Let me ask you something. Say you're at the drive-in with your family and you hear the announcement made in my summary line above. Do you immediately start your car and leave or wonder whether you need a hearing aid? Well, every car turned on it's lights and headed out the exit, apparently in the belief that a herd of killer rabbits is just one of those things you might run into every now and then. One could make a case that they really didn't care for the flick showing at the drive-in - it was "Every Little Crook and Nanny", and YES!, that was a real movie that came out the same year this one did. With Lynn Redgrave and Victor Mature in the cast, it rates a whole point higher than this one on IMDb.You know, sometimes I struggle to write these film reviews, and sometimes they just write themselves. This is one of those times where the words just gush forth in dubious admiration for a flick that's so outrageous it just had to be made. Who came up with this concept? It would have been right at home in that bizarre year of 1959 which offered up such celluloid treats as "The Giant Gila Monster" and "The Killer Shrews". Both of those pictures, along with 'Lepus', make the best use of extreme close-up shots to enlarge their title creatures to monstrous proportions against the miniaturized buildings they over run.One of the principals here is the old Texan himself, Rory Calhoun, ditching his vest and leading the charge against the giant mutant killer bunnies, along side Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh, a nifty trio of actors who somehow managed to keep a straight face throughout the proceedings. DeForest Kelley also got roped into this thing, and for a guy who once had trouble with tribbles, I'm wondering how the heck he came along for this ride.The thing is, nobody ever got wise to the fact that it was the Bennett's (Whitman and Leigh) own daughter who was responsible for the hare-raising horror that followed when she switched places with a serum injected rabbit she liked for another one that she put in a quarantine cage. The kid got away scot-free and no one was any the wiser. Even crack sheriff Cody (Paul Fix) couldn't solve this puzzle, after all those years keeping the peace in North Fork. You'll have to forgive all my TV Western references, you can blame director William Claxton who brought along a host of former acting colleagues from prior projects.The biggest kick I got out of this flick were all those great slow-mo rabbit stampedes, ominously approaching their intended victims or descending on the next unfortunate town in their path. By this time in 1972 it seems the film makers should have eased up on the brightness of the fire engine red blood on all those poor victims. I'd understand if this was a Hammer film, but it wasn't, so next time, let's try to tone it down a bit, OK?

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.

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.

William F. Claxton directed this legendarily awful film as a genetic experiment to control rabbit overpopulation in Arizona accidentally results in giant killer rabbits who overrun the state, resulting in the National Guard being called in to save the day(Elmer Fudd was busy elsewhere...) Shoddy film in every way possible, though you do feel sorry for the embarrassed looking cast(Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun, Janet Leigh, and Deforest Kelley). Unreleasable film is among the worst ever made, a truly jaw-dropping experience.Pay close attention to how out-of-scale the rabbits are to their reported size, as well as their surroundings(when they stampede the general store, on the far left-hand side you can see the face of a stagehand who looks about 50 Ft. tall!)