LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS

Horror buff, my arse. Here's my confession: I've never seen a single LEPRECHAUN film. Granted, that's because I dismissed them as most likely being utter shite. But, no, never seen one - not even the one with a pre-'Friends' Jennifer Aniston in it.

So, this rethink of the franchise which promises to be bloodier, darker and much less daft than its predecessors comes to me with no benchmark. And no Warwick Davis in the title role (he was in every other film). As such, I took it on face value.

It certainly opens seriously enough, with a couple of hikers being chased through tall greenery by an unseen assailant. The guy gets dragged away screaming by something sinister; the girl, bloodied and frantic, thinks she's escaped ... but not for long.

Then the soothing strains of traditional Irish music (all whistles and pipes) comes sauntering in as the credits roll over aerial footage of the Emerald Isle's beautiful countryside. The only thing that ruins the effect, I suppose, is the WWE logo at the film's start...

Very quickly after the credits we meet four wisecracking youths - straight-up guy and medical student Ben (Andrew Dunbar), his good egg partner Sophie (Stephanie Bennett), cocky David (Brendan Fletcher) and his smirking squeeze Jeni (Melissa Roxburgh) - who are backpacking through the Irish countryside. A farmer drives them so far to their intended destination, but refuses to venture the final 15 miles of the journey, leaving them to negotiate the remaining distance by foot.

That's a little odd, you may at that juncture think. But these kids - American, if that explains anything - keep going, passing gun-toting yokels along the way, until they reach a village pub which boasts an impressively high level of oddness about it.

Regular boozer Hamish (Garry Chalk) overhears the group talking and takes a shine to Sophie on account of her being a history buff. He turns her on to ancient relics situated several hours away called "The Stones of the Gods" which are not advertised to tourists, but are said to be the oldest existing artefacts relating to Ireland's origins. If she and her friends want to see them, he reasons, they could stay in a cabin nearby for the night and make their way to them the following morning.

Despite Ben's reticence, the other three vote in favour of doing just that.

Upon reaching their run-down cabin - with no power, to boot - the group are a tad concerned when they hear something strange in the surrounding fields and Hamish pops off his shotgun several times in a bid to kill what he claims to be a "wild boar". But all that's forgotten once David discovers his and Jeni's bed is a King-sized one.

As night falls and the couples retire to their respective beds, things start getting even more weird as the four of them wake up to find they've been locked in the cabin and something terrible is snarling at the door ...

Managing to flee the cabin with minor injuries, the kids eventually realise they're dealing with a deadly leprechaun. But why has it been set on them?

LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS does indeed treat its material pretty seriously. Or at least, there's no obvious comedy. The titular monster, though rarely seen, is portrayed by diminutive wrestling star Dylan "Hornswoggle" Postl, and is consciously bereft of the one-liners and personality that apparently distinguished Davis in the role.

Here, I assume director Zach Lipovsky is attempting to bring some primordial threat back to the creature. Alas, none of the characters it's pursuing are worth caring about, while both the plot (pretty much redundant after the first 30 minutes) and by-the-numbers familiarity with which each set-piece scene plays out - taking cues from any post-Millennial horror flick you'd care to mention (HATCHET, THE DESCENT, FRIDAY THE 13TH [remake] etc) - mean that events soon become wearisome.

Well-shot and lit, and benefitting from tight editing along with a half-decent score, Lipovsky's film will no doubt satisfy casual punters who happen across it on a Sky Movie channel late one night. But for the discerning horror fan, it doesn't possess anything of note. The leprechaun's POV shots - shaky nightcam vision - is annoying; the finely chiselled young cast and polished studio production values bring a pedestrian safety to the film which renders each supposedly tense or terrifying scene as simply 'pretty'.

LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS is presented uncut for its UK DVD premiere, with an 18 certificate rating. The transfer is anamorphic and respects the film's original aspect ratio of 1.78:1. Colours are warm and true; blacks are solid and deep. Sharp images, fine detail and a clean veneer complete what is a highly satisfying visual proposition.

English audio comes with a stirring, finely balanced 5.1 surround mix. Dialogue, sound design and music all channel through with their required impact. Optional subtitles in English for the Hard-of-Hearing are well-written and easy to read at all times.

Lionsgate's disc opens to a suitable high-energy animated main menu page. From there, a static scene selection menu allows access to the film via 12 chapters.

Extras come in the form of two production featurettes.

The first is rather optimistically entitled "Leprechaun: An Icon Reborn". Lipovsky explains on the shoot how the aim was to provide something darker and less comedic than the preceding franchise. Other cast and crew members (notably, Postl) speak us through their earnest efforts while behind-the-scenes footage focuses on the FX and stunts in the main, before offering a synopsis of the main feature. This is a well-presented proposition but could've done with being longer than 6 minutes in length.

"Leprechaun: Behind The Blood" is a further 5 minutes in which cast and crew discuss the gore FX in greater detail. As with "An Icon Reborn", there's a surprising amount of footage from the completed film fleshing this featurette out, considering its meagre running time.

This region 2 disc is defaulted to open with trailers for SEE NO EVIL 2 (which looks like being a case of "come in Soska sisters, your time is up"), THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2 (based on a true story? Ho ho, fuck off), YOU'RE NEXT and THE QUIET ONES.

LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS isn't a very good film. I can't compare it the preceding 6 films in the franchise that it purports to reinvent, but having read about them in preparation for this review, I daresay I'd much rather have been watching any one of them than this lacklustre effort.

Horror buff, my arse.

By Stuart Willis