Directed by William F. Claxton
Starring Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelley
This is a tricky one, because it slips into the, “so-bad-it’s-good” territory…but it’s still god awful so fuck it here we go.
Giant. Mutant. Carnivorous. Rabbits.
Should I continue? Do you really need to after that?
How about some Dr. McCoy? Some Janet Leigh? I mean, if you’re gonna make a movie about typically benign lovable forrest creatures running amok and mauling humans, you might-as-well have Janet Leigh in there. Bones however? I guess it was slow year between Star Trek films. These Kelley kids need diapers!
Zoologists are called in to chemically alter rabbits’ breeding cycles after they’ve destroyed a local rancher’s crops. But when a young child falls in love with one of the test rabbits and releases it into the wild, the rabbit population explodes and mutates into giant flesh-eating bunnies! Flee! Fleeeeee!
What makes this movie so absolutely ridiculous besides the plot, writing and acting, are low budget B movie effects. The film’s creators needed rabbits that grew larger and larger the further the film continued down its track to disaster. Rather than venture into costly stop motion, they simply shot normal sized bunnies running around a miniturized town in slow motion. For the close-up shots with the actors, it was men in bunny suits.
I gotta tell ya, nothing is more funny than watching a group of rabbits jump through a plate glass window in slow motion and seeing a grown woman scream in terror as she’s mauled to death by a guy in a cuddly bunny suit. Just fucking awesome.
The bunny growling is pretty sweet too. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a rabbit make a sound other than a squeal when it’s hit in the back of the head with a lead pipe for supper. Lepus creators decided deep bear like growls were the most suited animal noise for giant mutant rabbits. Which makes you giggle in glee when they try to stage what should be a frightening stalking scene, where the rabbits hunt a hapless townsperson. Then you get the reveal and laugh your ass off.
I could go on and on about how preposterous this film is, but here, witness the magic for yourself.










