10 Great Monster Movies You May Have Missed
4. Night Of The Lepus (1972)
Fitting comfortably into the 'so bad it's good' category, 1972's Night Of The Lepus features an unlikely adversary in the form of a rampaging horde of monstrous mutant killer rabbits. The film is based on a book, The Year Of The Angry Rabbit, by Australian author Russell Braddon. Braddon claims that the novel was envisioned 'as a joke' and took about four weeks to complete.
Year Of The Angry Rabbit is written with a comic tone, intended to poke fun at the notions of nationalism, capitalism and war. Night Of The Lepus, however, misses all this by a country mile, thanks to a woeful script, poor acting and, most damningly, laughably bad special effects.
Director William F. Claxton, a native Australian and former Japanese prisoner of war, also helmed episodes of The Twilight Zone, Bonanza and The High Chapparral, as well as '80s phenomenon, Fame. We can assume he had an off-day (or days) here, as Night Of The Lepus soundly misses the mark on every front.