Welcome to The Kill Count where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies. I'm James A. Janisse and today
we're looking at Leprechaun Origins, the reboot leprechaun movie released in 2014.
Origins was made by WWE Studios and stars one of its wrestlers Dylan Postl better known as Hornswoggle as the leprechaun.
I say stars very loosely because this creature is not your father's leprechaun. The Origins leprechaun is more like a feral beast than a sentient
little shit. It never speaks or has any fun.
It just kills people and runs at them in real lame looking POV shots. As awful as the Warwick Davis leprechaun movies are, at least
they have
spirit and a unique voice to them. This reboot is just a poorly lit generic monster movie using the Leprechaun brand to try to make
some money. But maybe this creature can outkill Davis's leprechaun. Let's find out and get to the kills
The movie begins with an aerial shot, which like wow a leprechaun movie with an actual budget.
That's kind of cool.
A couple Catherine and Francois are running through the woods from something chasing after them. Francois has to take a breather and while he does
he sticks a knife in the ground for later plot purposes. When Catherine goes back to help him
she sheds some weight by tossing her backpack to the ground which lands with a familiar jingle sound. They make it out of the tree line,
but then Francois gets lost world pooled below the grass and the next time Catherine sees him,
he's a bloody mess with a missing finger and his face all scratched to shit.
He's pulled off screen and out of Catherine's life by the unseen leprechaun giving us a kickoff kill
just two minutes in. Catherine continues on without him, making a run for a monolithic rock nearby but before she can get there, she trips
and is eventually pulled away through the grass in a Red Bull
extreme
GoPro shot getting killed by the reboot leprechaun off-screen as the cold open to this movie ends. The opening credits play over more aerial shots
of Ireland. These are pretty standard
establishing shots for a film to have, but after marathoning all those cheap shithouse leprechaun movies,
it feels like we're watching a work of goddamn art here.
We meet our
protagonists, a group of four young Americans, as they ride in the back of a truck,
reading their bedecker.
Selfless Sophie is there with her boyfriend, Ben
and they're joined by a fun-loving couple, Jenny and David, David's played by Brendan Fletcher of Freddy vs.
Jason Fame so at least we'll have that going for us. Their ride stops short of the village
they're headed to and the local driver points them in the direction
they need to go, saying he can't drive them any further. Might have something to do with the monolith
we saw in that opening, which is covered in symbols
and which the Americans now pass as they continue to the village on foot. At the village pub, they meet charming local Irishman Hamish, played by
Garry Chalk who was also in Freddy vs. Jason.
It's a goddamn family reunion. After he hears them talking about Sophie's interest in history,
he offers to show them a stone structure that he says is the oldest existing
historical artifact in all of Ireland. Quite possibly the cradle of Celtic civilization itself. Oh, I thought that was Boston.
It's a seven hour hike from where they're at but he offers them a cabin to stay at to make it a feasible day trip.
Ben complains about how long it'll take and we get the idea that he's just generally a sort of stick in the mud even though
Sophie has apparently sacrificed a lot for him. You know how many medical conferences I've sat through for you.
But democracy prevails and the other three vote down his pessimism.
It's settled they're going to stay in a cabin in the woods.
Something that has never ever been a bad decision in the history of horror movies.
They get a ride from Hamish's son Sean. Who is oh, you know? He could be a little friendlier
He's prickly to the tourists and even has a fraught relationship with his father
I'm driving here. Hamish drinks a road beer as he tells the kids about the history of their village. Fifteen years ago
They found a cave full of gold and started mining it, but eventually the cave collapsed.
Things ain't been the same around here ever since. David notices that Hamish is sporting a Rolex
But he just says it was a gift from a tourist. A five thousand dollar gift?
Hope you declared that shit on your taxes Hamish. Eventually, they arrive at their little cabin, which is pretty rundown
But at least it's secure. Against what exactly? Well, maybe whatever's rustling around in the grass,
which causes Hamish to go straight for his shotgun. He shoots at it and it runs away.
I guess it wouldn't be a leprechaun movie without a shotgun. The inside of this place sucks a lot with no electricity and a fireplace
that looks like it hasn't done a great job containing fire.
But the Irish men bid the Americans fond adieu and leave them for the night. Unbeknownst to the tourists,
Hamish takes off his Rolex and leaves it hanging on a nail on his way out.
That's not a nightstand, silly. As the kids prepare for bed. Brendan Fletcher shows once again
how likeable he can be even in bad movies.
Oh, we got a queen size.
Yeah, but turns out he's all talk. 'Cause when he and Jenny start getting down to action. Dude falls asleep on her. Things aren't much
sexier in the other room 'cause after Sophie lets it slip that she's planning to put off her masters to stay with Ben as he
Goes to Harvard for med school.
He becomes clinically cold to her and she goes to bed alone. That night a noise from outside wakes up
Jenny who looks out the living room window to see a creature run by. Aw, shit! Was that a leprechaun? She wakes everyone else up
but they're not convinced they should be alarmed.
That's why they call it the woods, babe. Lions and tigers and chickens and shit. Jenny insists that she didn't just see a run-of-the-mill
Oh my animal so David goes to check outside for her. Only to find that the doors locked.
Ellie the door's locked. Locked from the outside
son and they realize all the windows have gotten a real March Thompson treatment, barred shut. Seems like maybe a good thing at first since
there's a sticky finger leprechaun out there, but turns out he's like a lead hacker
and has a back door to the place 'cause when Jenny takes a breather by the fireplace,
she loses her gold earring to something that oh my god this leprechaun has a golden predator vision.
Yeah, get ready for a lot of bullshit like this because this movie uses these cheap POV shots and blurry
close-ups to avoid showing us the leprechaun. I get wanting to keep the monster kind of mysterious,
but once the characters themselves see the thing you should probably let the audience have a shared experience with them
or you know just use real cliche horror movie shots to keep up obfuscating the character. That works, too.
Even when the leprechaun busts through a wall to join them in the bedroom,
they keep it hidden by flipping a bed onto it,
Just let us see the goddamn leprechaun. Sophie figures out that the fireplace is also a doorway that opens to the outside.
God, even the sound effects are cliché. They all escape but the Predacon is able to catch David before he's fully through and leaves him
with one seriously mangled leg. Ben's able to temporarily
lock the thing inside the house
and they escape into the woods as the leprechaun busts out behind them except hey did y'all hear what I said about David's leg 'cause
that dude, can't exactly run right now. He trips and calls out for help, but Ben and his own girlfriend,
Jenny, glance back and freaking leave him behind.
Maybe they just want Brendan Fletcher's character to die so their performances will look better, but Sophie's played by Stephanie Bennett, whose performance can hold
up on its own,
so she goes back to save him stopping the Leprechaun with a fire blast from her lantern and helping David up to hobble through the
woods. They all get to another house that they saw on their way to the cabin and make it safely inside before that golden POV
shot can catch up to them. Inside
they find a switch that turns on a bunch of exterior lights
which apparently scare the creature away.
Now he's afraid of bright lights? This leprechaun would never make it in Vegas. While searching for a phone, Sophie goes into the basement where
she finds a bunch of shoes. Does this lep like shoes? Oh, no.
It's just clothes in general probably from all the other tourists that were sacrificed to this leprechaun by Hamish. Speaking of which he and Sean
are hanging out chatting about the morality of what they're doing when their buddy Ian pulls up to join them. Looks like Sean's not into.
Not sure my son has the stomach for this after all. Wouldn't it be easier just to leave this village?
He doesn't want to keep killing innocent people, but Hamish justifies it by saying they're not innocent, they're outsiders.
Wait, what? I guess the story here is that their village got greedy took all the gold from that cave and that's why they
Have to sacrifice people to the Leprechaun.
Honestly, it's not a horrible premise,
but if you want this movie to be worth watching you've got to inject some fucking life into it man.
Instead it falls back on more horror clichés, like when Sophie finds out crucial backstory in a random book she finds in the basement. In
this book is the symbol she saw on the monolith
which means Tuatha De Dannan. What the fuck does that mean? It means leprechaun, motherfucker.
And if you take its gold you have to make amends until the debt has been repaid.
They locked us in there to sacrifice us to a leprechaun. Yep. That's the long and short of it
They realize the monolith, that their driver wouldn't pass, must act as a sort of leprechaun barrier.
So there, we've got all the
exposition out of the way
we can get back to this plotting boring movie. Hamish, Shawn, and Ian get to the cabin and find that the kids managed to escape,
meaning the Leprechaun is still a hungry hungry boy.
They see the lights on at the other house and
speed off towards it in their trucks and when the kids hear them uh-comin',
they start to arm themselves,
Holding weapons out like they're going under the ring in a wrestling video game or maybe over the crowd barricade. Whichever simile works for you.
Sean and Hamish come downstairs and find the kids standing there looking like a poorly financed street gang and Sean succumbs to his guilt and
respect for the Americans being able to escape like they did.
Maybe they've earned their freedom, dad.
I've got to hand it to actor Teach Grant who plays Sean.
He's putting in a lot of work here as the son questioning the morality of his village's ways
and I wish this movie gave him a better home for his performance. The standoff ends when they hear Ian shooting his gun upstairs,
so Hamish runs off and says he'll deal with the Americans later, leaving Sean to guard them.
These actions make no sense given his character.
But you know plot stuff.
Obviously, the kids aren't content to just stay down there so Sophie axes her way out of the basement door. Sean is standing there with
his gun at the ready,
but he simply doesn't have the will to kill, so he stands down and lets them all pass without incident. They run off into the
woods, which I'm sure David is just thrilled to do again. Went
so well the first time. Hamish takes a flare to go find Ian and find him he does, impaled upon some farm equipment.
He still has enough life left in him to warn Hamish that there's a golden POV shot standing right behind him,
but after Hamish manages to escape through the window, we hear Ian's death screams as this still mostly unseen leprechaun kills him for good.
David's really riding the struggle bus through the woods with his leg all sorts of bloody nasty,
so when a car approaches the kids, they get real excited since the kindly older woman, Mary,
driving it seems willing to help them out and give them a ride, but come on
it's to no one's surprise that this is a Texas
Chainsaw type town with all of its residents in on the evil of foot. Mary parks the car and gets out right as Hamish and
Sean roll up in their truck.
They get the kids out of the car at gunpoint
but Hamish makes the mistake of mentioning that they need the kids alive for this to work so Ben charges them with a pipe a
short skirmish ensues, but it ends after Mary knocks Sophie out and the filmmakers get to grab another shot with her cool new
GoPro Hero 4.
Sophie wakes up to find that she and all her friends have been tied to some trees with gold around their necks. Sure, they may
be about to die, but at least they'll be shiny. The new shit looking leprechaun shows up
and we get the clearest view of him yet, and god damn. This is bad. No wonder
They didn't want to show him. It looks like a sci-fi movie
monster. The creature approaches the screaming Jenny and in a decent shot of gore rips out her golden tongue
ring. When David screams and protests the creature then approaches him and delivers a seriously gnarly slash across his belly.
Those are some deep gashes.
But thankfully the swipe also cut the ropes that bound him so David is able to escape and grab a machete that he uses to
free Jenny from her bondage. He distracts the Leprechaun by being some
first-person bait as Jenny uses the machete to free the others but then the jig is up and it's snack time for new lep. The
others run away as the most entertaining character in this movie is killed off in some more disappointing first-person golden shots.
It's time for act 3 which means Sophie needs to show some character development.
So now she's a strong girl with a plan to kill the creature.
They head back to the cabin where she hangs her gold necklace from the fireplace
and spells out the plan. One person will stay outside wait for the leprechaun to go through its fireplace door and lock it behind him
and the other two will stay inside to kill the creature when it exits the floo network. Sounds like a plan except
maybe this leprechaun isn't as dumb as he looks. Good thing since he looks really fucking dumb. When Jenny goes to push him through the
door, he counteracts and ends up pushing her through the door so that she's the one who gets a face full of axe.
It's a fucking brutal kill and devastating to Ben and Sophie, seeing as they just straight-up murdered their friend.
It's also probably the single best moment in the movie so savor it now.
We've still got 30 minutes of shit ahead. Sophie and Ben once again run down that road the leprechaun hot on their heels and when
Sophie trips Ben once again just keeps on running. Wow this dude sucks.
Eventually they both get into the truck left behind by Ian. Too bad
the keys are nowhere to be found so they're sitting ducks when the leprechaun smashes his shitty body against the truck.
He eventually lets the breathe for a minute and Sophie's all like, "Yo,
why did you keep running back there?", turning the whole situation in there awkward. They see Ian's body and determine
he must have the keys.
So Sophie tells Ben to go distract the leprechaun with a flare while she gets them. Ben tries to act all concerned for her now,
but you're forgetting this is act 3 Sophie, Ben.
I'll be fine on my own.
Character growth. They take off out of the truck, each doing their own thing. Sophie moots the dead man's body as Ben lights up the
leprechaun so we can get a better view of just how shitty he looks. The leprechaun blocks Sophie from the truck on her way back.
So another foot chase leads them back into that house.
But the Leprechaun follows closely and eventually grabs Ben and yanks him away. Another GoPro shot portents that we've got another kill coming and
it's a pretty good one. The leprechaun rips out Ben's spine and the camera lingers long enough to show us the gore. It looks great
and the fact that Ben was a big old piece of shit makes the kill that much better.
Sophie makes her way upstairs and the leprechaun follows.
Oh, and if you're wondering what this disappointment of a creature sounds like here we go.
Yup, just standard growls
He sounds more like a pissed-off tiger at the zoo than an ancient evil creature. Right when the leprechaun finds
where Sophie is hiding. Sean runs in and starts shooting at him with a shotgun. Sophie takes the opportunity to sneak past Sean
and run back downstairs where she's found by Hamish, who holds her at gunpoint.
Sean joins them and even though Hamish calls Sean a good lad for everything he's done.
Sean tells Sophie to run as he spins around and points his gun at his pops. Hamish tries to defend himself
but the struggle ends with him falling down the stairs. Probably
breaking and/or straining at least something in the process. The hashtag not my leprechaun comes downstairs then and here's Hamish calling for help,
so he goes down there to help him. Err, sorry to kill him. He's there to kill him.
It's mostly done off screen and in you guessed it golden POV shots.
So, yeah. Sorry for anyone looking to see this dude die
graphically. Sean stands at the top of the stairs crying over his father and although
this is the last time we see him in this movie
I'm not gonna put him on the count
'cause like maybe he just peaced out after leprechaun was done eating his dad. In any case, Sophie gets to the truck outside and manages
to get it going. She starts driving away, but wouldn't you know it? She's picked up a hitchhiking leprechaun, who's riding back
there having a real good time.
He punches through the window and grabs at her, but she gets him off by slamming on the brakes
which sends him flying into a ditch. As blurry shots try to hide how shitty looking this thing is. Sophie goes to start the truck
again only to discover it no worky anymore, so she sets off on foot.
The sun comes up just in time for Sophie's morning jogs through the woods and right when she gets a real nice BPM going, she
trips over the backpack Catherine tossed down in the opening. Inside is a bunch of gold shillings and apparently the script of the original Leprechaun
'cause when the creature approaches her, Sophie glances at Francois's plot knife and steals the line from that movie.
Fuck you, Lucky Charms!
She tosses the coins in the air and as the leprechaun looks up, distracted,
she grabs the plot knife and decapitates the so-called leprechaun with a single swing. It's a pretty solid
decapitation actually and we get an extended view of the head just kind of bobbing around on the ground there
so that's fun. The best thing about this kill though, is that it means we're finally done here.
The movie ends with Sophie getting to the monolith and finally crossing that magical barrier
just in time to avoid a number of other possible leprechauns running through the tall grass after her. Who knew I could learn to love
the Warwick Davis leprechaun in 90 minutes flat? This here sets leprechaun couldn't even match our leppy boy in kills. Here,
I'll show you at the numbers
There were eight kills in Leprechaun Origins. The victims were five guys, two gals, and one creature pretending to be a leprechaun.
With the runtime of 90 minutes that comes out to a kill on average every 11.25 minutes.
I'll give the Golden Chainsaw for coolest kill to Jenny.
It's maybe the most graphic in the movie and the reason I give it the edge over Ben finding his spine is because it's so
tragic for Ben and Sophie. PTSD for life! Dull Machete for lamest kill has loads of options
but I guess Catherine's is the lamest since we see the least from it. Nothing but that stupid GoPro shot.
And that's it. Leprechaun Origins came out in 2014, shockingly in theaters.
But it failed to impress literally anyone as evidenced by its piss-poor box-office take and it's zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
With this movie out of the way,
we are now officially
done with the Leprechaun series until we get Syfy's Leprechaun Returns next year. If you were good sport about this silly franchise
thank you, and if you kept commenting with complaints, learn to have a little alright.
You'll find out what the next franchise is when I announce it this weekend.
But until then I'm James A. Janisse and this has been The Kill Count. Thanks a lot for watching today's Kill Count.
I'll have a video announcing the next franchise and a few changes for the channel out on Sunday.
Also, if you haven't checked out the Dead Meat podcast make sure you see the videos that we're uploading in the playlist down there,
I think it is. Those recordings give Chelsea and me a chance to talk about things more in depth. We also do movie reviews. There's
one for The Quiet Place out right now. So, you should definitely go see them in theaters, then go watch our video reviewing it. Be good people.