What is the worst movie you have ever seen? For me I don't think I have seen my worst yet but Leprechaun Origins come really close. Not everything about the film is bad and had it been titled Attack of the Irish Beast, hell, it might have been pretty good. But that isn't what this is, this is a Leprechaun movie that just doesn't make sense. Yea, I mean that. Leprechaun in Space made more sense than the plot of this film. I'm sorry, I think I'm rambling a bit, let me take a beat and try to explain this properly.
Leprechaun: Origins- Four "college" graduates are on a backpacking trip through Ireland when the head for a town that is said to house the oldest relics in Ireland's history. From there the four accept a nights stay in a cabin by a local so they can head up to "gold cave" (I'm dead serious, it's a cave that had gold) fresh in the morning. After a few hours and a strange noise, a creature comes a stirring and all hell breaks loose...
...............................Spoilers from here on out..............................
That is my synopsis of this very lack luster film. I hate when I have to write bad reviews, but there is nothing redeeming about this film AS an installment in the Leprechaun franchise. I can be extremely specific about why this movie fell apart and who exactly put a stamp of "P.O.S." on it. Let's begin with my favorite part about horror, the practical FX.
The practical FX are very poorly done. From the creature to the wounds, they are just poorly done. This would be acceptable for a no budget film with FX green horns, but these are seasoned vets. Toby Lindala (Supernatural), Lee Wilson (The Fly), Reece Mack (Psych) and Howard Lau (Godzilla). To be fair Lau is only a character designer, but what was he thinking? Seriously no one had the guts to say "this looks horrible, we should change it". You can see that some shots were so bad that they went in and covered it with CGI, the only problem with that is the CGI made it even worse. Maybe they had a bunch of no-pay interns working on this. Either way the ''creature'' is horrible. it's suppose to be a Leprechaun film not a follow up to Creature.
The script and directing are solid SyFy channel grade. The poor execution of dialogue to the dumbest concept for a leprechaun story ever recorded, it just falls to pieces. The idea is that this town stole all the Leprechaun's gold and to make amends they have to not only give it a boat load of gold back, but also it has to eat people.... Mother Fu@ker, why does this thing have gold when it is nothing more than a crazed beast that doesn't talk or even wear clothes? Why does it need to eat people and get gold with its meal? Harris Wilkinson's first venture into the screenplay world and this is what he comes up with. Sure he'll say they didn't stick to the scripts, poppycock I say. Own up to this and just try harder on the next one. All that stuff mentioned can be excused, but not Zach Lipovsky. He is the director, he is the one seeing all this play out and doesn't say a word? You are in charge, so you should be held responsible for the brunt of this film.
The only positives in this movie are the casting choices. Each person delivers a worthy performance even if the material is sub par. The most notable is genre vet Brendan Fletcher who I believe was cast just to give the movie some weight. He is the best thing about the movie and they kill him off in a very lackluster, off screen death.
Leprechaun: Origins is a train wreck of a movie. It's not the worst movie ever, but it is the worst movie in this series and that says a lot.
Rating: 4 out of 10 stars (Don't Waste your time like I did)