Tag Archives: Night of the Lepus

Lisa Marie’s Grindhouse Trailers: 6 Trailers For The Second Thursday In October

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

We are rapidly reaching the halfway mark of our October horrorthon here at the Shattered Lens. By the time we reach the end of the first half at midnight on Saturday, we will have published over 200 posts. During the second half, we’ll publish …. well, let’s not speculate. You never know. The world could end tomorrow and, as a result, we might never post again. What’s important is that I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far and I look forward to seeing what we accomplish during the rest of the month!

(That said, I’m hoping for another 250 to 300 or so posts. 500 FOR OCTOBER! It seems like a reasonable go. We’ll see!)

Anyway, today seems like a good time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse Trailers! And, since today is Jack Arnold’s birthday, it only seems appropriate that today’s edition deals with giant creature features!

  1. Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)

From director Larry Cohen, it’s Q The Winged Serpent! I’ve seen this movie and it’s undeniably entertaining. On the one hand, you’ve got the serpent flying around and looking all dangerous. Then you’ve got David Carradine and Richard Roundtree kind of sleepwalking through their roles. And then, suddenly, Michael Moriarty shows up and gives this brilliant, method-influenced performance. It’s an odd film but it’s hard not to like that Claymation flying serpent.

2. The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)

From Wisconsin’s own Bill Rebane, here’s the trailer for The Giant Spider Invasion! This is probably Rebane’s best film. If you’re trying to frighten your audience, you can’t go wrong with a giant spider.

3. Empire of the Ants (1977)

What’s the only thing scarier than a giant spider? A giant ant, of course! This film is from Bert I. Gordon, a director so obsessed with films about giant monsters that he was actually nicknamed Mr. BIG. (Of course, it also helped that those were his initials.)

4. Food of the Gods (1976)

Speaking of Bert I. Gordon, he was also responsible for this film, Food of the Gods. Like Empire of the Ants, it was based (however loosely) on a novel by H.G. Wells. Two old farmers feed the food of the Gods to the local animals and things do not go well. For some reason, a football player played by Marjoe Gortner decides to investigate. Shouldn’t he be practicing for the big game? Gordon missed an opportunity here by not having a giant-sized Marjoe Gortner.

5. Night of the Lepus (1972)

As frightening as those previous trailers were, can anything prepare you for the terror of killer rabbits!? This movie is proof positive that rabbits look cute no matter who they’re killing.

6. Village of the Giants (1965)

In the end, though, the greatest monster will always be man. By the way, this is another Bert I. Gordon film. Beau Bridges turns into a giant and plots to conquer the world. Only a young Ron Howard can stop him.

I hope you’re having a wonderful October! Never stop watching the shadows!

Horror Film Review: Night of the Lepus (dir by William F. Claxton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s really only one lesson to be learned from the 1972’s Night of the Lepus.

There is absolutely no way to make a rabbit look menacing.

Oh sure, you can film them in slow motion.  And you can add a lot of weird sound effects and you can do a lot of extreme close-ups to make them look bigger than they actually are.  You can do a lot of stuff as a part of your effort to make a rabbit into a scary monster but you’ll pretty much be wasting you time.  Rabbits are simply not intimidating.  There’s a reason why the idea of a killer rabbit was so funny in Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m enough of country girl that I know the damage that wild rabbits can do.  They eat crops.  They eat bark.  They chew on irrigations lines.  If you’re a farmer or even just someone who wants to maintain a nice garden, you know that rabbits can be a nuisance.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing really menacing rabbits.  Rabbits are cute and, for the most part, they’re fairly timid.  They’re aware that, in the brutal world of nature, they’re designated prey and, as a result, they try to stay out of the way.  Rabbits are shy and they hop around and there’s absolutely nothing frightening about them.

(We actually have quite a few rabbits in my neighborhood.  It’s not unusual for me to see one hopping through the front yard.  Whenever I go for a run in the early evening hours, it’s not unusual for me to see several rabbits hopping through a nearby park.)

Night of the Lepus is a strange film that attempts to make rabbits frightening.  It takes place in the southwest and it features a bunch of mutated, giant rabbits who hop around the desert in slow motion and who savagely kill everyone that they meet.  The plot makes it sound like a spoof but Night of the Lepus takes itself very seriously, which needless to say is a mistake.  It even opens with documentary footage that’s designed to make sure that we understand that rabbits are actually very dangerous.  It’s all very odd and you have to wonder why, out of all the wild animals in the southwest, the filmmakers decided to go with the least intimidating creature possible.  I mean, there are coyotes and Gila monsters in the desert.  Imagine having a giant coyote coming at you.  That would be scary!

Instead, we get giant rabbits, attacking a cast of actors who definitely deserved better.  Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelly, they’re all talented actors and, in this film, they’re reduced to fighting a bunch of giant rabbits.  No one comes across particularly well, though just about everyone in the cast does manage to keep a straight face.  Still, the problem is that the rabbits are just too damn cute.  Even after they’ve killed half the cast, you still don’t want anything to happen to them.  When Whitman and Calhoun opened fire on a group of rabbits and killed a few of them, I actually found myself getting mad at the humans.  Leave the rabbits alone! I thought.  You humans have had your chance!  This the land of rabbits now!

Anyway, Night of the Lepus is silly but it’s kind of fun, just because the giant rabbits are cute.  They’re kind of like the giant guinea pigs that attacked South Park a few seasons ago.  They’re murderous but they’re adorable!

 

 

 

 

6 Trailers For The Benefit of Ms. Lisa Marie

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi!  It’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Exploitation and Grindhouse Trailers.  Today’s theme — well, as explained at the end of this post, I nearly dedicated this post to my menses but then I changed my mind.  There really isn’t a theme beyond the fact that these trailers entertained me and hopefully, they’ll entertain you as well.  Well, that and the trailers are all about wild sex and wild nature.

1) The Alley Cats (1965)

I love this trailer!  It’s for a film directed by Radley Metzger and personally, I think it’s wonderfully erotic in its old school, sordid way.  The use of still frames gives it a real La Jetee feel.

2) Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978)

From director Serigo “Not Leone or Corbucci” Martino, this film features Stacy Keach, Ursula Andress, and perhaps the most oddly inappropriate orgy scene in the history of Italian cannibal films.  If this film seems to be a lot like Cannibal Ferox, it’s because they both ended up using a lot of the same stock footage.

3) Night of the Lepus (1972)

What are the Lepus you may ask?  Well, in case you haven’t heard of this movie or come across it on late night television, I’ll tell you after the trailer.

The Lepus are giant killer bunny rabbits.  They hop in slow motion and kill a lot of people.  Seriously.

4) Frogs (1972)

At the same time the southwest was being ravaged by killer bunny rabbits, the real south was being attacked by killer frogs.  Mother Earth was on angry bitch in the 70s and to her, I say, “You go, girl!”

5) Slugs (1986)

Mother Nature was still angry in the ’80s apparently.  By this point, I think you start to say, “Someone needs to get off the drama train, girl.”

6) Confessions Of A Summer Camp Counselor (1978)

But why was Mother Nature so ticked off?  I think the answer might be found in this trailer.  Apparently, in the 70s, there was an actor named Robin Askwith who had the sex appeal of a groundhog.  And he apparently starred in a series of British films that all had titles like Confessions of a Window Washer, Confessions of an Altar Boy, and, in the case of this trailer, Confessions of a Summer Camp Counselor.  Apparently, Robin played a character named Timothy Lea and he spent these films getting laid.  By all accounts, both they and Mr. Askwith were quite popular in Britain which just goes to prove, once again, that the Irish were right.  Anyway, I assume that some film producer is currently in pre-production on Confessions of a Registered Sex Offender.

One final note:

Originally, I was going to gross out (and taunt) my male friends by calling this post 6 Trailers For A Bloody Period.  And, I’ll warn you right now — I still like that title and if I can find 6 exploitation trailers that center around menstruation, I’m going to resurrect it sometime in the future.

‘Til Then…

Night of the Lepus (a.k.a. Watership Dead)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As another Easter draws to a close, consider what would happen if the rabbits of the world turned on us.

That clip is from a 1972 film entitled Night of the Lepus.  I saw it 13 years ago when, during a stormy Saturday afternoon, it showed up on one of the local stations.   Beyond the image of a bunch of bunnies hopping in slow motion (a bit like the zombie Templars from Amando De Ossorio’s Blind Dead films), I don’t really remember much about the actual movie.

Then again, when you’ve got killer bunnies, what else do you have to remember?