Night Of The Lepus (1972)(MGM)

Written By: Ken Hulsey

Wabbits! Wabbits! [crying] Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho! - Elmer Fudd

In the early 1970s the cinemas of this great country of ours were overrun by a mass of cheaply made B movies about common everyday critters, that for one reason or another, grew to enormous size and began eating everyone in sight. These films featured all kinds of animals and insects. Bees, spiders, rats, cats, you name it, all ready to devourer mankind.

All these films seemed to follow the same formula. All had some sort of man-made folly that would lead to creation of the giant animals. All had shots of "real" animals superimposed over tiny sets to create the illusion of gigantic size. And, most notably, all....well some....had ex Star Trek actors.

Now that I have made a point about the general similarities of the "Giant Critter Invasion" of the early 70s, lets get to the film at hand. Today I bring you the cult-classic film, "Night of the Lepus." A film that would give Elmer Fudd nightmares for the rest of his life if he ever saw it, because it features an endless horde of...you guessed it!.....giant killer bunny rabbits.

Before I forget, let me get to that whole "Star Trek" actor statement I made earlier. "Night of the Lepus" would star veteran "Trek" actor DeForest Kelley, fresh from role as Dr. Leonard McCoy (Bones), as Elgin Clark. Now, a mere five years later, Kelley's "Star Trek" co-star, William Shatner, would star as Rack Hanson, a small-town sheriff who finds himself knee-deep in tarantulas, in the 1977 film "Kingdom of the Spiders." You see, hordes of killer critters, B movies, "Star Trek", ....it all fits, trust me.

To tell you the truth, "Night of the Lepus" has a pretty darn good cast come to think of it. Besides DeForest Kelley the film also features the acting talents of Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun, and Janet Leigh, who I'm sure everyone reading this knows from her role in Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Psycho". It wasn't too uncommon to find "name" actors in films of this caliber at around this time. In fact, Joan Crawford, who many could argue as one of the best actresses of all time, ended up in the clunker of a monster movie, "Trog", in 1970. Hey, a paycheck is a paycheck.

But, I digress......lets get to the bunnies eating people part....

"Night of the Lepus" was directed by William F. Claxton, and co-written by Don Holliday and Gene R. Kearney. The script was adapted from the novel "The Year of the Angry Rabbit" written by Australian author Russell Braddon.

The film is relatively obscure, but maintains a small but devout cult following that probably stems from the casting of Kelley and Leigh, and the absurd images of herds of giant rabbits running amok. Notably "Lepus" has been referenced in some more mainstream, popular films. For instance, footage appears briefly in the science fiction film The Matrix, makes a quick appearance in the movie Pulp Fiction. and throughout the drama film Natural Born Killers. It has been referenced in Judge Frank Easterbrook's opinion in ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996).

Rancher Cole Hillman is having problems with the rabbit population on his ranch, who are destroying his crops. College president Elgin Clark, as a favor to benefactor Cole, calls in zoologists Roy and Gerry Bennett, who create an (untested) serum for disrupting the breeding cycle of rabbits. However, their daughter Amanda has become attached to the rabbit that has become the serum's test subject and switches it with a rabbit from the control group; she is thus able to take the injected rabbit out of the controlled environment of the lab. The injected rabbit gets away and breeds. The serum doesn't disrupt their breeding cycle, but does something worse: it causes the rabbits to become gigantic meat-eaters. When several people are slaughtered by the carnivorous carrot-munchers, Roy and Gerry attempt to find a solution before the whole of the American Southwest is overrun by giant rabbits.

Trust me, you will never look at harmless little bunny rabbits the same way again!