Night of the Lepus

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Night of the Lepus

PG

1972

1h 28m

Horror

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11 Reviews

27%

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2,500+ Ratings

Arizona rancher Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun), dealing with massive rabbit overpopulation on his land, calls on a local college president, Elgin Clark (DeForest Kelley), to help him. In order to humanely resolve the matter, Elgin brings in researchers Roy (Stuart Whitman) and Gerry Bennett (Janet Leigh), who inject the rabbits with chemicals. However, they fail to anticipate the consequences of their actions. A breed of giant mutant rabbits emerges and starts killing every human in sight.

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Bob Baker

Time Out

Impossible not to admire the total withholding of irony in Claxton's approach to this kamikaze project.

Jan 26, 2006

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Eric Henderson

Slant Magazine

Rabbits produce two things in obscene quanities: other rabbits and rabbit pellets.

Rated: .5/4

Oct 28, 2005

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Roger Greenspun

New York Times

It is this technical laziness as much as the stupid story or the dumb direction that leaves the film in limbo and places it in neither one camp nor the other - neither with Attack of the 50-Foot Woman nor with Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail.

Rated: 1/5

May 10, 2005

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

It's hard to take anything seriously after a rancher (50-year-old Rory Calhoun) describes the pair (44-year-old Stuart Whitman and 45-year-old Janet Leigh) as "that young couple."

Rated: 1.5/4

Aug 10, 2021

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David Bax

Battleship Pretension

It's not bad enough to be funny but it's ridiculous enough in its very existence that maybe it would have been better if it had actually tried to be comedic. Which serves as a reminder, should you need it, that Tremors is pretty much a perfect movie.

Oct 29, 2018

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Robert Sellers

Radio Times

A total bloody shambles.

Rated: 1/5

Oct 2, 2015

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Emoji M

No. Why does it exist

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/10/24

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Colin G

Cinema was made for movies like this.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

10/03/23

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Red T

The acting isn't good, mainly because you can tell the actors filmed their scenes without knowing what the bunny scenes would look like. It's very simliar to the Giant Claw only much worse overall. Janet Leigh is probably the best thing in this and shes just ok. Almost all the characters are one dimensional. The special effects are laughably bad and the ending especially. A seizure warning should be put on the ending. The music isn't good either especially the rabbit music. The worst part is the horrifically bad editing. The rabbit scenes feel like they are from an entirely different movie and don't match style wise at all. It's so jarring and they always are in slow motion also which really drags the scenes on top of that and messes with the pacing terribly because as the movie goes on there is more and more of the rabbits and there always in stupid slow motion. This feels like stock rabbit footage merged with a creature feature. The non rabbit scenes in the first half are ok enough and actually kind of works at points but the moment they show up it falls apart and never gets back up. This gets incredibly boring in the last 30 minutes or so because of the stock characters, the slow rabbit scenes, the fact you can't see anything in the end because of all the electric zapping, the laughable effects. The idea is just stupid to begin with and even with modern CGI it would'nt work. You just can't make rabbits scary.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

09/18/23

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CodyZamboni

Movie is silly and dumb, with tons of ridiculous shots of bunnies, slow motion hopping thru fake miniatures. Top notch cast, Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, DeForest Kelly, cashing an easy check for appearing in this mess. Movie does get points for surprisingly bloody gore, and an inventive climax.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

08/26/23

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Audience Member

Rabbits just aren't scary- outside of medieval England- and this movie's attempts to make them intimidating fail miserably. The one and a half star rating comes from a person who loves bad movies, so if you have no patience for that, don't bother.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

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Audience Member

Night of the Lepus is a cheesy RABBIT monster film that some how is a horror-comedy that you well laughed and awwwww at the same time.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

09/23/21

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William F. Claxton

Director

Stuart Whitman

Roy Bennett

Janet Leigh

Gerry Bennett

Rory Calhoun

Cole Hillman

DeForest Kelley

Elgin Clark

Paul Fix

Sheriff Cody

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Synopsis

Arizona rancher Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun), dealing with massive rabbit overpopulation on his land, calls on a local college president, Elgin Clark (DeForest Kelley), to help him. In order to humanely resolve the matter, Elgin brings in researchers Roy (Stuart Whitman) and Gerry Bennett (Janet Leigh), who inject the rabbits with chemicals. However, they fail to anticipate the consequences of their actions. A breed of giant mutant rabbits emerges and starts killing every human in sight.

Director: William F. Claxton
Producer: A.C. Lyles
Screenwriter: Gene R. Kearney
Production Co: A.C. Lyles Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Rating: PG
Genre: Horror
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 22, 2013
Runtime: 1h 28m

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