The Age of Commercialism

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

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 ****

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.

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!)

It's been said that there are no bad ideas for movies - just bad executions of ideas for movies. However, every so often a movie comes out that has a premise that one simply has great difficulty picturing even great filmmakers managing to pull off. The musical "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is one such movie, and "Night Of The Lepus" is another. Seriously - gigantic killer rabbits? Could ANYONE have pulled this off successfully? The idea is so silly that the movie already has been given a fatal blow. Though it certainly doesn't help that much of the movie is done in an amateurish manner. The special effects (real rabbits hopping around miniature sets) must have looked extremely shoddy even to audiences in 1972. And while the movie boasts some name actors, none of the performers look happy to be there, and give performances that show their lack of enthusiasm. (I read that Stuart Whitman was essentially forced to do the movie.) The movie does have some unintentionally laughable moments, but most of the movie is so pathetically done that you'll mostly feel embarrassment instead of amusement. This movie was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's lowest point for a long, long time.