Leprechaun: Origins

Today, I’m going to look at a particularly loathed horror reboot: 2014’s Leprechaun: Origins.

The plot of Leprechaun: Origins is summarized on IMDb as follows:

Two young couples backpacking through Ireland discover that one of Ireland’s most famous legends is a terrifying reality.

The director for Leprechaun: Origins was Zach Lipovsky, who had previously done directing work only on television movies and short films. However, he has gone on to since direct more consistently on television, and is currently attached to a Kim Possible movie.

Taking over the role as the eponymous Leprechaun in the film is professional wrestler Dylan Postl, also known as “Hornswaggle.” Postl has been wrestling for WWE since 2006, and has no other notable acting credits. His association with WWE is likely what got him the role, as the film was produced by WWE studios, which has frequently cast notable wrestlers as actors. Past examples of this practice include John Cena in 12 Rounds, Kane in See No Evil, The Rock in The Scorpion King, and Steve Austin in The Condemned.

The cinematographer for Leprechaun: Origins was Mahlon Todd Williams, whose other credits include 12 Rounds 3, See No Evil 2, and numerous episodes of the television series Legends of Tomorrow.

The editor for the film was Mark Stevens, who also cut The Final Destination, The Number 23, 8MM, Batman Forever, Phone Booth, Freddy vs. Jason, and Batman & Robin, among other films.

Allegedly, star Dylan Postl has never seen a Leprechaun movie, and intentionally didn’t view them after getting the part – he didn’t want his performance to be influenced by the one given by Warwick Davis.

Speaking of Warwick Davis, he apparently wasn’t asked to be involved with Leprechaun: Origins, and has public stated that he would have loved to have reprised his role.

In 2018, Syfy announced that it would be making its own Leprechaun reboot, to be released in 2019. One again, Warwick Davis was passed over, with the role instead going to Linden Porco. However, the tone of the film is reportedly going to be more in line with the original run of Leprechaun movies.

Leprechaun: Origins was widely loathed by critics and audiences alike: it currently holds highly unenviable review statistics, like a 3.3/10 IMDb user rating, and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 0% from critics and 9% from audiences.

In his review of the film for IGN, Cliff Wheatley wrote:

the main characters are so bland that you won’t know their names before they start being offed by the so-called leprechaun. I know B-movie characters are meant to be cannon fodder, but watching cardboard cutouts getting eaten isn’t all that much fun.

This review points out one of the biggest problems with this movie – there is nothing here for an audience to latch on to. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having “cardboard cutouts” making up most of the cast, but something in the film has to give the audience a reason to pay attention. For a lot of slashers, that comes in the form of creatively gore-y demises for the aforementioned cutouts. For the Leprechaun films, though, that engagement has also come from the goofy charisma and rhyming schemes offered by Warwick Davis. Hornswaggle, in this ill-fated reimagining, doesn’t have a chance to win over the audience in the same way. This is because his character is now merely a growling, humorless, feral monster – solely a mechanism for murder.

The fact that this film totally lacks cheesy tone of the original Leprechaun movies says to me that the production had no understanding of what made those movies unique and beloved by fans. My suspicion is that WWE came up with the idea for this movie specifically because they had Hornswaggle – a little person with an Irish stage theme – under contract. This wasn’t a movie made with an intention or vision beyond a capitalistic desire for revenue, and that comes through in the dispassionate final product. It is kind of ironic that this movie was fueled by greed alone – it sounds to me like the kind of thing that would put someone on a murderous leprechaun’s shit list.

On the whole, this is a boring, gruelingly unimaginative horror film, that sits in stark contrast to its predecessors in the franchise. There honestly isn’t a single thing to recommend about it – this is a total and complete failure of a movie. However, it might whet your appetite for a goofy Leprechaun classic – Leprechaun 3, perhaps?