Night of the Lepus (1972)

Just perfect...

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

The acting in this movie is really good.

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.

This is a movie where the content is a few notches below the cast. It is the 1950's formula where a scientist crews with nature and creates a hoard of giant mutant jack rabbits. The move in herds only at night and kill and destroy people and anything in their path.Stuart Whitman appears to be on vacation from Cimmarron strip and the television crew in order to slap together a summer film. While it fits the SCI-Formula perfectly, the Bunny's seem to breed even faster than rabbits. Dr. McCoy is here after the Star Trek run though his role is not very good. The rabbits do clear out a drive-in movie theater which should slow down the humans. Janet Leigh escapes from Norman Bates in order to do this one. If your a big fan of 1950's campy sci-fi, this one is for you

The 1950s were the golden decade of monster movies--ants, praying mantises, Martians, spiders, gill-men, and many others wreaked havoc on defenseless actors time and time again. The monster cycle seemed to end in the early 1960s, then in 1972 "Night of the Lepus" was released.I won't go into the plot very much, but it involves an invasion of giant rabbits who commit violence on a number of well-known actors, including DeForest Kelley, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, and Stuart Whitman. The rabbits are shown two ways, as regular sized bunnies in miniature sets, and as actors in rather shabby rabbit costumes. Often the homicidal bunnies are shown with blood on their incisors, much to the audience's amusement. The rabbits are defeated in the movie's bravura conclusion, which comes none too soon.I didn't know what to think when I first saw this film, but my friends and I had had several beers by the time it was over. I guess Leigh, Kelley, Calhoun and Whitman really needed the work, but it must have been a really entertaining movie to make, and the cast does a pretty good job considering the material they had. It's a 1950s movie from 1972, and it really isn't too bad if you're in the right frame of mind.

Leeches, shrews, sheep, worms, frogs: there have been some pretty dumb killer animal movies over the years, but they all pale into insignificance compared with Night of the Lepus, which features hordes of over-sized man-eating rabbits rampaging through Arizona, devouring anyone who crosses their path. Such an idea might be excusable had tongue been firmly planted in cheek, but with all involved seemingly taking matters as seriously as possible, Lepus has deservedly gone down in the annals of cinema as one of the stupidest films ever made.The surprisingly decent cast includes Janet Leigh, Stuart Whitman, and DeForrest Kelly (taking whatever work comes his way after the cancellation of Star Trek), but despite their best efforts, they simply can't make big fluffy bunnies scary. Some reasonable miniature work and silly slow motion photography are used to make real rabbits appear larger than life, and there are a few surprisingly bloody moments to try and convince the viewer that the hopping horrors are truly terrifying, but the film is far more likely to cause fits of laughter than shivers of fright.6/10 for being so unintentionally hilarious and, consequently, a lot of fun.