The film begins with stock footage of rabbit invasions in Australia and elsewhere--then the scene switches to Arizona where a rancher has a huge epidemic of bunnies devouring his land. He asks his friend, DeForrest Kelley if he knows of someone who can get rid of the rabbits without poison and Kelley finds a weirdo professor (Stuart Whitman) to help him using "science". All appears to be going well until Whitman's stupid child switches rabbits in a cage (replacing the rabbit injected with Chemical X with a normal one). Why this stupid child did this is 100% uncertain--no child would do this and no parent would inject a bunny with a strange unknown chemical and leave their kid alone with it! And, naturally, no child would take this injected rabbit outside and then let it go--but of course, in this dumb movie that's exactly what she did. Naturally, this one super rabbit grows to astronomical proportions and makes other bunnies that way overnight! They didn't even wait a couple months to indicate that the injected rabbit bred and created more big bunnies--perhaps he/she bit the other rabbits and made them big. I assume this biting IS the case, as all the big rabbits then went from sweet vegetarians to blood-thirsty man-killers!!! There's nothing scarier than a 300 pound bunny on the prowl for blood!!!

Aside from MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, I can't think of another movie audacious enough to have killer bunnies! I mean, even if they are BIG, they are still only bunnies! But, when writers who used a little too much LSD or who forgot to take their medication came up with the insane idea to make a horror film, you'd still think some boss at the studio would tell them the idea stank!

So how do they make the bunnies look evil?! Well, have them hop around really itsy bitsy sets with tiny houses in slow motion as you play creepy music!! Did ANYONE associated with this movie actually think this would work?! Well, despite the utter stupidness of the idea, apparently so, as they got performers such as Janet Leigh, Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun and DeForrest Kelley to star in this dreadful film!

By the way, in the end when the bunnies are being killed off, it was pretty disturbing--PETA members and those with delicate constitutions are advised against viewing! There are bunnies on fire, getting shot and being electrocuted a plenty!!

While not quite as bad as some similar films from the 50s and 60s (since the production values were a tad better),this one STILL is a dreadful film--of interest only to those with a morbid curiosity to see how low these stars had fallen.

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.

Weirdly enough, this is one of the most famous B-movies of all time, one that's gone down in history as the one about the giant rabbits! It's an odd subject matter for a film, that's for sure, but in all other respects, NIGHT OF THE LEPUS is a traditional 1970s monster flick, little different from the likes of KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS or many others churned out during this decade. Filmed out in Arizona, it boasts some nice, deserted locales, full of farmhouses and shacks that are about to get menaced by a rampaging horde of killer...bunnies!

This is one of those films where a great cast has been assembled to get viewers watching. Stuart Whitman is the straight hero, early on in his exploitation career, but he's a little dull here. Not like he'd be later on when the '80s arrived and he found himself in the likes of THE MONSTER CLUB! Janet Leigh, famous from PSYCHO, seems to have aged a great deal in the ten years before this film was made, even though she was only in her mid 30s here. She doesn't have much to work with, other than getting menaced in a camper van for an interminable time. Rory Calhoun, a big western star in his time, is typecast as a rancher, while the sci-fi geeks are catered for with the appearance of DeForest Kelley as some kind of authority figure.

My biggest disappointment was that none of these big names bites the dust, or even interacts much with the killer menace – surely it's tradition to have an A-lister die at the hands (or paws) of the monster? I wouldn't have mind seeing Kelley getting his neck chewed, but they all live. The same doesn't go for some supporting cast members, who are ripped to shreds in some surprisingly bloody moments when the rabbits attack. The special effects are pretty dodgy, but I found the rabbits to be surprisingly good foes (and my wife, who saw this as a kid, confirmed that it IS a scary movie when you see it young). The director has a way of filming them in slow motion, complete with weird computer-style sound effects, that makes the scenes quite eerie. The miniature backdrops are also well-handled and the giant killer rabbits are wisely kept in the murk. It's a pretty grisly film in places, with a neat climax that ties everything up. Maybe not a classic of the genre, but it IS a fun film.