That's Right...Giant..Effing...Rabbits...
Anyone think I couldn't help touching this one?

Ouch. I've been away too long...and there's too much material to cover.

So, I'm gonna start with the obvious choice.

Somewhere, someone in the DVD department at Warner Bros. is a total movie geek...or just a geek period, let's be fair...and somehow he/she talked his/her boss into getting one of the world's great turkeys on DVD. They had to have slipped it under the radar. Any executive at any studio that I've ever met would have never understood why anyone would ever want to see this movie again...but now that it's on DVD...they'll probably want to remake it.

If you know me, and you know movies...you know it's time for...no not Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (I've got too much Santa right now as it is)...no, it's time for:

Night of the Lepus (1972, d. William F. Claxton)

The Story: In an attempt to chemically alter the reproductive cycles of rabbits, which are destroying a Southwest town's ranches, a pair of research scientist end up creating a swarm of giant killer bunnies who must now be stopped.

The Review: Let's just start with the obvious: No matter what you do, you cannot film real rabbits in any way and not have them come off as cute and cuddly. Even jackrabbits, which are much larger, spindlier, and more bug-eyed than your garden variety rabbit is still anything but threatening. So to make a movie about giant killer rabbits, without your tounge so far in to your cheek that it's putting stretch marks on your face, is an excercise in...ummm...well, I'm not sure I even know what...but I guess futility is as good a start as any...but I don't know what else.

I do know that this movie is supposedly based on Russell Braddon's novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit. I say supposedly because from what I've found on the book (it's quite rare and pricey apparently), it's a political satire of sorts. The plot appears to be about a program to stop the devastation caused by the overpopulation of rabbits in Australia that results in the creation of a powerful chemical weapon that instead kills humans. In none of the scant info I can find have I seen the words "giant" or "killer" or any derivations there of co-joined with the word rabbit. So for those of you thinking that Hollywood only recently started making movies out of books in title only (think I, Robot)...well, it's been going on for at least 30 years now...

Ok, so let's turn to what the movie does deal with.

Well, there's a lot of stock footage of rabbit's being chased into giant nets in Australia...ah-ha, there's the tie in...oh, sorry...Then we cut to the American Southwest (where the stock footage will eventually continue) and rancher Cole Hillman asks college dean Elgin Clark (Star Trek's DeForest Kelley! Bones!) if any of the school's scientists can help. Soon Dr. and Mrs. Bennet are on the case and injecting rabbits with a mystery serum. In one of the most hilarious offscreen lines ever, their daughter exclaims something to the effect of "Not that one daddy, he's my favorite." This leads to her taking the test bunny with her and in the second most hilarious (and contrived sequence) her new friend, Hillman's son, lets the rabbit go...because he...umm...hates them? I think...something like that. A few screen minutes later and giant paws attack from offscreen, there's a lot of forced perspective, and we're hit with some of the most hilarious closeups of rabbits with fake blood on their faces looking...ummm...ferocious...I guess. (I know I keep using hilarious too many times, but if you've seen the movie, there just isn't any other word.)

I'm tempted to go through some of my favorite rabbit "attacks", but there just isn't any way to clearly get this across. Furthermore, the rather liberal use of stock footage, and the constant reuse of rabbit efx footage only ups the laughs. I can say that the Humane Society must not have been on set for this one because it gets pretty obvious that one or two of our furry friends met with a messy demise on one of many miniaturized sets.

The one sequence I'll describe that I loved was the first attempt to destroy the giant rabbits. Believe it or not, I'm not enamored with the first wonderful reveals of the furry giants, though they are priceless. It's something else going on in the scene. Now, maybe I've just been too drenched in the postmodern self-conscious schtick that is the modern horror movie (has anyone seen the trailer for Slither which boasts about it's originality and yet looks suspiciously like Night of the Creeps with CG to me?), but all through this sequence I kept watching DeForest Kelley keep hanging his head over the giant rabbit hole just waiting for him to get it. They kept showing this rabbit hole POV shot with DeForest craning over...and you could hear the sounds of giant rabbits...and you could just feel it coming...but then nothing...well, someone else gets attacked but not DeForest. I knew what I thought was supposed to happen, but it just didn't. I mean, the movie had me at the phrase "Giant Killer Rabbit", but that scene...well, I think I fell in love.

And for the rest, well there's not much to say. Each of the actors, old school B-movie celebs every one, sold the show as they fought the floppy eared killer with grim earnest on their face. Today, they'd all be nodding and winking at the camera, hence ruining the experience while thinking they are making it more fun. Thank God for them. The movie was shot in a fairly standard fashion when giant rabbits weren't to be seen, but actually pulled off some very creative composite shots. Some of the sound effects in this movie were drop dead funny all by themselves. Director Williman Claxton was a veteran of western, particularly TV, having steered quite a few episodes of "Bonanza" which begs the question of how he ended up behind the camera of this one? However, he does a more than competent job with the material he had to work with.

In conclusion, the best thing about this film has to be the ponderables. The tagline on the DVD box, instead of "How many eyes does horror have? How many times will terror strike? ", should probably read "What were any of them thinking?" I wish this no frills DVD said more about how this movie got made. Was it all done in good fun, or was everyone taking it as seriously as it seems? I have to imagine that at the first dailies that featured the killer bunnies people were either giggling, or thinking stonily "My God, what is this?", or both. In the end though, it did get made, and it played in theaters. Now it made it to DVD. The worst part in some ways is that we'll never see a movie like this again because the people who made great movies like Black Knight and the upcoming Snakes on a Plane would look at the script and think "This is stupid."

Then again...Snakes on a Plane...maybe there is hope.