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A mutant bunny is "saved" by a scientist's daughter and released into a hotbed of hare activity where it breeds and helps genetically alter the growth rate of rabbits in this western desert town. Soon, living in huge mining shafts are these monstrous rabbits with fangs out to rip, shred, cut, slice, maim, hew, and devour any living thing in their wake. This is the stark, gritty horror that is Night of the Lepus. Yeah right! Night of the Lepus has to be one of the most ridiculously inspired films I've seen in some time. Did a bunch of people actually sit down and think that bunnies would be frightening? To give credit where it is due, some of the rabbits(seen through some process that magnifies actual rabbits with blood-like red smeared on their noses and whiskers) actually look ... quite ridiculous. With those kind of special effects, you know what you are getting. Some scenes are just so humorous because of their poor production values. Seeing a handful of rabbits stuffed into a miniature hotel or watching the National Guard battle those rascally rabbits being just such two scenes. The cast has some big names with Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh playing the scientist couple and Rory Calhoun as the farmer in need of ridding his pastures from rabbits, and then there is Deforrest Kelly, looking quite out of place, as a friend to all. Watchin Deforrest lay down TNT to blow up rabbit holes is a real hoot. The acting though can't save this film from anything more than what it is: a funny bad picture that is fun to watch because of its ridiculous premise, lamentable special effects, and some corny acting and dialog. C'mmon! Rabbits! What's next? Revenge of the Hamsters. Gerbil Apocalypse. The Guniea Pig Massacre. Ludicrous stuff here but fun nonetheless.

.....but I still love this movie as it is one of my 'favorite bad films' of the 70's. It was also the first film that I recall receiving a promotional item for in the lobby ( a pin that I still have that says "Beware of the Lepus") which I thought incredibly cool. Yes, it's incredibly lame, but I have a soft spot for it...what can I say? Besides - you have Janet Leigh and DeForrest Kelly trying to be as serious as possible. You have 'giant' bunnies running around. You have generally all around poor acting. Did I mention giant bunnies? Well - rent this or buy it on eBay - do what you have to see this Great Bad movie!

This is a true classic. It has such an absurd plot that you couldn't ever think of taking it remotely seriously.

Basically killer mutant rabbits go on the rampage. Or rather, harmless rabbits are photographed with miniatures or have their images enlarged and superimposed to look menacing.

And do they look menacing? Well.....no, not at all. They just look like a bunch of Watership Down wannabees out on a stroll.

What was DeForest Kelley thinking when he signed up to this. Or Janet Leigh for that matter. Just how did they get persuaded to star in this?

It's a classic. Watch it if you like really BAD films.

NIGHT OF THE LEPUS is one of those movies that you simply have to see to believe. I am very glad that LEPUS has finally been officially released on DVD because for years, I have described it to fellow B-movie fans who have then accused me of making it up. Besides, I am now finally able to replace my bootleg DVD (recorded from foreign TV with Swedish or Norwegian subtitles, I'm not sure which, running across the bottom of the screen) and enjoy this masterpiece the way it was meant to be seen.

In brief: Somewhere in the American Southwest, ranchers are losing their crops to hungry herds of Jackrabbits. A scientist, attempting to figure out a way to slow the reproduction rate of the rabbits, injects an experimental hormone into some test animals. One of the test rabbits escapes and begins mating with the local bunnies, resulting in a horde of giant killer mutant rabbits with a taste for human flesh. You CAN'T make this stuff up, kids! From there it's long-eared, low budget mayhem of the highest order, with scenes of regular-sized bunnies rampaging through miniature Western towns (complete with dubbed-in squeals and roars on the soundtrack) and hungry bunnies (played by stuntmen in full body rabbit suits) attacking unlucky townspeople, until the military is called in to neutralize the threat. Anyone who makes it more than fifteen minutes into this movie without cracking up is a better person than I am. You can almost imagine Janet Leigh during filming, smoking cigarettes in between takes and asking DeForest Kelley "What the hell are we doing in a movie about KILLER RABBITS? I worked with Alfred Hitchcock for cryin' out loud! I am going to KILL my agent!" I had pet rabbits growing up and never found them scary in the slightest. Maybe that's why I love this movie so much. To this day, I wonder if the studio person who green-lighted this project and allowed it to be made still had a job when his superiors saw the final product. Do yourself a favor and check out NIGHT OF THE LEPUS, an unjustly forgotten slice of early 70s drive-in cheese. You may love it, you may hate it, but I promise you, you will NEVER forget it!

In Arizona, the rancher Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun) has his lands invaded by rabbits and he asks to the college president Elgin Clark (DeForest Kelley) an ecologic alternative to poison to get rid of the rabbits. Elgin contacts the researcher Roy Bennett (Stuart Whitman) and he goes with his wife Gerry (Janet Leigh) and their daughter Amanda (Melanie Fullerton) to the ranch. Roy collects samples and uses hormones in the rabbits expecting to sterilize the rabbits. However her daughter takes one of the injected rabbits with her but Amanda accidentally lets the animal escape. Soon the animal reproduces in an abandoned mine becoming a new breed of huge carnivorous rabbits.

"Night of the Lepus" is among the silliest and most ridiculous horror movies ever made. The use of the cute animals as bloodthirsty flesh eater monsters never works. In addition, the dialogs and the situations are dumb and laughable. However it may be considered a cult classic movie in the trash genre. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Noite dos Coelhos" ("The Night of the Rabbits")

Well, happy Easter horror lovers, and what could be a better holiday film for us to eat our chocolate bunnies with than "Night of the Lepus." I watched an obviously cut version of this on TV as a kid in the 70's, but get the DVD, and you can put little Suzie off cuddly rabbits forever!!

Ah yes, another nature goes crazy film from the 70's. It seems as though we had a lot of those back in the day. Day of the Animals, Food of the Gods, Empire of the Ants, just to name a few. And of course this one. As funny of a premise as this sounds, the movie was actually based on a book. We have the plot of a rancher (Rory Calhoun; Motel Hell) having problems with an overpopulation of rabbits ruining his fields for the cattle. A Zoologist (DeForest Kelley; Star Trek) has helped the rancher before, removing coyotes from his land, thus the reason for the rabbit population. He has an idea though, to get his friend and his wife, lab specialists (Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh), to do some lab experiments on the rabbits to see if they can lower the population by natural means and not chemical ones.

Through a mix up in the rabbit cages and one of the bunnies getting loose, we have a far bigger problem, literally. Giant rabbits!! Hundreds of them, and it seems as though they are on a rampage at night only, holing up in different places during the day. The characters of the film have to band together with volunteers and the national guard to have a final showdown. Does the plan work? Spend this afternoon gnawing on your chocolate Easter bunnies to find out!

Now, the premise of this movie has always seemed a silly one, but this is a good little scare flick with a very strong cast. The only problem I've ever had with the film is its special effects. I know it was the 70's, and they had to do miniatures and such. But you see the same special effects shot three or four times during the film. And as a movie that asks you to suspend your disbelief in a huge way, this can easily take you out of the moment to wonder why they couldn't get more SF shot produced for a major studio film.

This type of film has an unusually strong cast, and that's exactly what it needed to keep this film from becoming laughable. Every one of them plays their part seriously and the story moves along at a good speed because of this. There is a lot of action in the movie and you know that everyone involved must have had a great time working on it.

Should you add this DVD to your collection? Well, if you've only ever seen the cut up prints on television, then yes you should. It's still only rated PG (It would get a PG-13 if released today I believe). But there is more blood and bunny death in the DVD version. Its a pretty bare bones release, with only the trailer for an extra. But the film can be found in bargain bins, or at a bargain price, so pick it up for an Easter holiday horror film to be enjoyed by all!

My review will be brief,here.If you are an adult viewing this film for the first time,you are sure to have a few good laughs. If you are an easily frightened 7 year old kid,such as I was when I saw it,it will give you nightmares about rabbits.I am not sure what the intent was here,whether they felt they had a legitimate horror film,or that they went out of their way to be silly,but the film is exactly that;silly.If your kids are easily frightened,keep them away until they are adults who are able to see the humor.If you are one who likes to collect bad movies for fun,or if you are genuinely frightened by the idea of giant killer rabbits,this one is for you.

OK, I've read several of the reviews/comments for this film and I must stand and be counted as one of the fans of this low-budget film. Sure, the story may be ludicrous and the effects may be bad, but face it, this film doesn't deserve all the bad publicity it always receives. It's got a nice cast and they all seem to be genuine in their efforts to make this film a success, but it does fall short of it's target in several aspects. I'd say the one constant in this film that bothers me the most is the young girl, the daughter of Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh, I'd have gladly fed her to these rabbits in the first 20 minutes or so, but beyond that, I really don't see all the fuss about how horrible of a film this is. It's definitely an original idea for a horror film and if you ever have the opportunity to view the unedited version, there is a scene or two that's nice and bloody, but it isn't a gore-hound's delight and it won't ever sit high among the classics of horror, but I miss the fact that this used to be a staple on late-night TV when I was a kid and you can't see it at all, these days. For those of you with a curious nature, I'd recommend viewing this film at least once, just so you can be counted among film fans that have watched this killer bunny film...trust me, it won't hurt at all!

Campy, hokey, and oh so hilarious B movie is an unforgettable tale of nature on the rampage.

In rural New Mexico folks trying to eliminate the rabbit population create a race of huge, killer rabbits that terrorize mankind!

Night of the Lepus is one of those golden B flicks that must be seen to be believe. It's wonderfully tongue-in-cheek in its premise, and builds up some good moments of spookiness despite of its silliness. For a film of its budget, this movie manages to have some pretty decent special FX, it certainly beats the likes of Food of the Gods (1976) or Empire of the Ants (1977).

The veteran cast is OK in their performances. The late-great Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, and Stuard Whitman are the best of the cast. The music score is bland, but in a nicely moody way.

Night of the Lepus is a classic film not to be missed by fans of the B horror genre.

** 1/2 out of ****

For all those film critics who claim that Hollywood is scared to try new ideas, here's proof that Hollywood will try anything. After making monster movies which feature every imaginable kind of vermon and pest, Hollywood got desperate and made one about monster rabbits.

(Monster RABBITS?)

That's right, the word "lepus" means rabbit. The story concerns a group of scientist who try to solve a rabbit over-population problem in the Midwest by injecting the bunnies with a hormone intended to decrease their breeding abilities. Instead, the hormone increases the rabbits' growth rate until they weight 150 pounds, stand four feet tall, and roar.

(ROARING rabbits?)

Right! That's part of what makes them MONSTER rabbits. The special effects involve a combination of real rabbits on miniature sets and actors in monster rabbit suits.

(Monster rabbit SUITS!?)

The National Guard is called in to battle this menace to mankind.

(The National Guard battles BIG BUNNIES!!?)

Yes, indeed. Producer A. C. Lyles and director William F. Claxton knew full-well that a distinguished cast was needed to lend credibility to this bold and risky venture, so they hired Stuart Whitman ("City Beneath the Sea"), Janet Leigh ("Psycho"), Deforest Kelly ("Star Trek"), Rory Calhoun ("The Texan"), and Paul Fix (numerous westerns).

These fine stars did their best, but alas it wasn't enough, and "Night of the Lepus" is considered a failed experiment. What the film needed was Morris Ankrum as an army general who uttered lines such as,

"Good Lord, if we don't stop these monsters, there won't be a single carrot left on the planet!"

Now that I would love to see.

"NIGHT OF THE LEPUS" (1972, Claxton) is infamous as the giant killer bunny film from the 70's but, if you haven't seen it, have you heard that it's not half bad? Because really it's a good giant monster movie.

Pros

The rabbits are used effectively. They are convincingly giant and do behave in quite a grizzly manner.

The cast are very experienced and carry this film further than it deserved really. Although Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh being described as a young couple (with a young daughter too) is hilarious.

It's Reminiscent of monster movies such as "THEM" (1954, Douglas) which pretty much carved out the giant monster sub genre's formula.

Cons

It's an adaptation of the Australian 1964 novel "THE YEAR OF THE ANGRY RABBIT" by Russell Braddon and it bears absolutely no similarities to it. Why WB bought the rights and then disregarded the book is beyond me. But as much as I like the book I also like the film.

The average viewer won't buy into the premise that giant rabbits are terrifying and so much of this film may be hysterical.

"THE FOOD OF THE GODS" (1976, Gordon) superseded this with giant killer rats. The later effort may not have been a better film but those rats sure bring a lot more excitement than the rabbits.

It's a good film and very fun, you should watch if you haven't already.

Ranchers in the American Southwest must deal with hordes of rabbits that are laying waste to their lands. Most would prefer to use poison, but the more humane Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun) enlists the services of a husband and wife team, Roy and Gerry Bennett (Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh) who propose to keep the bunnies from breeding by injecting them with hormones. Unfortunately, one test rabbit who's been given an experimental serum escapes into the wild and promptly causes mutations among its kin, leading to murderous four foot tall predators that cause even more damage than they were doing before. Eventually the National Guard must be called in to deal with the problem.

This scenario is amusing, no doubt about it. No matter how hard the filmmakers and animal trainers try to make our antagonists fearsome, it doesn't really work. Director William F. Claxton handles everything in a workmanlike fashion, but, much like everyone on screen, tends to take the proceedings a little too seriously. That said, there's definite camp value in hearing lines such as "There's a horde of killer rabbits coming this way!". The actors give the movie more gravitas than it deserves; Whitman, Leigh, and Calhoun are joined by DeForest Kelley ("Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not Elmer Fudd!"), Paul Fix, and Melanie Fullerton. Music, cinematography, pacing, and special effects are all adequate enough; fans of B horror may be pleased by the amount of bloodletting going on.

This little movie was actually a little ahead of the curve, predating "Jaws" by a few years; it may be on the cheap and cheesy side of "nature strikes back" cinema, but it's still entertaining for what it is.

Five out of 10.

A jaw-droppingly stupid idea (giant carnivorous bunny rabbits on a rampage) makes for a surprisingly fun, entertaining movie. The effects are reasonably convincing, it's briskly paced, with a blast of an ending. It's all played perfectly straight, and good for many a giggle.

Dumb? You bet. Fun? Abso-wootwy (as Elmer Fudd would say). Plus it stars DeForest Kelly. Bad film buffs will adore it!

What can you expect from a movie that's about giant killer rabbits? Obviously not a masterpiece that's for sure. I just can't believe that this movie got made with the support of a big studio (MGM) and has quite some established actors in it as well.

But really, the concept isn't the movie its biggest problem. I mean, there are B-movies out there with a far worse and far more silly main premise, that still work out quite well and entertaining. And here is where this movie its biggest problem lays; it just isn't very fun or entertaining to watch.

You could really say that "Night of the Lepus" is a real lackluster. What this movie mostly consists out of are a bunch of averaged sized bunnies hopping around in slow-motion, on a miniature set, which in itself is quite sad and hilarious to watch. The movie doesn't ever give you a sense of danger and the bunnies are obviously far from threatening looking. They are supposed to be killer animals but they are far too cute looking for that to let the movie its main premise work out. It doesn't help that you don't see these 'monsterous' large bunnies ever in the same shot along with one of the humans. This movie really reminded me of some of the worst Hollywood B-monster movies from the '50's.

Of course it's already a movie with a silly concept but the overall movie as a whole got also bad and silly written. The events and dialog in this movie are just poor and also really don't help to make the movie ever work out believable or tense for one moment. Also none of the characters really work out because they are being handled very messy within the movie. It still could really had been a good movie if it didn't took itself as serious and focused more on the fun and entertainment value of the film.

Fans of the genre will be really disappointed by this movie, since it features simply no horror and just not enough gore. Who knows, maybe if we would had seen one of the rabbits biting a persons head off, the movie and its 'monsters' could had worked out far better and more convincing.

It's a movie Janet Leigh was obviously not proud off appearing in. But also DeForest Kelley, of Star Trek fame, makes an appearance in this movie. At least Janet Leigh still had an excuse to do this movie to be closer to her California and spend time with her family at the same time. What was the other actors, writers, director and everybody else's excuse to get involved with this movie?

A bad film. that's also no fun to watch either.

3/10

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One of the finest..erm...funniest eco-vengeance cinematic horrors ever captured on celluloid .

Director:William F. Claxton Writers:Don Holliday (screenplay), Gene R. Kearney (screenplay) Stars:Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh aka (Marion Crane) , Rory Calhoun , DeForest Kelley aka(Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy ) Dammit Jim I'm a doctor not a killer rabbit specialist.

A Rabbit that has been injected with hormones and mutated blood, escapes from a laboratory and grows into a giant rabbit; and others soon follow. They start to go on the rampage and eat people, horses and cattle.

"Night of the Lepus" resembles an offering of Atomic Age cinema from the 1950s, with camerawork to sell the illusion of average rabbits as unconquerable murderers, keeping humans on the run as they work out plans to fight back. Splashing ketchup on animal faces and bodies helps the gore factor. So hysterical.

"Night of the Lepus" is so thoroughly entertaining. The trick of "Night of the Lepus" is that while it deals with a supremely silly premise, it takes everything seriously, trying to examine the rabbit apocalypse with complete concentration on the animal world Eco-vengeance details of the uprising.

What makes Night of the Lepus so memorable is the use of live rabbits, the kind you would find in any local pet store. The filmmakers use quick cuts, close-ups, slow motion and just about every other cinematic trick to make the rabbits look as menacing and bloodthirsty as possible. They really wanted to scare or worry people with the possibility that huge rabbits could wreak havoc.

With its horde of man-eating bunnies and straight-faced performances by an especially earnest cast, Night of the Lepus falls into movies that are so bad, they're good. It is a must watch. 8/10

A small western town is terrorized by rabbits that are the size of large dogs. They kill anything that gets in their way, including man.

What is not to love about this film? DeForrest Kelly. check. Janet Leigh, check. You have the swagger and levelheadedness of Dr. McCoy and the original scream queen in the same film.

Look, there is nothing groundbreaking here, and it is as funny as it was ever scary, but is that not the point of these movies? I found this highly enjoyable as a man versus nature film.

Anyone who has ever worked with animals knows how difficult it can be "Rabbits" was a very difficult film to do> WE worked in tremendous heat conditions and had hundreds of rabbits to deal with It was a fun film for the trainers I think because no one has done a horror film before with rabbits> Take the silly stuff away and its a fun film.

Night of the Lepus is the only giant killer rabbit movie I know. As for other Easter horrors, there's the Z-grade "The Being", but The Being has some warped humor and gore, whereas Lepus has....humiliation of its cast.

Incredibly M-G-M put their name on this dismal bomb.. Employed at low points here are Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun, and the great Janet Leigh who is to commended for getting through this wearing the most sadistic 70s costumes her drunk costumer came up with. Seriously, Janet, a beautiful woman, is running around wearing pantsuits Judy Garland would not have donned even in Australia.

Optical effects are laughable. The giant bunnies are obviously blown up rabbits to mega-size, wearing ketchup on their furry little faces, looking confused (my guess is that they were drugged). They are never convincing or remotely scary, but do provide this turkey with much-needed camp.

Don't watch this sober.