Leprechaun: Origins - 2014

I am just going to say right up front here that the only reason I am including this review here is because I reviewed the first six Leprechaun films and I felt like as a completion-ist, this film should rightfully be included.  Of course this is one of those sequels or reboots where it's so far removed from the original movie(s) that if you gave it a different name no one would know it was supposed to fit into a series.  Yes, welcome to the "American re-make of Godzilla from 1998" hall of fame, Leprechaun: Origins.

Leprechaun: Origins follows that tried and not-so-true method of horror films.  I call this the "Helpful Stranger" method and it's seen often and always works the same way:
1) group of young friends is somewhere they don't know, and are either lost, broken down, or just wandering aimlessly
2) local person who seems like they just want to help tells them of a place they can stay / can tow their car / somehow helps them
3) they blindly take the offer, usually at the disapproval of the one person in the group who is not a stoner or idiot or total jerk
4) turns out they are now in the danger zone, and the helpful stranger was not actually being helpful at all!
5) some of them die (the ones who had sex, do the most drugs, or insulted the local townsfolk die first)
6) it comes down to the doubtful member of the group and "the innocent" ones left, and sometimes they will get an assist by one of the evil peoples who led them here, or other times they'll just try and make their escape
7) they either escape or die

Yep, that's several movies right there I can think of that follow that exact formula.  For example, the film Chernobyl Diaries followed that plotline as well, and now Leprechaun (Lep from now on) follows suit....cause it's too hard to be original, people.  Just too hard.

This movie tried to be different from the other Lep films by having a darker, more horror centered plot.  I guess it does, as this is horror whereas the others were a horror comedy, and in some of those cornier sequels even more of an adventure sci fi type feel.  This one dials back the interest factor and settles for the lowest common denominator.  It stars WWE star Dylan "Hornswoggle" Postl, the midget dude who started wrestling back when I used to watch WWE.  I can say with 100% surety that anyone could have played the role here though, cause the Lep in this film seriously looks like one of the goblins from The Lord of the Rings films.

There is virtually no blood in the film, there is one leg wound that looks pretty bad and fake, and then there is a kill where the Lep rips out a dude's backbone.  It's all filmed in the most boring way possible, what actually could have looked cool with the backbone was turned into a yawn-fest by lack of good camera angles, editing, and atmosphere.

Leprechaun wasn't like, the best horror comedy movie ever or anything.  It got lucky by casting a young Jennifer Aniston, the Leprechaun being played by Warwick Davis, and witty, bizarre dialogue was also great.  It was an interesting kind of surreal horror film, like if you took one of those weird dreams you had and turned it into a feature length movie.  It is a classic though, and extremely memorable.

This film is nothing.  It's absolute fluff.  It's completely forgettable, not noteworthy in any single way, does not deliver horror, comedy, intelligence, blood, shocks, thrills....etc.  It was a waste of people's time, money, and whatever talent the cast might've had.
Zero stars.

And by the way, it is not the "Origin".  This isn't like the beginning of anything?!  Nothing points to the other 6 films following this one.  I mean sure, I guess you could make a sequel to this, it sort of left it open, but no one ever will.  Fuck this movie.