Leprechaun: Origins (2014)
Nomination Year: 2016
SYNOPSIS: Four American tourists are taking a trip to an obscure, almost-forgotten village in Ireland (the female lead is pursuing a degree in History, see). What they don't know is that this particular village is under a curse. Ever since the villagers mined the gold from a certain ancient cave, they have come under attack by a horrid creature of the night: A leprechaun. So now the villagers must sacrfice outsiders to the leprechaun until the gold-debt is paid. Our heroes are tricked into a cabin, locked in, and attacked by the creature. They manage to escape and now must evade the leprechaun and the villagers who seek to return them to their fate. Only with the help of of Sean, repentant son of the lead villager, do two of our heroes escape…but then the leprechaun gets the boyfriend and there is only one: Our heroine. She tricks the leprechaun by distracting it with coins and chops its head off with a machete, leaving us all to wonder: Why the hell didn't the villagers just beat the shit out of the single little critter, or call the Garda or something, instead of sacrificing dozens of innocent people to it for years?
There’s not much Leprechaun in this reboot/reimagining of the Leprechaun franchise. It's a creature, not an adversary. You never really see the creature clearly. It doesn’t speak. It’s not even intelligent, just mildly cunning and bestial. You could have substituted “wild boar” for “leprechaun” (like Hamish did earlier) and the action would have played out much the same.
Bryan Cassidy