Before dying, O'Grady tells her that the only way to kill the leprechaun is with a four-leaf clover, which grows in a patch outside the farm. At the farmhouse, Tory searches for a clover until the leprechaun attacks her; Nathan and Ozzie hear the screams and save Tory. Ozzie reveals that he swallowed the last coin to draw the leprechaun's attention. Before the leprechaun can kill Ozzie, Alex takes a four-leaf clover Tory has found, sticks it to a wad of gum, and shoots it into the leprechaun's mouth, causing him to melt. The leprechaun falls into the well, but his skeleton climbs out. Nathan pushes the leprechaun back into the well and blows up the well with gasoline. As the cops arrive in the morning, the leprechaun vows his spirit will not rest until he recovers all of his gold.

Tory kills the leprechaun by placing a four-leaf clover on his body, causing him to fall into a well, where he is further destroyed by gasoline and fire.

The ending reinforces the film's fairy-tale logic, using a traditional symbol of luck and protection— the four-leaf clover— as the leprechaun's undoing. The final destruction of the creature closes the loop on the curse set in motion by greed, while the survivors' escape hints at the lingering threat inherent in meddling with supernatural forces.