hitsvilleuk:

A mighty fine rule of thumb is that nothing with the word “origins” in the title will ever be much cop. Another good rule is that releases from WWE Studios are uniformly shite. Of course, there are exceptions to both - the first Dragon Age game for the former, Oculus and The Call for the latter - but in general, they’re to be avoided.

The two rules absolutely prove true with Leprechaun: Origins, the seventh film in the series and the first in eleven years. Quite why WWE thought it a good idea to revive a long dormant, cult-concern-only franchise is something known only to them. That said, Origins deserves some praise for at least trying to be a proper horror film. Taking a sharp swerve away from its comedic Warwick Davis-starring forbears, Origins reshapes the titular tiny terror (now played by WWE’s Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl) as a feral beast, an inhuman creature that feasts solely on attractive 20-something American backpackers with more in common with the cave-dwellers of The Descent than a cheery cereal mascot. Despite this rebooting of the franchise, there’s little to differentiate this from any other bog-standard “protagonists get picked off” horror, other than the faux-Irish flavouring. Apparently, everyone in Ireland is middle-aged, greying, wears a flat cap and braces, and sits in a remote pub in the middle of the day; the film didn’t even bother going to Ireland to film, instead deciding Vancouver is a good substitute.

You don’t even need to watch the film to call its spots; a pre-credits death of unnamed monster fodder, hapless protagonists stumble across locals who turn out to be malicious and are told of some evil and/or mysterious thing, a literal cabin in the woods (a trope which really should be banned after Cabin In The Woods), a jump-scare, an initial confrontation with the creature, someone goes down into a basement, the group separates, they get picked off, blah, blah, etc, etc. To be fair to the filmmakers, they do a decent job of keeping the leprechaun off-screen and in the shadows to maximise its scare potential, a la the xenomorph in Alien, although one suspects this may be down to the shoddiness of the practical effects - I’ve seen Nikki Bella dropkicks that were more convincing - and the extreme suspension of disbelief that something no more than three feet tall and all skin & bone could be such an effective killing machine. As such, there are very few real scares to be had and only one or two notable moments of gore (involving gold piercings). Such scrimping on the necessary elements for a successful horror could be excused if the rest of the film wasn’t so poorly made in every regard, from effects to cinematography to screenplay to direction, sound and acting. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that even the catering on set was below par.

★☆☆☆☆

(via hitsvilleuk)