Night of the Lepus [Blu-ray]

I fell in love with this film the first time I saw it on TV and thought, how cool is that, killer bunnies!!! Or. When good bunnies go bad and attack horses, people, cattle, buildings............ I quite felt sorry for them when Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelley, Paul Fix, Stuart Whitman, and Janet Leigh tried to exterminate the poor things. Particularly when it was their fault to begin with that the poor bunnies ended up HUGE and unremorsefully belligerent. I especially blame that rotten little girl for exchanging the test rabbits so she can keep one as a pet, the one injected with a serum that can cause birth defects, the one that gets away and lives to build its own guerrilla army of vengeful killer bunnies!!! Those poor, much maligned bunnies were transported to the lab of Mr. & Mrs. Mad Scientist in garbage cans for pity sake!!! Did PETA know about this?The plot was lifted from Russell Braddon's 1964 Sci-fi novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit. The producer (A.C. Lyles) and director (William F. Claxton) were better known for making westerns, hence the proliferation of western actors in the lead roles. It's painfully obvious that everyone was out of their element. I suppose from Claxton's point of view, if he was going to be embarrassed he wasn't going down alone! He took everyone with him, all aboard the crazy train; we're about to crash big time.In some alternate universe this is a masterpiece of filmmaking. It is beyond bad. The fact that they were all so deadly earnest makes this even more endearing. A stampede of bunnies is not to be missed. I count myself blessed to own a copy of this fabulous crap-fest. Just the thought of it makes me smile.

This notoriously awful film about giant killer rabbits terrorizing Arizona comes to Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory in a fine HD print with two(!) audio commentaries, trailer, TV and radio spot. Hard to judge the Blu-ray objectively of course given just how inept this film truly is, it still is a fine presentation under the circumstances, and a definite cult favorite of many. An upgrade over the WB DVD, and an interesting choice for initial release in the new distribution deal with Warner Brothers that Scream Factory made.

Night of the Lepus (1972) is a movie I recently watched on Shudder for the holiday season. 🐣 The storyline focuses on a town that has an issue with a rabbit 🐇 outbreak with hopes of scientists 🧑‍🔬 finding a way to slow them down. Unfortunately their experiments cause rabbits to mutate and get huge. Now these giant rabbits threaten the existence of the human race. This movie is directed by William F. Claxton (Half Past Midnight) and stars Janet Leigh (Psycho), Stuart Whitman (The Longest Day), Rory Calhoun (Motel Hell), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy from Star Trek) and Paul Fix (Giant). The storyline for this is classic animals attack with little creativity in terms of plot; however, there are some campy ranch and close ups of rabbits in caves scenes that are fun. The sound effects are also funny, especially the horse stampede scene. I loved the collapsing caves sequence too. Overall this is a very average movie with a better cast than it deserves which makes it a fun watch. This is a 5.5/10 and worth watching once. It isn’t bad for the times.

Three years before JAWS attacked audiences world-wide, another diabolical beast was unleashed from the bowels of hell... Man's selfish attempt to control the rabbit population in Arizona turns deadly when an experimental hormone causes the animals to grow into giant-sized killers in NIGHT OF THE LEPUS! A film so baffling and benign that the distributors were forced to remove any indication of the furry critters from the marketing materials in order to dupe audiences into seeing it. The first question, of course, is "How can you possibly make giant rabbits frightening?", the obvious answer being that you can't. NIGHT OF THE LEPUS is ridiculous in its attempts to scare, generating nothing but laughs from start to finish. The rabbits are filmed up close in slow-motion and dripping with blood as they maul the locals, but they are only as cute as they are harmless. What makes things even more absurd is just how serious the film takes itself. Horribly mutilated bodies are left in the wake of the rabbits destruction after they hippity-hop their way through town. Most unbelievable of all is how professional the special effects and miniatures are handled for a film about giant killer bunny rabbits. Janet Leigh, Stuart Whitman, and Rory Calhoun deserve Oscar nominations just for withholding their laughter during filming. When it comes to unintentional humor, B-Movie fans can do no better than NIGHT OF THE LEPUS.-Carl ManesI Like Horror Movies

Purchased this a month ago and saved it for a "Classic Horror Halloween".Yes, it's corny.. But come on it was made in the 60-70's!We laughed and joked most of the movie. It isn't made to be a serious movie. Great to even watch with kids as there was little if any swearing, no nudity and the violence via the bunnies was so cheesy it shouldn't be taken seriously. We loved it, and we took shots every time a guy in a bunny suit attacked a person. One of the best and most unique horror films I own now. I'll have to track down the Mystery Science Theater version, I hear that is quite hilarious. While it literally isn't worth $20, the night of fun I had with my family watching this was. I would definitely suggest this to a friend.It's the only "killer" rabbit movie in existence, and it's great.

I don't know what made me think of this movie and rent it recently. About 25 years ago I'd occasionally see it either on AMC or one of the Turner owned channels on cable tv when flipping around. I never did watch the whole thing back then so I finally got around to it. It's about what you'd expect. Corny with special effects that aren't too special, but it's a good thing to do to waste time on a Saturday afternoon when the weather's lousy.

Dreadful film but fun. Working my way through the 50 worst films of all time and this is on the list

Rabbits you would look upon as friendly cuddly and fury. Not so the case being here. Stuart Whitman asked to help with the capture and quarantine of the large numbers being The Lepus breed of rabbit, taken to an laboratory, given some injection, released or escapes then become more than average in height, bring and wrecking havoc to the local town at night. You could have nightmares. Certainly a film of horror and immense suffering.

I've been hearing about this film for years, and it certainly was everything I expected of it. Big killer bunnies seem not to have caught on as far as a sequel is concerned, which may or may not be a shame; but as B movies go, this one is worth a whirl. I will be watching it again, probably with similar amounts of unstoppable giggles and stunned disbelief as the first time.

Fantastically terrible. We'll worth a watch.

Brilliant b movie / retro horror. Very funny. I loved it!