Leprechaun: Origins

Good movie!

Good movie!

source: Leprechaun: Origins

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. What was up with the constant focused view, then out of focused view, and back to focused view. It was such a major nuisance, and it really brought down the overall enjoyment of the movie, almost to the point of being as annoying as the 'found footage' movies. I didn't know that Brendan Fletcher was in this movie prior to sitting down to watch it, so that was a nice surprise. Garry Chalk really carried the movie so well with his great performance. It was a shame that whenever the leprechaun was on the screen, then the camera work turned questionable and every other frame was out of focus. From what I saw, then there was some interesting creature design with the leprechaun. And it was a radical change in direction from the previous movies. The movie would have been much more enjoyable if the camera work was consistent and always in focus. And also if they had actually shown more of the leprechaun, then it would have been a notch up in the right direction.

VERY disappointing. I'm a very HUGE Leprechaun fan. I love the Warwick movies. I was excited for it to be scary again. It wasn't, in fact the older ones are scarier. The Leprechaun doesn't speak, just makes animal sounds and growls. You NEVER see a full shot of the Leprechaun. Its not even shown a lot. I don't see why they even needed an actor for the Leprechaun? If you told me it was CGI and a fake puppet.. I would believe it. Hornswoggle had really no acting opportunity here. Who ever was in charge of creating a leprechaun did a LAZY BORING UNCREATIVE job. Its like the Descent meets vampire. I'd rather have a talking, rhyming Leprechaun then one who just growls. I expected more. It seems like SYFY put this together. Just make Leprechaun 7 with Warwick! This should have been a stand alone killer Leprechaun film by WWE. It should have never been in the remake category. Only one kill was really fun and shocking, I jumped. I give it a 4 on IMDb - C level grade wise.

The college students and friend Sophie (Stephanie Bennett), Ben (Andrew Dunbar), Jeni (Melissa Roxburgh ) and David (Brendan Fletcher) are spending vacation traveling through Ireland. They stop in a bar in a small village in the countryside and are convinced to visit a remote area by the local Hamish (Garry Chalk) and his son Sean (Teach Grant) drives the group to the spot. The two couples spend the night in an old cabin and soon they discover that Hamish has locked them inside. Further, a Leprechaun (Dylan 'Hornswoggle' Postl) is hunting them down to feed. "Leprechaun: Origins" is a terrible movie with an awful story. It follows the old formulaic plot of slash movies with a group of youngsters reaching a remote area and taking stupid decisions and attacked by a creature that kills one by one. The worst is that the invincible monster is easily defeated by a clumsy young woman. The writer Harris Wilkinson challenges the viewers' intelligence with this story. My vote is three. Title (Brazil): "O Duende: As Origens" ("The Leprechaun: The Origins")

Leprechaun, huh? More like "Suck-my-dick-upon." This movie was God awful. Basically the plot goes like this, some teenagers go to a cabin in the woods, and they realize they were bait for the "Leprechaun," and they're trying to survive, and trying to figure out how to kill this thing. The characters are really dull, there is nothing interesting about them, they're just about as interesting as a piece of paper. The acting from these teenagers is awful. The dialogue is awful, every line is stupid in this movie. I'm going have to spoil the ending line, one of the dull teenagers says, "F**k you lucky charms." Yep they copied off a line from Leprechaun, wow, does it sound cool in this movie, no it doesn't, it's poorly used, just because you steal a line from another horror movie doesn't make it automatically awesome, because this teenager has no character build up. There is no Leprechaun in this movie, the creature in this movie is a rip off of the monsters from The Descent, and the movie wants us to believe it's a leprechaun, oh yeah sure it's a leprechaun, It looks nothing like a leprechaun at all, just because he likes gold, doesn't mean he is one. 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. Overall this movie is a complete joke, f**k this movie, don't see it, it's a waste of time.

Sucks from start till finish. Clearly did not care about Irish folk lore or even getting the actors and scenery right. No part of the movie feels like its set in Ireland. As for the horror aspect, poor special effects it looks like they borrowed the main antagonists from a 80's b movie. Characters are not very believable the plot has many holes within it and the story is not built up well. You do not get to know any of the characters in the film so when they die you do not really care about them. 2 out of 10

This may not sound like a ringing endorsement for this film and while I'm not saying that this is a great horror film, I have to say that this is far from the worst I've seen but it has some interesting ideas and forgoes the comedy horror of the original series in favour of more traditional shocks and gore. In terms of ideas I loved the - potential spoiler alert - 'sacrifice' concept, which is another departure from the original. I'd go so far as to say that this film bears very little similarities to the original set of films but is all the better for it. Perhaps this is why the film is attracting so much ire – but I personally applaud the different approach the film makers took and found it a fun addition to the genre. It's a cut above your average Sci-Fi Channel film, for example, with good acting, reasonable special effects and a decent number of shocks.

...and if you go into this film expecting Warwick Davis and his wise- cracking Leprechaun antics, you're going to be disappointed. 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. Sure the story is a little silly and far-fetched, but suspension of disbelief is necessary to begin with...if you're trying to make a movie about a killer leprechaun. "Origins" is everything that a film like this should be! Its fast-paced with jump scares and suspense spaced throughout the run time. And even though the "gore" in the movie is next to non-existent, the death sequences and setups more than make up for it. Its evident that the film is low budget, but the production values are able to rise above that. Similarly, the cast is better than they should be for a film like this. Genre veteran Brendan Fletcher (Freddy vs. Jason) turns in an excellent performance as the lovable "blockhead" of the group. I actually found myself rooting for him to survive! And none of the other cast members were distractingly bad (as is normally the case with DTV horror films). Dylan "Hornswoggle" Postl does just fine as the new Leprechaun. With the new approach for the character, there actually isn't much acting required from the WWE veteran. Unlike other reviewers, I will not criticize director Zach Lipovsky's decision to keep the creature mostly in the shadows. A lot of better, smarter creature features have utilized this approach and no one gives them any flack for it. In my opinion, we see the creature just enough to leave us wanting more! (And isn't that what a film of this nature is supposed to do?! I mean SEQUELS right?!)