By the time 2014 rolled around, it had become plainly clear that no matter who you are, no one escaped the reboot machine. Obviously by this time the vast majority of horror icons had already gotten shiny new makeovers that usually ended up stripping them of the exact things that drew us to them in the first place – but when news broke that Leprechaun of all things was getting a gritty reboot, that’s when I knew that the reboot trend had hit the bottom of the barrel hard enough to paralyse.
However, while I haven’t been exactly kind to the previous outings of Warwick Davis’ green clad alter ego, I got that they were aggressively dumb enough to be a bit of trashy fun and respected how much the series tried to push things into weird and wackier territory. So imagine my confusion when it was revealed that not only had WWE Studios decided to be the ones to revamp the Leprechaun, but they were going to utterly change virtually every aspect of the character to the point of un-recognition. Brace yourself, you’re about to witness possibly the worst storyline the WWE have produced since Mae Young gave birth to a hand on Monday Night RAW…
Four stock American student archetypes are on a vacation in the Irish countryside and while hopeful historian Sophie is having a ball soaking up the history and vibe of the place, medical student Ben is seeming strangely distant. However, this doesn’t stop horny friends David and Jeni out-voting Sophie’s moody boyfriend when friendly local, Hamish, suggests visiting a mine of some historical importance. It seems that centuries ago the mine was once a cave where locals managed to find vast quantities of gold and despite Ben’s noticable pouting, the group get a lift part of the way to stay in a cottage for the night in order to leave for the mine the next morning. Of course, thanks to the expected prologue, we know that some sort of feral creature is running around the long grass, savaging any tourist dumb enough to venture into its territory and after the foursome realise that they’ve been conned, they have to act accordingly or be torn to ribbons.
You see, that cave the townfolk looted all those years ago belonged to a Leprechaun which definitely doesn’t resemble the shiny shoed, limerick spouting, imps of celtic legend and ever since, various generations of townsfolk have endeavoured to keep the angry little beastie from feasting on their loved ones by offering up tourists as a sacrifice.
As the Leprechaun’s attempts to grab itself a midnight snack escalates, the only hope that Sophie, Ben, David and Jeni have is that the son of Hamish is beginning to get decidedly cold feet. Can the group manage to survive the Leprechaun, and can the Leprechaun franchise manage to survive whatever the Hell this is supposed to be?
If we needed any more proof that William Goldman was spitting pure truth when he coined the Hollywood maxim “nobody knows anything”, whatever the fuck occurred in the offices of WWE Studios during the formation of Leprechaun must surely be it, because anyone who has even a fleeting experience with the Warwick Davis movies knows that whatever the hell we’re watching here, it certainly ain’t Leprechaun. It’s not that Leprechaun Origins is an especially badly made cash-in; in fact it achieves that slickly bland style that most, vapid, low budget horrors displayed throughout the 2010s, but the whole enterprise is carried off with such a complete and total lack of imagination and fun it actually makes me yearn for the campy, cheesy originals – yes, even the ones set in the hood or space. In fact, Origins (which doesn’t even feature anything even remotely resembling an origin, by the way) is so dull and by the numbers, it actually convinces that I was way too hard on the franchise when it was just trying to be a series of goofy comedies.
I’m guessing that WWE Studios figured that if they could squeeze two movies out of Glen “Kane” Jacobs as a hulking serial killer in See No Evil, then they could do the same for Dylan “Hornswaggle” Postl as he already was playing a crazed Leprechaun type within the squared circle. But in a string of decisions that stand as the direct opposite intuitive, the powers that be decides to not have Postl play an evil, supernatural version of the character he was already playing and instead turns the eponymous cryptid into a snarling, mute, monster that’s attracted to gold because… reasons.
The malformed beast we’re left with ends up resembling a lot of things – a Crawler from The Descent with the face of a donkey or a dwarven version of Baraka from Mortal Kombat, for example – but one thing this “Leprechaun” doesn’t resemble is an actual fucking Leprechaun. While the absence of Davis is keenly felt, the absence of the Leprechaun having any sort of character is practically disastrous and I never thought I would find myself yerning for one of those terrible limericks spoken in Davis famously iffy Irish accent, but here we are. OK, so this new, proto-Lep does actually do a cool thing or two, either yanking out a gold tongue piercing or ripping out an entire spine; but the “update” proves to be shockingly inferior and the fact that it has Predator vision is just fucking weird.
Could the writers not be bothered to write jokes? Did the producers figure that having the Leprechaun use magic would be too hard on the budget? Was encasing Postl in a rubbery monster suit some sort of cruel prank (it literally could be anyone in the suit) – but we don’t even get to appreciate the film as a basic monster movie as director Zach Lipovsky (who went on to co-helm the insanely superior Final Destination: Bloodlines) elects to disguise his creature by frustratingly shooting it out of focus. Yep, yet another decision that doesn’t make any sense and is as oddly insulting as the stunning twelve minutes of credits that eventually closes the film.
The human cast do what they can as various plot threads go absolutely nowhere. We never actually discover what Ben’s dismissive issue is with his girlfriend, nothing is made of repeated moments where some of the group are more than willing to leave their friends to die and a final twist that suggests the existence of more Leprechauns is just confusing – but Garry Chalk is good value for money, Stephanie Bennett can scream, run and spout exposition well enough to do the job and a wounded Brendan Fletcher can freak out with the best of them. But any film that has me second guessing the rating I gave to Leprechaun In The Hood has to be a major, fucking wash out.
With no origin and technically no fucking Leprechaun, the fact that Leprechaun: Origins has the best production values isn’t enough to stop it from being a colossal lapse in common sense. Say what you will about the Warwick Davis years, but at least they were trying to be fun and wasn’t afraid to use their imaginations – when it comes to crap, this version ends up being the gold standard.
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