31 days of cheese - day one - Night of the Lepus.

The nominees for the academy awards are out and currently Turner r Classic Movies is running their annual 31 days of Oscar (or will start soon I don’t really remember) which for me means I’m going to spend 31 days wondering what on earth the Oscar folks were smoking when they voted for this.

Anyway as a bit of a counter balance to this Hollywood self love fest I offer 31 days of cheese – a short take on some of filmdom’s worst offerings.

Today – in honor of Chinese New Year and it being the year of the Rabbit we have Night of the Lepus.

While this was actually a theatrical release it has a real made for TV feel about it. Most of the stars, Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun and De Forest Kelly (yes Dr. McCoy) are better known for their TV work. The female lead Janet Leigh apparently needed the money and the shoot was close to her house so that’s at least some kind of excuse for showing up in this thing.

This is a variation on the Nature is coming to kill us film that had a brief vogue in the 70’s. In this case it’s giant rabbits. Yes giant rabbits , accidently bred by a scientist looking for a ecologically sound way of reducing the local rabbit population instead say shooting them all or not killing all the coyotes, set free by the idiot child who can’t bear to see the creatures suffer, who then in massive herds attack the town until they are destroyed by electricity or something. It doesn’t really matter much.

The main problem with the film is that rabbits, even rabbits shot in slow motion covered in fake blood and made to look the size of bears, are just not scary. It’s their big awwww snookums eyes, twitchy noses and such. For some scenes, they used a man in a rabbit suit, which along with the giant chicken in Burt I Gordon’ s Food of the Gods are just laugh out loud absurd.

Blindingly stupid movie. Enjoy with veggies and ranch dressing.