Review by Tristan Bishop
Time for full disclosure – I’ve not seen any of the six (?!) other Leprechaun films. Back in the mid-nineties I was a mildly pretentious youth more into French art house fare than comedy horror, and so the gore ‘n’ giggles formula wasn’t one I tended to opt for on a trip to the video shop. Of course over the years I’ve relaxed a little and am far more open to delights from right across the filmic spectrum, so when the call went out that a screener for the new Leprechaun film was available I stuck my hand up, anticipating, at worst, a jolly low-budget film filled with bad taste jokes and ludicrous splatter.
It appears, however, that WWE Studios had a slightly different idea about how the seventh Leprechaun film should play out, and it became abruptly clear that Leprechaun : Origins is somewhat of a reboot of the series, dispensing with the laughs and instead bringing the series into line with the more grim & gritty trends in modern horror. After an opening scene showing a young couple stalked and killed by an unknown assailant, we are introduced to two more extremely attractive yet utterly detestable young American couples holidaying in Ireland. After some tiresome character-building (one of them wants to study in a different place to the other one, you know the drill here) they end up in a local village pub ordering unspecified ‘pints’ and are accosted by a charming fellow who notes that one of the young people is a history student and tells them he has some remarkable old mystical stones to show them (we’ve all heard this one, eh ladies?) if they come and stay the night in a remote cottage miles from nowhere. Apparently, the lure of ancient granite is enough for them to agree to this, and soon the chap and his extremely unfriendly son drive them out to the site in the middle of the night. It transpires that where their village was once rich and prosperous following the discovery of a gold mine, but after some mysterious deaths the mine was closed and the village fell into ruin. Upon arrival at the run-down cottage, the couples bed down for the night, but soon discover they are not alone in the area, and something vicious is stalking them.
This film pretty much spoilers itself with the title, doesn’t it? Obviously the thing stalking them is the titular Leprechaun, still seeking revenge for his stolen gold. But he’s not the jolly Warwick Davies-styled ginger chap in a bright green suit in this one. Oh no, as it’s the year 2014 our creature resembles nothing more than a shoddier version of the cave-dwellers from The Descent. Rather bafflingly the chap inside the suit is Hornswaggle, who is apparently a WWE dwarf wrestler. Having no knowledge of his previous work I’m in no position to judge his quality as an actor, but here he is utterly wasted in an monster suit lacking decent expression, and pretty much just flailing around occasionally. Say what you like about See No Evil (as it goes I rather like it) – Kane’s presence was one of the most impressive things about it, so here this seems an odd role to give to one of the stars of the studio’s wrestling output.
There’s honestly not much I can say in favour of Leprechaun: Origins. There are a couple of good gore moments, including one sick gag which caught me by surprise and made me laugh out loud (sorry flatmates), but they are few and far between in a film which really could have benefited from piling the outlandish gore on. Script, direction and cinematography are all perfunctory at best (director Zach Lipovsky is slated to make an upcoming film of Capcom’s amusing zombie game series Dead Rising, and as a fan of the games this doesn’t exactly fire my anticipation) and any fans of the series hoping for an actual origin story for the beast are going to be disappointed too; aside from a bit where the young people read a story in an ancient book, there’s no sign of any ‘origin’ here at all.
So this is a reboot of the series famous for its humour and star villain, ditching both and replacing them with a shoddy monster and bland pretty people to be picked off one-by-one. Ironically the biggest crime this film commits is that it isn’t fun at all (save for the aforementioned moment), and maybe some of the wise-cracking silliness could have come as a blessed relief. In short, it’s a total misfire, and not worth your time.
Leprechaun Origins is released to Region 2 DVD on 6th October, from Lionsgate.