bkoganbing The one thing I really liked about Night Of The Lepus was the depiction of that vast army of supersized rabbits. Otherwise a whole lot of familiar players look like they're in some kind of discomfort doing this science fiction epic.Rabbits do two things very well, they multiply and they eat. The famous introduction of them to Australia is used as an example when they were imported to Australia and become ravaging the food supply.The same thing is happening in the Southwest USA. One of those effected is rancher Rory Calhoun. He sends for scientific type help and he gets Professor Stuart Whitman and wife Janet Leigh who bring their little daughter with them.Whitman doesn't play this like Dr. Frankenstein, but he's decided on some radical experimentation with hormones. Does it ever grow wrong with rabbits growing to be the size of SUVs.This was produced by A.C. Lyles of the geezer westerns of the Sixties. I wish he had stuck to those.

moonspinner55 This could well be the worst movie ever associated with MGM. Zoologists are enlisted to help an Arizona rancher curtail the rabbit population explosion on his land, but a serum injected into one nasty bunny creates a race of leaping monsters. Not only are these giant jackrabbits angry and on the attack, they're seemingly out for human blood. As a low-budget entry in the mutant animal genre, one can expect the obvious--but nothing in the script, adapted from Russell Braddon's novel "The Year of the Angry Rabbit", prepares us for homicidal cottontails. The sound effects of the marauding enemy underground are well-accomplished, but the visual effects are laughable, the color processing atrocious, and the cast (good actors including Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh and Rory Calhoun) looks fatigued. NO STARS from ****

LeonLouisRicci Infamous "Bad Movie" that Attracts Folks Because of its Premise. Giant, Mutated, Killer Rabbits. So They Go Into This Thing with a High Giggle Factor and it Does Prompt Laughter, At Least At First. But Honestly, After the Movie Starts Unreeling it's Not a Laughing Matter. So the Snickering Just Might be That of the Nervous Type.The Opening Scenes, a Docu-Style Real Life Plague in Australia Where Hundreds and Thousands of Rabbits are Shown (this is real footage) being Stomped, Shot, Clubbed, and Trooped to Their Death with Living Creatures Being Netted, Slaughtered and Brutally Killed. That's Just the Beginning. In Short Order there is the Shooting of a Horse, Closeups of Bunnies with Bloody Faces, Flashing Their Teeth and Growling. Then there are Numerous Scenes of the Rabbits Feasting on Bodies and More Close Ups, This Time of Mutilated Humans with Dismembered Limbs and Buckets of Blood Flowing All Over the Place. There's More to Come, Like Electrocutions, and Gunplay with Squibs Splattering and Other Very Gory and Violent Scenes. If You Think this is All Campy Fun, Think Again. This is Horrifying a Lot of the Time. Sure, the Slow Motion Gets Old and Less Effective Every Time it's Used and it's Used Quite Often.The Rabbits Waver from Very Scary (the close ups) to Not So Scary (those migration slow motion scenes). The Drive In Scene is Probably the Silliest in the Movie and Dosen't Contain Any Rabbits. There is Some Dialog that is Unintentionally Funny. But, If this Movie is Such a Hoot, Show it to a Group of Tween Girls (it is Rated PG) and Witness the Reaction. Guaranteed, Few of Them will be Laughing and They Might Attack You. Just Not in Slow Motion.Note…Just kidding, Sam Peckinpah did not Direct this Movie.

Scott LeBrun Ranchers in the American Southwest must deal with hordes of rabbits that are laying waste to their lands. Most would prefer to use poison, but the more humane Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun) enlists the services of a husband and wife team, Roy and Gerry Bennett (Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh) who propose to keep the bunnies from breeding by injecting them with hormones. Unfortunately, one test rabbit who's been given an experimental serum escapes into the wild and promptly causes mutations among its kin, leading to murderous four foot tall predators that cause even more damage than they were doing before. Eventually the National Guard must be called in to deal with the problem.This scenario is amusing, no doubt about it. No matter how hard the filmmakers and animal trainers try to make our antagonists fearsome, it doesn't really work. Director William F. Claxton handles everything in a workmanlike fashion, but, much like everyone on screen, tends to take the proceedings a little too seriously. That said, there's definite camp value in hearing lines such as "There's a horde of killer rabbits coming this way!". The actors give the movie more gravitas than it deserves; Whitman, Leigh, and Calhoun are joined by DeForest Kelley ("Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not Elmer Fudd!"), Paul Fix, and Melanie Fullerton. Music, cinematography, pacing, and special effects are all adequate enough; fans of B horror may be pleased by the amount of bloodletting going on.This little movie was actually a little ahead of the curve, predating "Jaws" by a few years; it may be on the cheap and cheesy side of "nature strikes back" cinema, but it's still entertaining for what it is.Five out of 10.