My quick rating - 1.5/10. I am just guessing here, but I think writer Alessandro Di Giuseppe had just watched the original Leprechaun trilogy from the '90s and told director Rahul Gandhi, "Yeah, let's do NONE of that." And that is how we were graced with Leprechaun: The Beginning.
The story, if you can call it that, follows a family who “discovers” a treasure box of gold in their dead dad’s house. And by discovers, I mean they find it sitting there like an oversized lunchbox. Cue family greed, yelling, and some of the most wooden acting since the Home Depot lumber aisle. Seriously, every “daughter” looks like she’s 28, and somehow they’re supposed to be children like the Brady Bunch. Watching this cast try to play “family” is like watching a group of strangers pretend to bond in an airport layover.
And then there’s our star—the Leprechaun. Once upon a time, Warwick Davis gave us a pint-sized camp icon dripping in mischievous menace. Now? We get… whatever this is. He’s the same height as everyone else, sometimes looks like a hipster who fell asleep in a Halloween clearance aisle, and in half the scenes, his makeup looks unfinished, like the FX guy went on strike mid-shoot. His hands are flesh-toned, his face looks vaguely like a lizard, and in at least one baffling moment, he’s apparently a vampire. Yes, a vampire. Because nothing screams “leprechaun” like bloodless heart-ripping.
Oh, and about that—this has to be the first movie in horror history where someone gets their heart yanked out and not a single drop of blood is spilled. What did they do, dry clean it first? The practical effects here are a crime. Plastic toy knives wobble like they’re auditioning for a Dollar Tree commercial. The makeup is so static, I half expected it to peel off if the actors sneezed.
The pacing? Exquisite. If by “exquisite” you mean 87 minutes of dead air filled with slow-motion stair descents, wooden line deliveries, and tension-free stalking scenes where the biggest fear is someone tripping over a tripod. And then comes the ending, a laughably anticlimactic fizzle that made me genuinely angry that I had devoted an hour and a half of my life to this train wreck.
I’ll admit, nostalgia had me half-excited. I just ran across the 1992 original remastered with pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston, and sure, it was silly and campy, but it owned its ridiculousness. I will have to rewatch that one soon, just to remind myself how bad this one is. This new “beginning” is just… painful. Painful in that way where you want to fast-forward this #turkey but don’t, because you need proof of how bad it actually gets.
Final verdict: Leprechaun: The Beginning isn’t the beginning of anything. It’s the middle of a franchise burial, the end of your patience, and a cinematic Irish curse that leaves you wishing for those 87 minutes back. All-around bad shit, all I can say. This only rounds up to a "2" because I have seen THAT many garbage movies in my day. That is not a compliment.
Amazon is one of a few streaming options. If you need the torture, I suggest the free one, Tubi LOL.
https://jackmeat.com/leprechaun-the-beginning-2025/
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