Leprechaun: Origins

Plot synopsis:
A young couple, Catherine and Francois, are attempting to escape from a figure who eventually catches and drags Francois to his death. It also grabs hold of Catherine just before she arrives at a monolith in a grassland.
Four American college friends, Sophie, Ben, Jeni, and David are vacationing at an Irish countryside at Sophie's behest. The driver, Ian, lets them go at the monolith seen in the beginning. Sophie, who is a history bachelor, takes note of the monolith's symbol before heading to a local bar with the others, where they meet with a friendly old man, Hamish, who tells them about the history of the village: it was formerly a mining center for gold obtained in a nearby cavern, but when the gold ran out, the population dwindled. The four agree to be taken to a cottage where they can begin hitchhiking to the cavern, though they are wary of Hamish and his grumpy son, Sean.
That night, Jeni investigates a ruckus outside and glimpses a figure sprinting past the window. She wakes the others, who discover that Hamish and Sean had locked them up. A figure suddenly enters the cottage through the fireplace and forcibly takes Jeni's gold earring. After a brief struggle which sees David's leg being bitten by the monster, the four escape the cottage and race to the village hall, where they hide in the cellar. From a mythology book, Sophie learns that the monster is a Tuatha Dé Danann, also known as the leprechaun, who owns the gold that the villagers sought after. In return for the gold, the villagers have to sacrifice at least two humans each year as "compensation". The leprechaun lusts after gold, but it can be repelled by a certain symbol, the same one carved into the monolith, which serves as a barrier beyond which the being cannot get out.
The four are confronted by Hamish, who confirms that the villagers sacrifice tourists each year to avoid having to sacrifice themselves, and Sean, who has grown weary of the unjustified sacrifices and eventually lets them go. The four take the offer to escape by an old woman, Mary, who is revealed to be Hamish' accomplice. The four are then tied to trees as offerings for the leprechaun. The monster arrives and bites Jeni's tongue, but David manages to break free and releases the other three, though at the cost of his own life. The remaining trio head back to the cottage to set a trap to kill the monster, but the leprechaun tricks Sophie and Ben into striking Jeni with their axes, killing her.
Sophie and Ben fetch Hamish's truck but are cornered by the leprechaun inside the village hall with the keys. The leprechaun eventually gets hold of Ben and kills him by ripping his spine out. Though cornered by Hamish, who is still intent on sacrificing her, Sophie is given a free pass by Sean, who pushes Hamish into the cellar, where the leprechaun kills him, much to Sean's devastation (who is never seen again). Meanwhile, Sophie boards Hamish' truck but crashes midway while trying to avoid the leprechaun. She resumes her escape on foot and when the leprechaun finds her she distracts it with gold coins, then decapitates it using Francois' knife, which he had left in the prologue. Sophie finally manages to cross the monolith to safety just as a second leprechaun is revealed, before continuing her escape.

Tags: violence

Review:
New generic Leprechaun movie dismisses the fun and original series..
It's the most severe case of bland I can think of, and I sat through eleven Puppet Master movies—I know what I'm talking about.The only connection this movie has at all with any of the earlier films is that the surviving character at the end actually says, "Fuck you, Lucky Charms." I was actually surprised to hear it, because after watching this lifeless piece of crap, I was beginning to wonder if the filmmakers just didn't bother with watching any of the prior movies.
Going in to watch this movie the ratings were indeed alarming, at 3.3 one could hardly expect a masterpiece I knew that.I did think that possibly the low ratings could be due to die hard fans of the leprechaun series being angry with the lack of Warwick Davis and the movie not staying true the story.And while that is all true, the movie is just completely different in all aspects of the original franchiseNow, I'm not gonna say that the Leprechaun series is a classic, or even good for that matter, they kinda aren't, but one thing that they always manage to do is entertain...
This one does notAnd while the Leprechaun series playfully played with the silliness of the plot and at many times would be better viewed as a comedy than a horror, the whole comedy aspect is totally disregarded in this "reboot" it takes itself and it's characters way too seriously and that definitely stands in it's way from making this enjoyableThe leprechaun as a character is also completely changed, while Warwick Davis was a witty green faced leprechaun in the original movies, the new Leprechaun can't even speak and he looks more like an alien than the Leprechaun we know and loveHe's also a lot taller than the original, the bio says he's 4.4 but he looks average-sized tbh in the movieThe first 45 minutes is bearable but the last 35 minutes is almost exclusive to the cast running back and forward in the woodsOn top of that while it's supposed to take place in Ireland, it's filmed in Canada with American and Canadian actors with bad Irish accentsThere's really not much good to say about this movie, if anything, even if you look beyond the fact that it's a reboot and watch it as a standalone movie it's still a crappy movie.
The horror genre, and especially the slasher genre like the Leprechaun films, aren't known for great scripts but, do generally lay out some interesting ideas.
Hardcore fans of the franchise like myself will finish watching this movie and really dislike what Lionsgate and WWE Studios has done, and even consider it the worst of all the films(yes, even worst than Leprechaun in Space).
Maybe the mythological beast, but, except the gold thing, which also was very, very bad treated, this movie was down right bad!So lets see: the acting was OK, I approve to the characters, the Leprechaun had a terrible design, way too look alike "Creep" or "Underground", the habits of the creature were NOT explored properly, and the plot is extremely poor.
(Avoid)Best Part: There isn't one.Worst Part: Leprechaun is now a goblin.Kill Of The Film: BenBelievability: No (0/10)Chances of Tears: No (0/10)Chances of Sequel: It could, I hope not though.Post Credits Scene: NoOscar Chances: NoRuntime: 1 Hour 30 MinutesOverall: Terrible Horror Reboot.
Much like the Child's Play series the originals started off serious and ended up being comedy and laughable (Leprechaun In Space and In The Hood).
Being a huge WWE and horror movie fan i was immediately intrigued by this film however i was never a big fan of the original leprechaun films.
You could also say that i haven't been a big fan of any of wwe studios films other than the first marine and see no evil but i can say if your looking for a decent horror flick to watch late at night this is the movie for you it's fast paced and for the most part enjoyable with a clever plot twist which if your an average film goer you may not notice at first.
The acting performances are not great but good enough for a direct to DVD film like this and i can say that WWE superstar Hornswoggle is completely unrecognizable in the role of the leprechaun.
If your a fan of the original leprechaun films though you may be disappointed that this isn't the comedic leprechaun but rather a dark monster who terrorizes villages and brutally eats people.
Some gripes i have though are the scenes in which the college students battle the leprechaun as the shaky cam is at points a consistent thing that you notice and there is never a clear look at the leprechaun its either shown from a blurry vision or a predator style like point of view shot which is clever for this film but does come off as a bit of a rip off though.
i must say though that leprechaun : origins is a enjoyable horror rental which is one of the better horror films of 2014 and one of the best wwe studios productions to date .
The filmmakers responsible for this film have stated NUMEROUS times that they wanted a complete reimagining of the Leprechaun character and backstory (despite the "Origins" subtitle).
This film was always meant to abandon the slapstick approach of the original series in favor of something a little more dark and primitive, which in my opinion, they were successful with, and if you leave your brain and quibbles about Warwick's interpretation of the character at the door, "Leprechaun: Origins" is a hell of a fun ride.
It was nice to have a revisit to the "Leprechaun" franchise, despite this deviating quite much from the original movies.But this deviation is not a bad thing; far from it.
What this movie lacks in terms of one-liners, funny dialogue and Warwick Davis, this 2014 "Leprechaun: Origins" more than make up for in brutality and ferocity.The story is about a group of young people who are trekking in Ireland who come across a small remote village that claim to have ancient artifacts that could be rooting back to the origin of the Celtic culture.
But the village harbors a secret that glitters like gold, and the surrounding countryside is the home of a creature that wants that gold.I will say that the storyline was good, despite being predictable and not really bringing anything new to the horror genre.One thing that really annoyed me was the camera work, especially when the leprechaun was in the shot.
I couldn't tell if they were honestly trying to make a good movie or not.First of all; they completely changed the Iconic Character played by Warwick Davis.
To being a typical generic and almost insultingly terrible "monster" from any other monster movie you'd expect to see lurking in bushes.The story is barely existent in that there really isn't one beyond pointlessly forced plot points for the sake of wasting time and moving the story forward by not actually going anywhere of value.The characters are completely forgettable and this hurts the movie most because the scares are fully dependent on illogical gore scenes (if you find gore scary which I do not) and clichéd over used "oh a monster is doing something now" moments.They had a few minor areas where it seemed like they were attempting to set up some sort of suspense or empathy for the characters but over all fail completely due to the lack of development and story all together.Essentially; this movie is only worth your time if you're curious and really really have nothing better to do, because there is barely anything of value here to make it even remotely entertaining beyond feeling like someone handed the entire production over to a 10 Year Old with a full cast and crew and the best gear they could find and said, here direct these people based off these storyboards, it's like a MATCHING GAME!
It wasn't until the Anglo-Irish Gaelic revival of the late 1800s that suddenly the Irish were being labelled as "Celts".The camera relied a little too much on soft- or out-of-focus shots, which became annoying to watch.The acting was pretty good for the type of film it is.The creature concept was interesting enough.
Plus part of me was semi-intrigued, but also quite nervous about, by it not having Warwick Davis, the best thing consistently about the 'Leprechaun' films bar none, in the title role.Seeing it, not only does 'Leprechaun: Origins' make pretty much all the mistakes the previous films did it amplifies them and makes more along the way.
The characters are dull as dishwater and their behaviours are annoying, the visuals on the most part are tacky (actually mostly looking worse than the previous films when strictly speaking it should have looked better with technology having advanced generally) and with no exception the acting is dire.Summing up, very poor and the worst of the franchise.
I think the filmmakers on "Leprechaun: Origins" wanted to make something along the lines of "The Descent," changing the quaint folk creature of the prior series into more of a cave monster with night-vision.
The story builds no suspense, defies logic and insults the viewer's intelligence.Acting is very one-dimensional, but then again you can't blame the poor actors, as I am sure they would be capable of more if they had proper direction.The leprechaun itself looks like a kind of zombie crossed with a gorilla, with one singular growling sound and a range of motions limited two seemingly wobbling left to right on the spot.To top off everything, the cinematography and lighting is absolutely cringe-worthily bad.
The other problematic area is the rather lousy special effects on the creature itself, which is usually so blurry and distorted by the rapid-fire quick-cut editing that you never get any kind of view of it and can tell what it looks like until the end despite it being present most of the movie.
I want you to notice that actor for the title creature (leprechaun as they misnamed it) has not seen a movie of the Leprechaun series, this fact tells a lot.
By the way about its "leprechaun", many fans of original series will find it unpleasant to see such a leprechaun, it is just a regular wild roaring monster from a horror movie.
The greatest tragedy wasn't the lack of Warwick Davis, even though his role in previous installments is what created the cult, but the fact that the leprechaun didn't seem to follow any of the lore set in the original movies.The lack luster acting, terrible monster make-up, and just all around predictable nature of the plot made this movie only watchable if you enjoy ripping apart b-movies.This was clearly a pet project by someone who called-in a lot of favors to get it made to their liking with no respect to the franchise.
Well obviously you've bad acting, a cheesy script, very approximate Irish accents, two-dimensional characters, glaring factual errors, crap special effects, no sense of threat, over-use of jump scares and Lewton buses but I think the best way of summing up how just how crap Leprechaun: Origins is, is the fact that people are on IMDb defending the honour of the original Leprechaun (1993) film!That's all you need to know, really.
The origin story to ruin all other films in the Leprechaun franchise!.
In fact the WWE (yes the actual Wrestling company) have 'rebooted' the film, however instead of a little fella running around in Green it's more of a rubber demon/goblin attacking people rather than a stereotypical Leprechaun.
The blur is annoying and the fact that you never really see the monster in a full shot is very like early horror films where production teams were cleverly trying to be convincing with the like of the 'Monster from the Black Lagoon', apart from in this there is technology to make a good film but it just wasn't used properly.After watching this film I might go back and bump the ratings I gave for the original Leprechaun films up by a few stars - this travesty of an embarrassment of a film was that awful that I am really struggling to say anything nice about it.
In hindsight any low rating I gave the original Leprechaun films should be revoked, re-rated, drizzled with gold and diamonds and re-submitted to IMDb.Bad directing, poor acting, terrible narrative, annoying effects.
Not As Bad As Some Are Making it Out to Be. Leprechaun: Origins (2014)** (out of 4)Four friends are backpacking through Ireland when a kind old man (you know what that means) tells them about a historical site they should go see.
With that said, that should somewhat come as a warning since I'm sure fans of the original series are going to hate the changes they made here but at the same time I guess you should at least give them credit for not simply remaking it or giving us the same thing.If you're expecting an ugly little leprechaun to be going around telling jokes then you're not going to find that here.
Again, there's nothing wrong with the creatures here but it seems they would have fit better into a movie not called LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS.
With that said, there are a couple decent kills scattered throughout the movie and there's no doubt that the creature itself looks good, whenever you can actually see it.The performances are actually quite good for a film like this with Stephanie Bennett, Melissa Roxburgh, Andrew Dunbar and Brendan Fletcher all doing nice work.
Dylan Postl plays the leprechaun here and to be honest it's rather hard to judge his performance since you hardly see his creature throughout the picture.Again, if you're a fan of the original series then I can see why you might hate this thing.
I've yet to catch several of Warwick Davies' Leprechaun movies, but I imagine that they're not all that dissimilar to the ones that I have seen: light-hearted horrors with the diminutive star spouting cheesy one-liners as he offs his victims in creative ways.Leprechaun: Origins, a reboot of the series without Davies in the lead role, does things differently, eschewing the tongue-in-cheek style in favour of straight-forward horror, with a more animalistic creature (played by wrestler Dylan Postl) that utters nothing but guttural growls as it tears apart its victims.
Nice one, Zach!Origins' predictable plot sees a group of dumb American backpackers visiting a remote Irish village where they run into trouble with the locals, who try to sacrifice them to the vicious leprechaun that has been terrorising the area.
The direction is as unimaginative as the writing, Lipovsky employing annoying wobbly camera-work, irritating rapid editing, and gimmicky Predator-style thermal vision, while dark cinematography and deliberately out-of-focus shots help to disguise the shoddy nature of the film's generic monster.The disappointing gore includes a split-second axe to the face and a poorly lit spine-ripping, while gratuitous T&A is limited to hot final girl Sophie (Stephanie Bennett) briefly stripping to her undies—none of which adequately compensates for the sheer tedium of the storytelling and total lack of fresh ideas..
I can also say that I never wanted Leprechaun original actor Warwick Davis back so much because it's not like Hornswoggle does anything noteworthy.
You missed out on a great opportunity if you would have filmed the Leprechaun played by Warwick Davis...this Leprechaun in this movie look like a ball of walking hot wax.
If this was supposed to be an 'Origin' movie explaining the history and the story behind the Leprechauns, then I must've missed it somewhere under all the crap I just watched.
I thought this film was gripping, had a great story, and I liked the change in character from the original lep movies.
I saw this advertised on a random site and decided (seeing as i'm from Ireland) i would like to see how someone could turn a movie about leprechauns into a horror story....
not something i would ever watch again or recommend for anyone to watch ever, unless they're just interested in wasting their time.People might as well leave leprechauns to be cute little men with red beards with rainbows and pots of gold, because choosing them as a monster in a horror movie obviously didn't work out too well at all..
The movie is so boring, because the characters are so lifeless and dull, we only get to see the creature in about 23mins, and does the creature look scary, no it doesn't, it's making the original Leprechaun from Leprechaun scarier than that thing.
The only good thing about this movie, is when the creature kills one of the dull teenagers, in a very graphic way, like pulling his spine out.
Leprechaun: Origins was definitely not as great or fun as the Warwick Davis Lep series that's for sure.
Feels nothing like a Leprechaun movie either, more like a creature feature syfy original.
We want Warwick Davis and a Leprechaun that actually has character and origins!
I have a feeling most fans of the early movies are going to be surprised when they delve into "Leprechaun: Origins." Much like the "Evil Dead" reboot from a few years back, there's nothing to laugh about here.
If you're going to try to analyze it and hold it up to the original Leprechaun series and hold a grudge for them not bringing back Warwick Davis then of course you won't like it.
Directed by Zach Lipovsky and produced by World Wrestling Entertainment AKA WWE films, Leprechaun: Origins tells, the story of a group of unsuspecting Americans backpacking, through Ireland.
It's OK that the movie focus more on the lore, but the leprechaun in this film doesn't even look like that, as well.
The Leprechaun in this remake is made as a creature; like a monster.
And the thing what was so important in the original was that the leprechaun isn't a monster or a creature.