If you weren’t sure where the line should be drawn when it comes to Hollywood’s fascination with reboots and remakes, Leprechaun: Origins has done you a favor and drawn it, clear as day, in the sand. On one side is the astounding awfulness that is Leprechaun: Origins and, on the other side, is everything else.

The original Leprechaun films are terrible too, but at least they were aware of their quality. Origins’ biggest offense is taking itself so seriously that it is unable to leverage its greatest asset: its ludicrous plot. We join two young couples backpacking across Ireland, where they intend to look at some historical landmarks in a small village. Unfortunately for them, the village has quite a bit of business going on underneath its skin… namely a leprechaun that comes hunting for his gold that the villagers pillaged. To atone for their mistakes and appease the leprechaun, the villagers have been luring “outsiders” to a remote cabin as a sacrifice to the creature.The tone of the film requires that you invest in Hornswoggle’s Leprechaun so completely as to be terrified of it, yet the monster – what we do see of it – is never able to look like anything other than a Halloween mask with some goop on it. To their credit, the filmmakers do their best to hide this shortcoming with obfuscated shots, quick cuts, soft focus, and the use of Killer Cam, but it’s just not enough to hide the fact that they’ve concocted themselves an un-scary monster. And if you're a Hornswoggle fan looking to get a glimpse at the WWE Superstar, well, you're out of luck. He doesn't have one line nor do you ever see his face.The film is built around this creature being a threat, yet it simply isn’t threatening. The use of Killer Cam is particularly uninspired, not to mention inconsistent. Sometimes it’s just normal Evil Dead-style Killer Cam and other times it’s Predator-style radar. If there’s a reason behind to the fluctuations, the movie fails to articulate it.Worse than all of this, Leprechaun: Origins is the very definition of generic. The leprechaun creature could be replaced with any psychopath from any slasher movie and nothing would change. It’d feature the same kills, the same scares, the same methods of attack, and the same dopey characters trying to get away in the same dopey fashion.The few bright spots to be found in the movie quickly dissipate due to a lack of follow-through; early on in the first leprechaun attack, two of the characters have the chance to help a fallen friend but decide instead that it’s every man for themselves. After that friend survives, the movie doesn’t bother to mine any drama from that, they simply go on as though they hadn’t just left their friend to be ripped to shreds.There’s another moment, the film’s best kill – the only genuinely entertaining moment in the entirety of the movie – that is equally wasted. The circumstances should be a big beat for the filmmakers to linger on and create some extra tension and drama, yet it’s as though no action from any character in this movie has any consequences.There’s also a subplot involving one of the villagers and his son that’s severely undeveloped, and the main characters are so bland that you won’t know their names before they start being offed by the so-called leprechaun. I know B-movie characters are meant to be cannon fodder, but watching cardboard cutouts getting eaten isn’t all that much fun.