LEPRECHAUN ORIGINS

2014 / Director. Zach Lipovsky.
Review by Glenn Cochrane.

Low expectations can do wonders. I approached LEPRECHAUN ORIGINS with an assumption that it was a turd. Everyone who'd seen it warned me off it and its user ratings are abysmal. With all of the forewarning in mind I avoided watching it for over a year. I was a big fan of the original franchise and with the reboot receiving such a pathetic reception, I was happy to ignore it. I rarely heed people's opinions when it comes to films and I should have ignored the negativity. I watched the movie tonight and I was fucking impressed. Perhaps the naysayers were expecting something which resembled the previous instalments, in which case they have reason to baulk. LEPRECHAUN ORIGINS has no similarities with the franchise whatsoever and it has nothing in common aside from the title. Viewers can be forgiven for expecting to see a little man running around in a green suit, robbing people of gold. Warwick Davis charmed us throughout six instalments as the funny little creature who joked his way from kill to kill, but his character has been ditched for this so-called "reboot" in favour of orc-like monsters. The quirky comedy-horror has been replaced with a dark and gruesome creature-feature story along the lines of FEAST. Four friends backpacking through Ireland find themselves in a small town with a dark secret. Befriended by locals they are taken to a cabin, locked inside and left as an offering for a leprechaun. With the demon-like creature lurking they arm themselves and fight for survival. As far as creature feature movies go, this is a little ripper. I really dug it. The creature designs are very cool and the foreboding atmosphere is very nicely done. The actors are decent enough and spend most of the film running and screaming. The gore is impressive and a few choice gore scenes push it to a deserved R rating. I really can't comprehend the atrocious reception this film received and I can only attribute it to the fact that it's entirely removed from the LEPRECHAUN series we know and love. As a stand alone movie, it worked for me and I will probably watch it again. 

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