The initial Leprechaun series starred Warwick Davis as the titular Celtic monster, and encompassed such thrilling instalments as Leprechaun in the Hood. It was the series that introduced the world to Jennifer Aniston. Crucially, it had its tongue firmly planted in cheek. From the look of this trailer, this reboot does not.
The impression is of your typical “pretty young things do stupid stuff and get killed”. We have the rural location, and a character actually stating “a cabin in the woods”, as if the film of the same title hadn’t already firmly destroyed that trope. There’s the peculiar, accented villagers warning the strangers of the dangers to come. There’s jumpy scares, the leads dumbly putting themselves in danger…it’s by the book horror. The difference is, there’s no way to make the word “leprechaun” sound scary, regardless of however many rushed whispers it is said in. If this was a satire, maybe it would work. Here, it does not.
WWE Superstar Dylan “Hornswaggle” Postl takes Davis’ title as the titular villain, not that you’d know from the trailer, as it employs the tried and tested formula of quick editing, with as little glimpses of the monster as it’s possible to do. It would sell itself as trying to build up tension, but one can’t help but be cynical and presume that it’s down to the complete lack of fear that it would generate.
If fortune favours this film, then this trailer will be deliberately misleading and the ending result will retain some sense of humour. But from the surface of it, Leprechaun: Origins is just another generic horror that completely misses the point of the original.