Les rongeurs de l'apocalypse

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!

.....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!

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.

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 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!