Night of the Lepus
The Cadbury Bunny And His Friends HAD ENOUGH!
Cole Hillman-A rancher who's property is being overrun by rabbits. Decides to get a family of scientists to study them and now has GIANT rabbits on his hands.
Roy/Ray-His name keeps changings for some reason. Anyway, the man of the scientist family who thinks it's a good idea to inject a rabbit with some super secret serum.
Jerry-Played by Janet Leigh. Roy's wife. Is pretty much there to ask stupid questions and needs saving from the giant rabbits.
Amanda-The daughter of the scientists. Is pretty annoying and is also the cause of the giant rabbit onslaught. She's enough proof that scientists shouldn't breed.
Elgin-Played by Deforest Kelly. Some dude that Cole knows. He brings the scientist family into the mix, so he's partly to blame too. Likes to throw rocks down rabbit holes.
Jack-Cole's son. Is kind of a mean asshole. And probably enjoys visiting the weirdo of the town a bit too much.
Giant Rabbits-Starts with just one getting injected with super secret serum, and before you know it, there's a whole race of big ass bunnies. They eat everything in sight and for some reason only comes out at night.
Ever since I started the site, I been trying to do "Night of the Lepus" for Easter. And by God, I wasn't gonna let another year go by without me doing it. So here it is, a week late, but better late then never.

We start with some newscaster guy telling us that rabbits all over the world are a menace and ranchers and farmers are doing everything they could to kill the little hoppy bastards. This segways onto the Hillman Ranch where Cole Hillman is having some rabbit issues himself.

According to Cole, the rabbits have been causing all sorts of problems from missing vegetation to horses stepping into rabbit holes, breaking their legs. This happens to a horse Cole was on and he's left with no choice but to shoot the wounded animal. Yes, whichever kid was asking, they DO shoot horses.
"Kent Brockman, Reporting!"
Veterans from the Rabbit War don't get any respect, man.
Mustn't...make...tasteless...Christopher Reeves....joke.
"Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a porn star!"
Cole decides he needs some help with this rabbit problem and decides to consult Starfleet. And by that I mean he gets the help of Elgin, played by Deforest Kelly aka Bones McCoy. Elgin says he knows a family that deals with controlling the animal population without using poison, so he enlists their help.

This family, Roy/Ray, Jerry the wife, and daughter Amanda are in some caves grabbing bats. Roy puts the bats into a box and shakes it up so they make screeching noises. Then he grabs a tape recorder and tapes these screechings. Amanda, confused much like we are, asks why the hell he's doing this. Roy looks as if he's about to punch Amanda for interrupting his recording and gives some long technical answer that confused me, let alone some little girl.

Before a domestic abuse situation arises, Elgin arrives and tells the wonderful happy Bat Family what's going down at The Hillman Ranch. They're like "We're all up in that shit!" and head off. While driving through the Ranch, the family spot many ranch hands shooting rabbits, which terrifies Amanda cause she likes rabbits. Yeah, good job parents, show your kid little furry bunnies being ruthlessly murdered by underpaid sweaty illegal immigrants.

Roy, whose name keeps changing between Roy and Ray, decides to take a bunch of the rabbits back to their family lab to study them. I'm not sure why or what they're looking for, but whatever. At the lab, Amanda gets close to one of the rabbits, even naming it Romeo. Methinks the little girl already knows a little sumthan-sumthan about reproducing.
Little Anna Nicole Smith looks disappointed.
Roy and Jerry study the rabbits for whatever the hell they're studying them for and Roy decides to inject one of the rabbits, Romeo in fact, with some super ultra secret serum that's suppose to do something. Amanda is horrified at this and when the parents aren't looking, she switches Romeo with a non-serum injected rabbit, then begs to keep one as a pet. When Roy says alright, she grabs Romeo and she and Jerry head back to The Hillman Ranch.

At the Ranch, Amanda is showing Cole's son Jack the rabbit, but because he's sick of death of rabbits, he threatens to kill it. Amanda gets all worried and Jack tries to take the rabbit. During the struggle, the rabbit gets loose and goes down a hole. Uh-oh. Amanda forgot how much of a jerk Jack was just being and begs him not to tell her parents she lost the rabbit. Jack agrees to cover for her. Methinks Jack is in love. OOOH!! Jack and Amanda sitting in a tree!!!

So you probably can guess what happens next. Romeo lives up to his name, starts fuckin' like crazy, and before you know it, there are giant rabbits just everywhere! Of course, the movie has to delay this shocker for a little bit.

Jack and Amanda go to some mine shaft to talk to this guy named Captain Billy, who likes to mine for gold. After getting a peek into Capt. Billy's shack, I think he loves it when Jack visits him, especially alone. Anyway, Jack for whatever reason sends the little girl into the mine to look for Billy while Jack just stands around outside the shack. Maybe he was hoping Billy was waiting for him pantless out back or something. Ah, how he must miss the loving touch of Captain Billy.
The real love shack, baby.
Anyway, we hear Amanda's annoying shrill voice from the shack, while Jack is waiting for his lover. In the mine, Amanda finds a dead body and some giant teeth waiting for her. She freaks out and the entire scene turns into a LSD trip. We get shots of Amanda screaming in the mine, shots of giant rabbit teeth, and then shots of Amanda sleeping and sweating. Is this all a dream?

Well, no. It's later that night and Jack is telling Cole, Elgin, Roy/Ray, Jerry, and some doctor dude what happened. This causes the gang to investigate the mine. But not before some truck driver is driving at night and for some odd reason he feels the needs to stop and just look around in the back of his truck. Suddenly, he hears a noise and before we know it, he's chomped off screen.

The next day, a deputy is driving by and finds the body and I gotta give this movie credit, they showed us a rather gruesome sight, with the body all chomped up and limbs severed and whatnot. Didn't think they'd do that in a giant killer bunny movie from the 70's. With all the dead bodies stacking up, and the only black character in the movie telling the cops something with giant teeth caused this, it's time for our main characters to check out this mine.
"Dammit! They took all the Billy Beer!"
He died protecting all the C.W McCall albums.
"So if you honkey's are done with me, I gotta get to the set of 'Shaft'!"
Man, Bones can't stop staring at that dude's little patch of hair.
So they all (minus the doctor, he had a tee time to make) head over to the mine and check it out. Roy and Cole go into the mine while Elgin and some ranch hand go on top of the mine. Up there, they find three giant rabbit holes, and a map to Albuquerque.

In the mine, Roy and Cole find the giant ass bunnies and are like "Let's get out of, Scooby!!" They spend 10 minutes getting out of the mine while the ranch hands are ready to blow it the fuck up. And one of the ranch hands gets attacked by a bunny. And by attacked, I mean gets smeared in red paint by a giant bunny. Thankfully, Jerry knows how to use a shotgun and scares the rabbit away. Finally, Roy and Cole run out of the mine and everyone blows it up.
"I'm just gonna wait here until he says 'What's up, Doc?' one more time!"
Our first reveal of the giant rabbits and they screw up the green screen effect.
Oh no! We got giant gophers too!!
"They tampered in God's domain..."
You think that's the end? Nope. Of course not. The movie's called "NIGHT of the Lepus", not "Mid-day of the Lepus". So later that night, the bunnies dig themselves out of the exploded mine and make their way into town. Cole's dog alerts them of the bunny stampede coming their way and he, Jack, and some Indian lady we never seen before hide out in the cellar. The rabbits then rampage the house while Cole and some other dude in the cellar shoot at them through the floorboards.

I was mildly impressed with the miniatures they used. I mean, I could tell they were miniatures but they seem to have spent some time on them. I was even impressed with a scene in the mine when the rabbits were stepping over a flashlight Roy dropped. I mean, how did they get a tiny flashlight? Color me impressed.

Anyway, it's not too long before the rabbits head into the rest of town and munch on some people, including a somewhat ugly lady that works in the General Store. At the ranch, the dude that was attacked at the mine has a freak out with hilarious results. He steals a truck and literally drives around in a big circle, before crashing into a barn, a pole, some horses, and probably the damn dog. He then jumps out of the truck and before he makes it too far, he gets chomped. What makes this ironic is he got eaten on the same spot he started off in.
It's night. There's the Lepus. There's your Goddamn title!
"Alright men! They may take away our carrots! But they'll never take away...OUR FREEDOM!!!"
*Sigh* "I miss the days when I was a coke whore..."
So now it's daylight and Cole is surveying the damage, caused by the rabbits and that idiot ranch hand and decides enough is enough! He calls everyone, telling them the rabbits are back and now it's war, dammit! Roy sends Jerry and Amanda to some city somewhere else cause he's getting annoyed by them. Or something to do with the media hounding them. I think it's cause they annoyed him cause why is the media gonna bother them? Anyway, Jerry and Amanda take off on their road trip.

For some reason, Cole is walking down a road with a shotgun and a car is approaching. He waves all super crazy like and the car just zooms past him. He realizes the gun isn't probably helping any so he throws it away. Eventually, Cole gets a ride from a priest (of course) and arrives in town. He finds the rabbits are holed up in the General Store and he goes to alert everyone about this.

Here we're introduced to a dude named Jason, one of the cops. And I gotta say, FINALLY we have a character named Jason who isn't a serial killer or a major douche bag. And he's got a killer 'stache. Anyway, the sheriff mentions something about having a giant ass fence to keep the rabbits in and Roy gets some crazy idea.
"I don't get why no one's stopping...oh! AHH!!! BLAAAHH!! YMCA!! BALLH!
Dammit!"
Man, the St. Louis Arch is dissapointing.
This is Jason. Because of that, anytime I need to show a picture of myself, I'm gonna be using this picture. You think I'm joking.
The townspeople forget that every year they have their "Running of the Lepus" festival.
His explanation of the idea was confusing but when I saw it played out I was like "Oohhh..." Basically what his idea was is to put some jumper cables on a stretch of railroad and connect it to a transformer, then they'll turn the electricity on and when the bunnies touch the track, there'll be some fried fur a-flyin'.

But because we have another 20 minutes to kill, setting all this up is stretched out. This included evacuating the town and having some people with cars line up near the track to draw the rabbits to the railroad. And there's a hilarious scene with one of the deputies going to the drive-in and telling all the patrons there that there is a pack of killer rabbits loose and they need to leave. Instead of them throwing their popcorn at him, THEY BELIEVE HIM INSTANTLY!

We go back to Jerry and Amanda cause the movie hasn't been annoying for awhile. Jerry, being a woman and all, can't drive (can't wait to get the emails on that) and lands in a giant ass pothole. So she has to dig it out, which apparently takes for-fucking-ever cause she's still doing it at night. Roy finds out they haven't arrived in whatever town and goes "Hm. Odd" and flies over to find out what the hell happened to them.

He flies in right on time cause a hoard of rabbits was about to chew on some annoying female characters. Roy scares them off and the family is happily reunited. Awww!! They fly back to The Electric Traintrack and now finally the plan can be put in motion. The rabbits come, they go towards the light, they step on the track, ZZZZZZZZT!!!, and before you know it, all the rabbits are dead. Yay.

Suddenly it's like four months later and Roy is playing football and Cole is visiting. Cole invites Roy to the ranch and instead of saying "Fuck you" he agrees. Then Cole lets us know that things are slowly turning back to normal and he can grow whatever the hell it was he was growing. Then the family is at Cole's ranch and Jack and Amanda run off somewhere, probably to make out, when they pass by two normal size rabbits! GASP!! And of course, this is where it ends.
"We will still have our revenge! WE WILL-oooh is that a carrot?"
To steal a phrase from fellow Mass Invader Rachael, Holy Ding-Dong, this movie is goofy as hell. But I liked it. The dialogue is humorous, the plot is just ridiculous, and seeing Bones with helmet hair was just hilarious. This is definitely one of my favorite B-Movies and it's up there with "Slugs". I dunno, man, something about animals or bugs that don't normally do anything just suddenly attacking is just great to me. I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time where we get a movie about giant DUST bunnies attacking.
"It's time to vacuum!" VROOM!
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