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Leprechaun: Origins (2014)

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Overall Rating 32%
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Ranked #5,301
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Connections: Leprechaun

Backpacking through the lush Irish countryside, two unsuspecting young couples discover a town's chilling secret. Ben, Sophie, David and Jeni quickly discover the idyllic land is not what it appears to be when the town's residents offer the hikers an old cabin at the edge of the woods. Soon, the friends will find that one of Ireland's most famous legends is a terrifying reality. --IMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: March 18, 2015
It's been over seven years since I ran through the infamous Leprechaun franchise, but WWE has recently relaunched it starring their very own Hornswoggle in the starring role. While I was fairly certain it was going to be awful going in, awful horror movies are our specialty, and what better way to celebrate St. Paddy's Day?

American tourists Sophie, Ben, David, and Jeni are spending their last weekend in Ireland backpacking through the country's rural counties when they stumble across a monolith with strange symbols carved into it. While talking about it in a local pub, a local man named Hamish turns around and tells them there's much more where that comes from. There's a cave seven hours from the village that's filled with those carvings, and it likely has something to do with the very beginnings of Ireland itself. That's too good for history buff Sophie to pass up, so the four take Hamish up on his offer of letting them stay the night at his cabin and setting off first thing in the morning. On the way, the Irishman explains that the cave was actually a gold mine at one point, until a cave-in shut it down. At the cabin, night has fallen and our little group of drunk tourists have passed out, until they're awoken by something moving around outside. Something vicious. Something that has an eye for gold. Even worse than that, Hamish has locked them inside the cabin which has a trap door to let that little monster in. There's obviously something strange going on in this little town, but right now, those four Yankees just have to worry about staying alive.

Before anything else, I'll come right out and tell you that this movie left a bad taste in my mouth, and I can point to a single factor why. You see, this is one of those remakes that just isn't a remake in any sense of the word. The original leprechaun was a character. In folklore by and large, leprechauns are characters. This one is a creature. When I put in a movie called Leprechaun, I'm doing so with the expectation of actually seeing a leprechaun. Namely, I want a villain that relies on magic, riddles and twisting doublespeak to wreak havoc. What I don't want is a midget version of It Waits. I'm not even sure why they would want to take this route in the first place. The original franchise made it to six movies, but none of them were really that good. Hell, the best one was Leprechaun: In Space, so this isn't exactly a classic franchise above a redo. There's worlds they could have done to give us a fun, brutal character that keeps us laughing just as much as we're cringing at his bloodshed. Instead they pissed it away on a generic monster that I guess is a leprechaun because it steals gold. Look, I'm not trying to say that filmmakers should just accept being shoe-horned to their source material, but you can't make such a radical departure from what you're trying to sell that you lose what people actually want to see. That's just a bait and switch.

With all that said, don't think I didn't like it because it was too far removed from the original series. Even judging it as a monster movie, it's still not that good. While admittedly it boasts a handful of nice kills, it's not enough to counter the never-ending cycle of kids-trapped-by-leprechaun, escape, kids-trapped-by villagers, escape. On top of that, it's bogged down with more cliches than you can imagine. I saw most of the plot coming from the get-go, and they even went so far as to just copy a few scenes from other movies (including Jurassic Park: The Lost World for some reason). Finally, there's just nothing memorable about the villain. It's a generic monster design that's been used on all sorts of movie monsters. I guess we weren't supposed to notice since we never did get a clear shot of it, but no dice. Speaking of, other than attaching one of their wrestler's names to it, I'm not sure why Dylan Postl was needed here. Sure, his in-ring character is best known for playing a leprechaun, but that has no correlation with anything found here. Any child could have thrown the suit on for this, and it's not exactly going to jumpstart his acting career.

So, enjoy your St. Paddy's day tonight. Enjoy the parties, the bad Irish accents, and the crazy green wardrobes. Just stay away from Leprechaun: Origins. This has far more in common with tomorrow's hangover. 2.5/10.
Lucid Dreams #1: Lucid Dreams - added March 26, 2015 at 12:20am
Saw the trailer and that was all I needed to see.
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