Night of the Lepus * (1972, Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, Paul Fix, DeForest Kelley) – Classic Movie Review 9569

‘How many eyes does horror have? How many times will terror strike?’

Director William F Claxton’s 1972 Night of the Lepus stars Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh as scientists Roy and Gerry Bennett, who inject serum into a rabbit that escapes to breed monstrous, people-eating bunnies, which rampage at large (nearly human height!) across Arizona.

Night of the Lepus is a cheap and cheerful chiller, but mostly cheap, from A C Lyles Productions. Part of the problem is that rabbits, even if they are angry mutated giant killer rabbits, could never essentially be very scary, even with a much better script. See how they cannily keep ‘rabbit’ out of the title. The actors take it seriously, which helps to make it much more fun.

Don Holliday and Gene R Kearney’s screenplay is based on the novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit by Russell Braddon.

Also in the cast are Rory Calhoun, Paul Fix, DeForest Kelley, Melanie Fullerton, Chris Morrell, Chuck Hayward, Henry Wills, Francesca Jarvis, William Elliott, Bob Hardy, Richard Jacome, Inez Perez, Roy Gaintner Evans Thornton, I Stanford Jolley, Robert Gooden, Walter Kelley, Frank Kennedy, Don Starr, Peter I’Crotty, Phillip Avenetti, Russell Morrell, Donna Gelgur, Steve DeFrance, Sherry Hummer, Rick Hummer, and Jerry Dunphy.

Night of the Lepus is directed by William F Claxton, runs 88 minutes, is made by A C Lyles Productions, is released by MGM, is written by Don Holliday and Gene R Kearney, based on the novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit by Russell Braddon, is shot by Ted Voightlander (Metrocolor), is produced by A C Lyles, is scored by Jimmie Haskell and is designed by Stan Jolley.

Hares and jackrabbits are leporids belonging to the genus Lepus.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9569

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