Venganza Media Gazette

‘Leprechaun: Origins’ director talks rebooting silly series with legit horror

When it comes time to reboot a film franchise, creators go on about returning a series or its characters to their “roots.”

In the case of 90s horror-comedy Leprechaun, starting over means starting from scratch, for any attempt at a straight remake would mean sending the monster back to a farmhouse in North Dakota.

That’s one of the glaring problems with Leprechaun, pointed out by fans and critics alike. For six films, a grinning, green-suited Warwick Davis shamed the Irish in cities big and small, in outer space, and (twice) in the “hood” — everywhere but Ireland.

“That [concept] is hard to make scary,” said Zach Lipovsky, the Canadian-born filmmaker and VFX specialist helming this year’s reboot of the oft-ridiculed franchise, Leprechaun Origins.

“The ambition was to make a legitimately scary movie from something that inherently isn’t scary; it’s not tongue-in-cheek at all,” Lipovsky told Now Playing Podcast during a Q&A session at San Diego Comic-Con. “That’s something which is challenging when you have the premise of a leprechaun.”

Convincing audiences to take a chance on a series that had gone stale more than a decade ago meant reversing the Leprechaun-out-of-water formula from the previous films. This time, the human characters venture to the monster’s birthplace, an isolated village in the Irish countryside (played here by Vancouver).

“We used tons of atmosphere; everything has that misty, foggy kind of look,” Lipovsky said. “The characters are in a very old town, a place they shouldn’t be that’s kind of lost to time.”

In order to legitimize his monster, Lipovsky went about researching Celtic lore and cryptozoology, and ruled out any look that would liken it to the character on the Lucky Charms box.

Professional wrestler Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl was also brought in to replace Davis (Origins is produced by WWE Studios), and the actor underwent a daily three-hour makeup routine to become the creature.

“We thought maybe he came from underground – came from a gold mine or a natural cave that had gold deposits,” Lipovsky said. “[We researched] underground creatures like mole rats and Gollum, and things that kind of looked like walking scrotums.”

“The idea was to start fresh and look at the origins of leprechauns and what could be the creature – that isn’t a little guy in a green suit,” he added. “To be able to reinvent a mythology in that way is kind of awesome for a creator.”

Audiences won’t see Postl “full Leprechaun” in promotional materials, but Lipovsky promised a look more monster than human, and hinted that his Leprechaun is not so much a gold-hoarder as he is a gold-eater.

“There are some pretty disgusting scenes in the film where unfortunate people have gold on their body, and they’re in the wrong country for that,” he said.

When asked if Origins would include Easter eggs for Leprechaun fans, Lipovsky said he wanted to acknowledge the “legacy” of the franchise, adding that audiences should look for “certain iconic props” that tie into past installments.

“I think the previous franchise did an awesome job of being tongue-in-cheek, and that kind of made it what it was,” he said.

While it performed respectably upon its release in 1993, the original Leprechaun is best remembered today for having a then-unknown Jennifer Aniston in the starring role.

Some fans argue the series arrived late to the party; early 90s audiences that might have embraced the silly slasher during the genre’s heyday had moved on to “horror at home” thrillers like Pacific Heights, Unlawful Entry and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle – films in which established, well-liked actors took turns portraying the “psychopath-next-door.”

While Hollywood studios rode the wave, the Leprechaun and other low-rent villains (Pumpkinhead, Dr. Giggles, the Trickster from Brainscan) fell flat, and those that produced sequels were forced to go the direct-to-video route.

Leprechaun chose the latter, and producers continued to churn out below-average product, sending Davis’ character off Earth (Leprechaun 4) and later pairing him with rapper-actor Ice-T (Leprechaun in the Hood).

Lipovsky believes the series’ checkered history will work in his favor when audiences sit down to watch Origins.

“I actually kind of hope people tune in to it expecting something kind of fun and silly, so their guard is down; then as stuff starts to go haywire they’re just horrified,” he said. “That would be probably even better.”

And while the director is “wide open” to the idea of an Origins sequel, don’t count on seeing his monster in space.

“Maybe the Irish hood.”

October 3, 2014 - Posted by Jason Latham | News | dylan hornswoggle postl, Hornswoggle, leprechaun, leprechaun in the hood, leprechaun origins, Now Playing Podcast, San Diego Comic-Con, SDCC, Warwick Davis, wrestling, WWE, zach lipovsky