To date, there have been a total of seven installments in the horror/dark comedy franchise Leprechaun. After the classic and campy 1993 original, the series went to stranger and stranger places, with the diabolical Irish faerie taking trips to outer space and “the hood” (twice). Now, the franchise is going back to its roots with a brand new sequel that takes place 25 years after the original film and apparently ignores its many sequels.
The new movie, Leprechaun Returns, is directed by Steven Kostanski, who helmed last year’s superb retro thriller The Void. Actor Linden Porco will take over the title role from the legendary Warwick Davis, with a plot involving an ancient curse, a secluded cabin, and sorority girls that sounds like the most early ’90s horror story ever:
The film picks up 25 years after the events of the 1993 original, which found a maniacal Leprechaun doing whatever it takes (including committing gruesome murder) to track down his stolen pot of gold. Leprechaun Returns finds the leprechaun revived in the modern day when a group of sorority girls unwittingly awaken him while tearing down a cabin to build a new sorority house.
The trend of reviving classic franchises that went off the rails long ago by ignoring their many ill-advised sequels is a recent one that has been gaining steam of late. The Predator will take place after Predator 2, ignoring all Alien crossovers and Predators, the sixth Terminator film will pretend the previous three don’t exist, and the next Halloween film, simply called Halloween, ignores all nine films that have been released since the 1978 original.
Despite just being announced, Leprechaun Returns somehow already has a teaser featuring Porco in full costume, and it definitely does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of the original. Still no word yet on whether or not Jennifer Aniston will return, but we’re going to go ahead and say she’s not. You can check out the Aniston-less teaser below.
Leprechaun Returns premieres on Syfy in 2019.
