Episode: 354 • Duration: 01:01:35
While we generally don’t do Easter-themed episodes, we have a tangentially related one for you this time: a killer animal film about vicious, man-eating… bunnies!?
Yes, Night of the Lepus‘ overall concept is questionably zany, and it doesn’t really do a whole lot to expand on the goofy premise. However, we’re talking about giant creatures, scientific experimentation, and Star Trek‘s Bones in this episode!
We’re also drinking Sloop Brewing Co.’s New York Pale Ale!
Approximate timeline
0:00-14:00 Intro
14:00-20:00 Beer talk
20:00-end Night of the Lepus
We’ll be back in a couple weeks, but we’ll have a REWIND episode for you during the break!
Hit that play button above to listen in.
Transcript – NIGHT OF THE LEPUS (auto-generated)
Click to expand full transcript
0:00
Everline Martha Cole Hillman’s house just went off.
Oh my God, maybe.
Or whatever it was, he was mighty agitated.
You 110 for me.
We were cut right off.
Hey Les, you want to take a run up Hillman’s Way?
No, not this.
All right, Go get the truck turned in.
Get home, get some sleep.
0:52
Hey guys, welcome back to the Blood and Black Crumb Podcast.
I’m Ryan from coltsploitation.com and I’m joined with my Co host Martin.
How’s it going?
Oh, we’re good.
We’re we’re hopping along actually.
Hop, hop, hippity hop.
And this episode is one of our rare Easter themed episodes.
1:12
We don’t do that very often.
Like we don’t.
Surprisingly, we don’t set a month aside for Easter for the Easter movie.
For you know those.
Easter movies.
You know, it’s only the most important holiday in Christianity.
That’s right.
You know.
We should withhold ourselves for Lent as well.
1:30
Give up something.
No, I’m good.
Yeah.
We, we don’t do a lot of Easter.
We’ve done a couple and and you know, we thought it was time to.
It’s not really Easter themed either.
I was going to say the.
Movie itself is incredibly tangential at all.
1:46
Yeah, but it was more of a, hey, it’s kind of a the thematically resonant type of thing.
So I think really the only true Easter episode we’ve done, which we’re going to be reposting here is next week as well, was Critters 2, which is actually takes place on Easter.
2:05
Other than that, I don’t really think we’ve done any other Easter type movies, but what I can tell you is we have done other Giant or Killer or Attack of the Animals type movies most recently.
Would you?
Consider, as I say, would you consider this Kaiju?
2:26
Yeah.
I mean, I guess maybe in in part, I think there may be a couple of scenes where the animal is actually a guy in a suit.
So maybe, maybe we could, we could tangentially call it that.
But I was thinking more of the actual animal attack genre, which is a pretty actually wide genre, which has spanned multiple decades too.
2:49
And we’ll try to go over some of the, the, the history behind the giant animal film.
So as we we’ve covered in the past a couple of the 50s era giant monster films, they would be them.
3:05
I’m sorry them I always get the they them confused.
Them is one that we covered back in maybe a couple years ago.
I want to say what?
We did, Kaijun.
Yeah, it’s, yeah, it’s probably even a little bit longer than that now.
3:22
But that one was, you know, from the 50s and it’s that was one of the major time periods of giant animal films where animals attack and they’ve been irradiated, right?
So they’ve, they’ve for whatever reason, they’ve gotten into illicit substances they shouldn’t have, whether that be because of environmental catastrophes or experiments and labs or whatever.
3:48
They’ve been irradiated and they become gigantic and people have to stop them.
So that was huge in the 50s.
And that’s also, as we, as Martin referenced, you know, where the Kaiju film kind of originated from, especially Godzilla, you know, being a radiated lizard thing.
4:10
So yes, I guess in a way you can lump all of those types of killer animal films into the Kaiju spectrum.
And then for a while, you know, the giant animal or the animal attack film went away and then in the 70s and 80s it came back again.
4:30
And there’s, there’s a few reasons that it really proliferated again.
I mean, for one thing, you had the proliferation of Cold War elements as well, right?
So, so nuclear catastrophe was on the horizon.
And so that was spawning a new era of people thinking about what happens if we accidentally irradiated some animals again.
4:54
And then not only, you know, the Cold War, but also just the fact that we were doing a lot more experimentation with animals, you know, animal science, animal testing was getting big.
And so we had another, you know, kind of boom of attack animal movies.
5:16
And then not only just because of this idea that animals get giant and attack people, but also because of a little known film called Jaws, which also inspired a number of animal attack films.
5:31
And in those cases, it was generally not irradiated animals or, you know, like scientifically created animals, but just really mean animals, animals that for whatever reason decided they, hey, I’m done with humans right now.
I’m fucking, you know, I’m just going to eat anything that comes after me.
5:49
So, you know, you had movies like Jaws, obviously grizzly, you know, pretty much any wild giant animal that you can think of that could attack you was probably, you know, effectively made into a movie.
There was Orca as well, which we haven’t covered Day of the animals.
6:10
Another one that was about multiple types of animals, like almost like a zoo that escaped and you know, started running amok.
So a very interesting span of different animal type related movies, but one that really stands out from the period in the 70s, which was actually in the earlier part of the second wave of killer animal films, is a little movie about Bunny rabbits.
6:41
Which is again, one thing that really comes to mind when you think of what would be a scary sinister type animal that you might want to watch a horror movie about that you like, you know, you’ve always in the back of your mind at night, you’re worrying like, what if I go outside and I might spot this little, this Bunny rabbit out there?
6:59
What could happen?
How afraid of bunnies are you?
No.
They’re cuddly and delicious.
And delicious.
Yeah, well, there you go.
That’s one of the reasons why they’re attacking.
They’re pissed off about being used as the lesser meat when squirrels aren’t available.
7:20
Do you?
Remember Hosea, you know, teaching Arthur how to cook In Red Dead 2, you shoot a rabbit and he’s like, that’ll make a fine Stew.
Yeah.
I mean because every food in Red Dead 2 gets made into a Stew eventually.
They actually never had rabbit.
7:37
It’s not all those meats that I’ve ever.
Once, and I don’t really recall.
Yeah, I used.
To we have a friend that loves rabbit.
Yeah, all about Rabbit.
I assume it’s pretty gamey and probably just very like this small amount of meat and, you know, not these ones.
7:55
Yeah.
Well, I mean, not, yeah, not, not the, not, not these, these animals that have been scientifically messed with.
But we’re talking about 1972’s Night of the Lepus.
This is a really interesting movie in a couple of ways because again, like we said, the whole rabbit element is not one that like, when you really sit down and think about it or put pen to paper and say, like, OK, we definitely want to make a scary animal movie.
8:27
It’s not the first thing that comes to mind, but also it is one of the earlier films of this, like I said, this proliferation of killer animal movies that were inspired by books.
So this other idea of of this this time period is that books were really, you know, like the the paperback book, the Stephen King novel of horror was really making a huge comeback into the popular literature and culture.
8:54
And so at the time, people were just ripping out these books about killer animals.
So it wasn’t just movies, but it was a lot of the, the movies actually spawned from these books.
And the books often had really awesome paperback covers, right?
9:12
So like, ’cause this is a time frame that is really well known for horror novels and mystery novels of having very cool cover art.
You know, there’s even, you know, a whole series of books that have spawned that they’ve been reprinting because they’re called Paperbacks from Hell, because they have really awesome covers.
9:31
So you might be completely blindsided.
You would see it, see it on this bookshelf and like, wow, that book looks fucking awesome.
It’s got a great cover.
And then you start reading it and you’re like, this is really not that good, you know, And that that was a huge thing that publishers were doing.
9:46
And, and I’m not saying that all books like that were bad, but there was a lot of them that, you know, the cover are sold.
Well, that’s why we have the saying don’t judge a book by its cover, you know?
Exactly, this is the kind of the opposite of that phrase, right ’cause normally you don’t want to judge it cause like the cover art is boring, but then you read it and you’re like wow, that was actually a really good book.
10:06
In this case, it’s the opposite, that the cover art was fantastic, really, you know what you were looking for and then when you get into it, you know, it left a lot to be desired.
So I think that that was really the impetus behind Night of the Leapus, which is but.
10:24
I no, I have my theory that I told yeah, no, no, this movie got made because somebody, some executive at MGM saw that by 1972, whatever Columbia, Paramount, whoever the fuck owns the right to play it of the apes was already on Film 25.
10:47
Just rolling in the money would not low effort, not trying films like we got to fucking do that suit too.
Somebody find a book that’s like playing on the apes.
It’s somebody just like I was like, Oh yeah, I got this book about fucking rabbits.
We’ll make a movie, God damn it.
11:04
Which is the idea.
Which is like the beauty of it.
Because man, only in the fucking 70s would this happen.
Only in the 70s would this thing get fucking greenlit by a major studio, you know?
Right.
And and I think the other thing too about this movie is that as you can see from the poster artwork to watching it to even like looking up some trivia about it.
11:30
So the poster artwork did not emphasize the fact that this was rabbits.
And so the tagline of the movie and the picture on the poster indicates it says how many eyes does horror have.
Which when you think about the actual content of the movie makes like very little sense.
11:49
It kind of makes it sound like it’s a multi eyed creature, like something like a spider, right?
A spider like a squid or something like that.
That might be misrepresented with eyes, but no, it’s, it’s really not a good indication of what you’re going to get.
12:04
And then obviously at the time in 1972, there’s probably very few people who looked at the title Night of the Lepus and they were like, Oh yeah, bunnies.
I know the, you know the.
Latin word for.
Bunny rabbits.
Lepus.
They probably thought Night of the Lepers, right?
12:20
And like those arms were falling off and things like that.
And you’re like, oh, that sounds really great.
It’s going to be like, not like Night of Living Dead, but like with lepers or something, you know, maybe not particularly, you know, great for the disabled community, but yeah.
12:38
I care about that back.
Then and then you don’t not not only was that a signal that this movie you don’t like they were trying to hide it, but like you’ve also got Janet Lee front and centre, which obviously at the time would have been very recognizable as a, you know, big name for this movie starring in it and sort of indicating that this is going to be something similar to like a Hitchcock style thriller or scary movie.
13:08
And it absolutely is not even close, just not not even close.
So I do think that they were really trying to play this up recognizing the fact that, hey, it’s going to be really hard to sell the audience on rabbits as the, you know, the, the main killer, the animal, It’s just not going to not going to sell well.
13:35
The trivia even on IMDb even references that they recognize that they shouldn’t put a rabbit on the cover because they didn’t want to reveal that for the for the audience.
They want to get them in first and then reveal it.
So it’s just a really unique idea and as we’ll find out, not a not a great one.
13:59
You’re not talking about that.
The creature is on the poster.
Make it also look like they’re like it’s from Where the Wild Things are, like the creature from that, like you.
Know.
Yeah, yeah.
Something like Yeah.
You know, like fuzzy, you know, maybe there’s a guy the muzzy from the like, I’m going to teach you French, like.
14:20
Yeah, it actually reminds me too.
But this would have been way later than 1972.
But Halloween is Grinch night, which has like a very similar, like, artwork style.
But yeah, so we’ll get into the movie here in a second, but let’s take a break and talk about the beer that we have on the show today.
14:41
It was actually my turn, but you were out and you decided that you were going to grab the beer for us.
So what’d you go ahead and pick out?
Well, went to the local beer shop and was looking around.
14:58
I was already, I said I was already out and about on the town.
So I just like that.
I’ll go get it so Ryan doesn’t have to be disturbed.
He’s a very busy man.
And went to the local beer shop.
There’s a couple of beers that caught my eye, but one of them is something that new that we haven’t ever had yet.
15:16
I’ve seen it.
Like I mentioned, they’re a little bit, I mean, curious to try it, but it’s a new beer from Sloop.
And as you know, if you listen to the podcast for big fans of Sloop here, they’re just definitely definitionally the standard and quality when it comes to their styles and stuff.
15:38
This beer isn’t exactly in their wheelhouse because they’re known for their, you know, big juicy Ipas.
His beer is a pale ale.
Then they’re labeling it their New York Pale Ale.
First off, cans.
15:54
Great.
Love the artwork?
Yeah, it’s really unique.
I like it.
I like this.
You got this, like, cartoonish but sloopian artwork of the state of New York, and they mark out like, you know, specific landmarks, including where Sloop is.
I think it’s really a cool little idea.
16:12
Yeah, it’s got, you know, the Catskills, it’s got the even the Finger Lakes on there, you know.
Yeah, Niagara Falls, obviously, us in the Adirondacks, the Mohawk and the Hudson.
So yeah, it’s lovely.
Love the can.
It’s great.
Why is it in New York?
16:28
Pale Ale?
Because it’s brewed with ingredients.
Crown in New York State and that’s why this beer tastes like shit.
I’m just kidding.
It’s it’s you know, I was excited too because that’s just because of the, you know, the New Yorkness of it and it’s being Sloop.
16:47
But pale ales or beers that Ryan and I both like.
And if you’re a millennial of our age, usually the first type of craft beer you get into is like a pale ale like Sarah pale Ale or Sierra Nevada Pale.
17:02
So the style that doesn’t get represented that often it’s very much buried.
And you know, it’s nice to kind of go back and see what the roots are of the pale ale, English style pale ale too, you know, English style Ipas into what we now have.
17:18
So I like it a lot.
It’s got a nice breadiness, big body touch of hops at the end.
Give it a little Piney notes to it balts like.
17:34
Also very toasty.
It’s a solid ass pale nail so.
Yeah, I like it a lot too.
I think that it has a unique flavor with the Excelsior hop that they’re using, which you know again, Excelsior is kind of this New York State like tagline that we’re surmounting with.
17:56
It’s our state model, yeah.
We so they’re calling this the Excelsior hops brewed by the new.
It’s grown by the New York Hop Guild and they’re saying they’re dry hopping this with the with that Excelsior hop.
I don’t know if I’ve ever really had it or anything.
18:11
I do think that it adds a kind of almost like a a dry crispness to it that reminds me not as not as dry as like the brute champagne type IP as that they used to be putting out quite a bit.
But it does have that dryness to it.
18:27
That is, you know, more on the champagne side then what you might expect from Sloop.
Because if you like Martin said this, you know, they tend to go with these juicy grapefruity, you know, New England style IP as and this is definitely a quite a bit of a different type of beer for them.
18:47
I think the pale ale element to it is really nice because it doesn’t have an overarching strong hop flavour to it, but it does have that like nice dryness, nice crisp finish on it, very drinkable.
You know, again, like I said, maybe a little bit of bitterness to it with that type of Excelsior hop here.
19:07
But I I like it.
I think it’s I think they’ve done a good job with making this kind of a unique style pale ale for the for the area.
And again, like I, I don’t know that we’ve seen a lot of Excelsior hopped beers.
So it’s got a kind of a cool little flavour profile to it that you might not see and you know, many other beers at this time.
19:30
So I like it and I think it’s cool.
I would like to see the brew beers come back too.
What about you?
I kind of would.
I mean I was never a big fan of them, but I would just kind of see like yeah, like a style brought back that was like in vogue for God don’t knows why for like 7 months, you know, before you know, everyone moved on to something else.
19:52
Yeah, it.
Just happens with like these types of IPA styles is like they they try to find the next big thing besides New England and it you know most of them didn’t take off remember the the cold Ipas as.
Well, through like.
What is that?
I don’t, you know, I think the the biggest feeling of that is that it was like no one really knew the difference.
20:11
Yeah, yeah, IP LS you know, do you pay a lager?
Yeah, I.
Mean.
I I, I, I I.
But.
I I miss the days of them going through the color wheel and just like red, black, green, you know, just like great.
20:28
I didn’t like most of those, but still like, you know, I mean, they’re fine, but like I never.
We never got to a purple one.
I see that’s where the lake imagine like a nice like eggplant aubergine IPA like.
Like a squash IPA, but an eggplant.
Or something.
20:45
Interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, as they say overseas, it’s an aubergine.
Yeah.
That that taste isn’t a pepper, it’s a capsicum.
Yeah, Yeah.
I would be interested to see more of those brute styles, but with this one, the New York pale, I think it it has like a subtle sort of dry champagne type style to it that that I think works really well.
21:10
So check it out if you find a Sloop near you.
All right, so let’s talk about Night of the Lepus.
So as we talked about a little.
Bit Lepus.
Yeah, Lepus means bunnies.
Or could it?
Could it be any leaping lizards?
21:27
Yes.
One thing I think is really kind of interesting about this movie is it starts out with sort of like APSA at the beginning of the film from like a, you know, newscaster or something like that.
It’s telling us about population booms are really dangerous and but also it’s dangerous to like kill off the population because you might end up with bad stuff happening after that.
21:49
But but like bunnies are proliferating and they’re a danger to crops and you know, and to a certain extent, you know, I I certainly can understand, especially considering the setting of this movie, which is on a ranch type setting like dusty Oklahoma style.
22:07
I don’t know if they say specifically where they are.
Oh, did they say Texas is a Texas?
Blink and you’ll miss it.
Yeah.
And and so, you know, I can understand from that perspective.
If you own a ranch or a farm and rabbits are running wild, I mean, you’re going to get pissed, right?
22:24
They’re they’re eating your carrots, they’re eating your lettuce.
They’re Peter rabbiting all over the place.
You’re going to be mad.
And so they they can pose, you know, a major threat to your, you know, your your farm stock.
So I understand that purpose of the PSA at the beginning, but I do find it kind of funny.
22:44
And I also find that we might get into this later.
But I do find that the film really is wishy washy on what it even means to say about the representation of what they’re doing with the rabbit population in this movie.
23:02
Because again, it brings up this fact that rabbit population has, you know, bloomed so much that it is becoming a problem.
And like the coyotes that they managed in this movie that they reference, you know, they want to get rid of them.
23:18
But then they they acknowledge that if you get rid of a population like that too quickly or too, too much, you risk messing with the rest of the wildlife that lives there, right?
So there’s the food chain of, you know, rabbits attract coyotes, coyotes eat rabbits, but they keep them in check.
23:37
But if the coyotes are gone, the rabbits aren’t in check.
If the rabbits are gone, then, you know, the other wildlife that rabbits eat and, and mess with is also going to be messed up.
And so that that whole idea of population control being a problem or, you know, something that’s not just this easy solution of like, just get rid of them all.
23:59
It’s like the.
It’s like the bees.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Which I mean, in a sense makes sense for this like kind of exists as a film because like the EPA, it’s like 7172 somewhere in like Nixon’s term, you know, is a thing.
24:15
So like, you know, people are starting to become more conscience of like, you know, the environment and how we interact with it and stuff.
Because like, again, like the idea of like, well, we got this fucking problem with the God damn, you know, this, why don’t we just give bats the shit on?
24:31
I’m going to eat that and say, well, that would close, you know, but a little, you know, so, you know, trying to find the balance between like, are we just going to poison them or you know.
And they even mentioned this idea of DDT too, which would have been proliferating.
24:46
And even at that time, they, you know, they pretty much realize like this is basically just a poison that we’re spraying all over the place.
And, you know, it’s not not really good for the animals and it’s not really good for US either.
But it manages the mosquitoes and.
It gets Jake the Snake Roberts a pinfall every time.
25:05
That’s right.
It’s it’s so, so again, I do think that there is this reference of Environmental Protection to a certain extent.
But I do think that the film is really not good about trying to represent exactly what it’s saying.
25:23
Because at the end of the day, the film kind of the environmentalist factor takes a backseat once the rabbit start to run wild as giant rabbits.
And it’s kind of like, well, we just need to burger them all now.
Like, you know, like there’s really nothing else to do.
25:39
They’re spreading and then they’re getting giant.
And if we don’t stop them, they’re probably going to just keep getting bigger and the population is going to boom even more.
Now that there’s no food on the range, man has become food.
Right.
Yeah.
So, so like it the the the, the theme kind of gets lost in in that storyline of like, you know, this, this fantastical storyline of giant rabbits.
26:02
It’s.
It’s the film is also so B movie too when it comes to like the science and stuff like, Oh yes, we’re here at Texas saying, I mean here at Texas, stand up.
We have rabbits, yes, rabbits.
And we’re we’ve tried this horrible, we’ve tried that.
26:18
We’re trying to stop it.
We can’t do it.
I know.
So this one person gave me the thing that gives everybody a birth defect and it’s going to maybe if we introduce this little thing, it’s going to, you know, fix it.
We won’t know until we see like it’s just such like stupid.
26:36
What do you mean?
There’s this serum?
Like you have a vial of like here’s autism for the rabbits like.
You do, yeah.
You do see that in the movie too, where they where Stuart Whitman’s character.
He’s like the, you know, the scientist that’s been working on the ecology of it.
26:52
And he kind of, you know, he shows the serum and he’s like, yeah, this is serum birth defects.
And then they like kind of wash their hands of it.
They’re just like, whoop, that’s that.
We mentioned it.
Yeah, like it’s like it’s so one non interesting, like you see, like what happens because they don’t really, they don’t show what happens to the rabbits, but two, again, it’s so blase and passive.
27:16
Like, for fuck’s sake, Michael Crichton put a lot of effort into that goddamn amber DNA to make the goddamn, you know, the dinosaurs that can change sex and reproduce you here just like, you know, just a little serum, you know, and.
27:36
The other thing about it, too, is that it’s so presumptuous to think like this couple, just like randomly working and they’re not even working in this specialty, right?
They’re working in bats and insects.
They’re, they’re like they, they mentioned at the beginning, they’re like, you know, experts on insects.
27:53
And then they, they’re like, well, let’s just bring them in.
You know, they’ll, they’re animal scientists.
They know about rabbits too.
And it’s so presumptuous to think like, well, a scientist is a scientist, right?
Well, as as it says, Deforest Kelly, Elgin Clark, old Bones is going, he’s like, listen to you.
28:09
This guy like played at Texas A&M back in the 40s for football.
He gives us money.
So what aren’t you going to there?
And, you know, try to try to work this out and yeah.
I, I love that it’s just like, and it’s just taken at face value that like, Yep, they come in, they study the rabbits for like a minute, take them back to the lab and like, all right, we’ve got a, we’ve got a working solution here.
28:32
I think we’re going to give it a shot.
And you know, obviously that’s kind of it’s an accident, right?
Because the little girl, that’s their daughter who shouldn’t really be in the lab or anywhere near this.
Like very.
Control group?
What do you mean?
Like you have your bull cut idiot daughter running around like Oh yes, my feet like like fucking Cindy from the Brady Bunch movies.
28:57
Like, oh, like, you know.
Yes, I.
Can’t.
Say it’s hilarious because like the the places that she’s in and you’ve got her with this like mystery serum, you don’t know how anything’s reacts to and you know, here she is, you know.
She gets turned into the fucking BLOB and Akira like yeah.
29:18
But.
Like like it’s just so stupid.
Like you can’t pay for her nanny.
You’re 2 college, you know, professors in the lab like fucking send her off to like, you know, you don’t know.
You have to have her in the lab, you know?
Yes, and and the the whole idea when she accidentally releases this rabbit too, is is that landish like it again?
29:40
They they introduced this one kid who’s like walking around with her.
He’s the kid of the the ranch owner that’s having this rabbit problem and you just like fucking throws the rabbit out into the wild is like, no, you’re not having this rabbit.
29:56
You wink and just throws it into the wild.
And that’s how this whole thing spreads.
And again, it kind of it, the film is sort of strange in that it is this movie that they’ve stretched out that should be a really 1/2 an hour concept should really, you know, not be 88 minutes long.
30:16
And yet they, the film really does not capitalize on some of these areas where it could explain itself a little bit better, right?
Like it could give a, a better explanation of how the rabbit population starts to grow and have this mutation.
30:32
And yet it just kind of skips over all that.
It’s just like we let we let the rabbit in the wild and now they’re getting giant And no one questions it either.
No one is like hey.
Nobody notices the seven foot hole in the fucking ground like hey, who like this?
30:49
Roy, we, we know you were working on something like what the fuck were you doing?
Like what?
What happened?
Because yes, they had a rabbit problem right there and the rabbits were like eating lettuce and stuff.
Now they have a giant rabbit problem and that’s Roy’s fault and they brought him in to fix things.
31:06
And here Roy and Jerry come and they made it like 700 times worse, caused a few multiple orders from, you know, Bunny rabbits.
They’ve gotten gone wild and no one’s even questioning them.
They’re just like this.
The this, the way things are, you know, science, who knows?
31:24
It’s just run them at least like though they have the morals still of society.
Like we got to let the public know, like they’re like, you know, and it’s the forest Kelly.
Like no, we can’t do that.
We think of the school, but I mean like still.
31:42
But I mean, it’s so stupid though, because also, too, when we get to the end, we’ll talk about it.
But like, this is such a simple thing.
Like how do we deal with 100 rabbits?
Get a couple of machine guns.
Well, M-19 Brownings, mow them down.
31:58
You’re done.
Like, it’s not like these things are like, you know?
Right, right.
And they, they even make that pretty clear, you know, because there’s a initial attack early on in the film where Jerry’s been.
She she’s like staying back because the film doesn’t really let her do anything.
32:16
The guys are all like, Jerry, stay at the fucking car, stay on the radio and just tell people what’s going on, OK?
We’re going to handle things.
We’re going into the mine shaft.
You just stay here and be a little moment, OK?
It’s hilarious because Janet Lee is like, really, you know, she should be one of the top Billings.
32:36
She should really be prominent in the film.
And yet the film really isolates her and basically says, you’re a mom, you’re a woman, and you’re just going to stand here and, you know, look like someone that the audience recognizes.
Well, it makes sense because she’s, you know, only known for being Jamie Lee Curtis’s mother, and she’s a much better actress, so, you know.
33:01
How true.
I’m not saying that this is Janet Lee’s fault, but in.
This No, no, it’s not.
No, it’s not.
The film doesn’t no.
Well, that mean everybody in this film is terribly wooden.
But like I said, as I was like saying to you before the podcast, I mean like I think everybody in this film is like ungodly drunk because everybody has such red faces like of a late stage alcoholic.
33:27
Like they all just are sitting on the set in the goddamn like Sonora Dazzle or whatever.
Like it’s a hot 1 today because I got 7 turtlenecks and yes, you know, foppish sweater on.
Give me that bottle of Jim.
BI mean you can’t.
33:42
You can’t deny that Stuart Whitman looks like that type of person.
He looks, he definitely looks like this very stereotypical Western style guy, you know, very typecast.
As you said, he has sort of this, you know, crazy almost to pay like hair going on in the movie.
34:02
He’s like, he’s like a mix of him Trump and like Peter faults Colombo like.
And and Dean Koontz, his new toupee that he keep, you know, he has on us.
I don’t know if you’ve seen his, but it’s not fooling anybody.
Dean, sorry, the the only thing that I know about Dean Koontz, says Koontz and Kingsies.
34:23
Yes, I love it.
But I mean, it’s such a stupid thing too.
And the way they’re trying to deal with it, we’re going to blow up their mind where we saw them rabbit saying you don’t see the you’re only going to dynamite the holes up there.
You know about that are literally the size of a goddamn football field.
34:41
Yeah, that’s a little dynamite and rocks on the goddamn rabbit saying it’s fine.
Like they’re not going to be able to dig out of it.
It’s just so like, stupid.
Yes, I, I think like I was saying, the the concept of the movie is really stretched out to a tedious 90 minutes.
34:59
It it for a lot of the movie, there’s really not even that much action or any sort of like plot progression going on.
It’s really just scenes of like, Roy doing research or the sheriff coming in and be like, what’s going on around here?
35:17
Like I’m calling in the National Guard.
You know, it is like kind of surprisingly violent for this type of film, especially considering that it’s was actually rated PG at the time.
And it’s about Bunny rabbits, right?
35:32
So like, the Bunny rabbits themselves are really not effective.
They are very clearly on stages where they’ve built.
On.
Miniatures, yeah, miniature buildings and things and it they just look like your your run-of-the-mill, your pet store bunnies that are trouncing around, you know, just having fun it.
35:56
It doesn’t help that like, OK, obviously.
So like they’re going to be on miniatures.
So they’re on miniatures.
They cut the time that they’re running in half.
So it’s like every scene where they’re up close, they, you know, style it out, they slow MO it.
36:13
They have fucking music playing.
That’s like the equivalent of monitoring Python And the Holy Grail were like Sir Lancelot.
Like the what?
That’s supposed to be their sound that they’re making.
36:29
They’re not like, you know, it’s like this, like it’s supposed to be like this loud, like loops, you know, like they’re fucking like, just like, you know, riding down the Prairie, like, yeah, yeah.
You know, it’s like it’s just so ridiculous.
36:46
And the Astroturf.
Oh the fuck.
I was, I burst out laughing when they show up to the ranch and they’re running around and the grass is like, obviously you can tell like fucking Astro turf, like painted.
I was just, I lost it.
37:01
Like I had to pause it because I was like.
I and I think too, like they could not have chosen the worst representation of rabbits for this movie either because they’re like the cutest little I know pet store rabbits that you can find and they’re like, what are these vicious fucking giant rabbits?
37:20
It just looks like a bunch of little Bunny rabbits, like on a, you know, on a stage as as what it was.
You know, did this, did this also inspire the Monty Python, the Holy Grail, like rabbit like because again, like they show like, oh, the sharp piece and how big they are.
37:36
But again, it’s like, like I said, like only the 70s.
You could do something as stupid as this because again it like.
I.
Like try like pick a book like from reading what Wikipedia says.
37:51
So could be very much be bullshit.
But reading the book part like the guy who’s like I wrote this book as a joke and it took me 4 weeks to write, Yeah makes sense.
An extremely serious movie about because this movie really takes itself.
Way too seriously.
38:08
Way too seriously, it does not.
Lean into the B movie element that it really should, you know, it, it should be tongue in cheek and sort of like, hey, we realize this is a ridiculous premise, but you know, like we’re having fun with it.
No, it, it is very serious.
It’s, you know, it’s so schlocky, but it yeah, it doesn’t recognize that it is just a overall.
38:31
Stupid concept again, I think it’s because they were probably all way too drunk on set because they got some dumb, dumb ass kids running around like like, you know, oh Gee, we look at his mom.
I got a bull cut and you got the truck stuck in the ground, you dumb bitch.
38:49
I think you bring up I say in the kid too with his fucking cowboy hair.
I love that one.
They killed my chickens.
So like, I would give this film 2 points better than when I’m going to rate it if it weren’t for those fucking kids because it’s just so golly Gee, yeah.
39:09
No.
Well, again, like it’s unnecessary and it’s 70s trope too, where they’re like, well, I swear, like they’re on fucking the Andy Griffith Show.
Like golly Gee.
Like I can tell you I I didn’t say nothing out there, you know?
39:26
One thing that really made me laugh was that guy when they were at the general store and they’re sitting there playing like their cards or whatever and they’re about to leave and they say, oh, you know, Cole just called in and then his line cut out and he’s like, hey, you want to take a stop up there?
39:42
And the guy’s like, hell no, I’m going home, going to bed.
I got to put this truck to bed.
Jeez.
What about some, you know, good old fashioned neighborly kindness here?
You know you can’t be bothered to go take a trip up there.
Fun fun factors Film this movie.
40:02
The town’s right next to a little place called Perfection.
Yes, yeah, I, but I, I was going to say, I think you bring up a good point too, about the fact that, you know, the movie, you know, it’s really hard to find the, the Bunny rabbits sinister when they set this slow motion element in it.
40:28
I think that really, you know, what they were trying to do.
I I, I understand they were trying to like make it look lumbering, but it, what it actually ends up doing is elongating the movie even more.
Yes, sure.
And I wish I had a goddamn stopwatch and took count like track because this film has ungodly amount of rabbit scenes that are stretched out due to the somo and a lot of B roll stock footage of like cows and other animals running.
40:57
Like, yeah, it’s just like 20 minutes of this film could be talked up to that.
And I can easily say when I got halfway through the film, 45 minutes, like right after, like the climax of the mine scene, I was like, we’re done, right?
41:14
I look at like I was like, oh, come on.
Where do we?
Where where I say like, where are you going after that?
Because you did like, you know, like it again, like the fact that it doesn’t lean into what it is and it’s not played up for that it is a detriment to this film.
41:37
And honestly, the reputation of it being like, oh, it’s so bad.
It’s funny.
Like I honestly, no, this isn’t like troll 2.
No, I don’t I don’t find it like, you know, fun or the room.
Like it’s not like a pleasantly hilarious watch.
41:53
Like it is funny on like terms where it shouldn’t be.
But again, the whole film itself now, right?
And there’s too much talent here too to be like, like, you know, like like you.
Again, you look at the the cast alone, you’re like, really, really, you know, you got all these people on a bad.
42:12
Day, it’s true, it’s true.
And, and I think too, like you said, the film’s the conclusion, you know, not the one with the the blowing up of the mind, but the second one where they call it a National Guard.
And the National Guard’s like, I don’t know what to do.
42:29
And so it’s up to Roy who say, like, I think we should use the railroad tracks as electrification to, you know, like to lead them all the bunnies there and electrify them.
It’s so stupid because, like, all you got to do is have the National Guard line up with, like, their fucking guns.
42:45
Yeah, like I said, wait for the bunnies and just.
Yeah, just have a couple of jeeps with a fucking and like at like a 50 Cal and just mow them down like easy.
Yeah, like they have to come up with this like absolutely outrageous like thing where they have to like re hook up the grid and.
43:05
So fucking Rube Goldenberg like a trap.
Now we got to hit the switch.
I also.
Like the railroad guy who’s just fucking like, sure, I’ll switch it right now.
Like there’s no, no, no rain going to like anybody else.
Just like.
Sorry Train, you’re on the wrong tracks now.
43:22
But you know, they called us in and said it was an emergency.
So are you coming downstairs?
No, no, those goddamn rabbits can’t get up.
Get up ladder absolute like and then not only so OK, they they’ve saved the town from this horde of Bunny rabbits, but there was a four train pile up because they had messed with the they went off.
43:48
Like a Cliff that like because it wasn’t like like, you know, it’s not completed or anything.
It’s not like it is so stupid too.
And the fact that they constantly like, oh, watch out, like someone like a rabbit got close to this guy and that guy was like you’re on the other side of the fucking railroad track.
44:04
How was a rabbit almost killed him and two another two points off of this film because of this.
The fact that nobody said like, especially because they had like, somebody using a fucking flamethrower to like, you know, burn them and stuff.
Like nobody was like, I guess rabbit’s on the menu tonight.
44:23
Well.
He’s like, like, you know?
Yeah, they could really feed the town for a long time on these.
Jets, I know, I know.
You know, that’s that’s missing out on, you know, some good eats that that that should have been part of the ending.
44:39
And again to the ending is really abrupt as as it generally is in these types of movies where it’s just like, all right, let’s invite them back to the ranch.
And then they just have the kids running off into the field, the field, and then they show a couple of rabbits like.
Oh, no, yeah.
44:55
But I mean, they wanted to be more like them and the other films.
It would just be like after the rabbits are all deadly.
We did it the end, you know, like, again, like with the return of the children.
It’s like, I don’t care.
Like, oh, jeez, what?
I wish I had a party.
45:12
It wouldn’t say my mom gives me this fucking horrible haircut every time, just I got my hair too but she just cuts the bangs in a straight because this is acceptable but my daddy’s too drunk to do anything about it.
45:28
You can tell by his hair and eyebrows he’s just whoa.
So I am curious though, what you think of so do you like the not like, but I guess do you prefer that this movie uses real animals to show them and tries to do like the whole, you know, model town thing to make them look like they’re bigger?
45:50
Or would you rather a movie do the composite effect where it has the animals and then sort of on a green screen in front of it?
You’ve got the people to make them look larger, but they’re not actually on.
You don’t, no, I think.
It works.
I think it works fine.
I don’t really see like how now doing the composite would be make it any better.
46:11
Yeah yeah.
I mean, like I don’t think it’s bad because the miniatures and stuff like I’m like with well crafted, well shot like minute like of course it can be great, like, you know, used to get Star Wars and other things.
But like, it’s just again, it’s just such a stupid concept that they don’t lean into that makes it because again, like we really need this like 3D fucking bone standing over the rabbit hole and you got the composite shot where he’s like, wait a second and he drops the fucking stone into the hole.
46:46
And like, you can tell us like composite shot because it’s like, you know, glassy eyed and like he drops it.
Like did you need that?
You need to have him looking into the hole with a composite shot to make it like, so you’re like, by the way, that’s a long way down there.
47:06
Like, you know, like.
They do it twice too.
For some reason, yeah, it doesn’t really.
Matter how long?
No, it doesn’t.
Has no bearing on them doing dynamite or not, I don’t know.
Which also, too, would have made me, if I was putting the dynamite down there, the fact that it took like 20 minutes for that stone to hit the ground, I would have been like, fucking damn, ain’t going to work, boys.
47:26
I’m if they done the whole that goddamn deep into the ground, like, what makes you think like, just if we blow them up and it’s going to, they’re going to have a couple of pebbles on them.
That’s how, yeah.
No, I, yeah.
47:43
How about you?
I would say, how about you about that?
Like do you think it’s I mean I?
I kind of prefer that they did use real animals like it in the the actual shooting.
I mean, I don’t think that you can real like you said, I don’t think it really matters because I don’t know that either one of them would have been that effective.
48:02
Like it’s still just going to be Bunny rabbits.
Like whether it’s looking like they’re coming at you with that cast on screen or not, there’s still Bunny rabbits at heart.
Like, you know, when you compare it to something like like tarantula, you know, where people are naturally scared of spiders and those are kind of in the background.
48:20
Like that works, you know, and just it just works like they have a creepy crawly element to them and you know, so that that can be scarier hair raising.
But money rabbits not not really so much.
I mean, I guess, you know, if somebody’s had a run in with like some particularly vicious hairs, because they’re probably there are actual like hairs, But the fact that this film doesn’t even try to like find some of those, you know, more wild, like Australian hairs or whatever that you know, would actually be violent and it just uses random North American bunnies is I think another detriment to the movie.
48:57
Like it they didn’t.
And again, this movie feels very cheap.
I don’t know if it’s just the the version that I watch, but the audio is even like often very problematic.
Like it just seems like it was shot on the cheap dubbed a lot.
49:15
You know, they had to do some some post editing.
It’d be probably because of being on like a windy ranch, you know, So there was some some dubbing after the fact.
But the whole thing kind of feels very cheap.
And it’s like, you know, yeah, it’ll be fine.
49:31
You know, Killer rats.
It’s all the rage right now.
Deadly animals.
It was just.
Shoot it and release, it’ll be fine but.
Like at least with like the bees, bees pollinate stuff, sure, and like as stupid as that film is, like it’s more like, you know, with the ecological, you know, right points has a point here again, like this film’s out in no man’s land.
49:59
It’s a bee film that refuses to be what it is.
Yeah, and it doesn’t like we were talking about at the beginning, it doesn’t come to like a sufficient point at the end.
It’s just like, is the point that we shouldn’t have meddled the science?
We shouldn’t have meddled in science at this point?
50:15
Like should we have sought other methods?
I, I, I don’t really know.
I don’t really know what it’s trying to say because it’s, it’s trying to say both things, right?
It’s saying like, you know, ecologically we really understand that you can’t just go and poison everything.
At the same time, though, it like ends on the fact that like what we just murdered the whole rabbit population that we had accidentally created because we meddled with science and injected them with something that we didn’t understand.
50:42
I, I don’t really, there’s no, there’s no real message here.
I like there’s, it doesn’t at least come on like a responsible or ethical note of like this is what we, we probably should be doing.
It just seems like it doesn’t know where to land and so it doesn’t really give a, you know, a, a moral to the story.
51:05
So, anything else that you wanted to add about Night of the Leapus?
Well, I think that’s about that for me at least.
Anything you want to add?
Oh, that’s it, man.
Score.
Yeah.
Bad.
Annoying.
Annoying.
51:22
I do like one thing about it.
I do like when like the rabbits are there when they have that zombie esque like synth drone.
You know ahead of our time here.
So I mean that’s.
That’s good.
The the whole idea of like the bleeps and bloops that the bunnies are making really dumb.
51:41
Well, that’s, you know, dingus, see, but now the whole like, but the whole like, you know, like.
Yeah, the drone, yeah, it’s sort of the Morricone esque, like Western twang there at the end too is kind of nice, you know?
51:57
But other than that, yeah, the the score is really not nothing to write home about and kind of annoying throughout.
All right, so on a scale of zero to 10 dumb women drivers getting a trailer stuck in dirt, what would you give Night of the Leapus?
52:17
Listen, at least she was aware enough to know that she almost bottomed out.
It’s true.
Like she’s like mad.
She’s like your dad’s gonna be mad that we almost hit because she was like, what happened?
My mommy, she’s like, she’s didn’t say I don’t know.
She’s like, I almost bottomed out like, you know, so like, hey, you know yes, good for her.
52:37
I I’ll give the film A5.
It’s off.
It is fun.
I would say like, if you’re a fan of this type of schlocky shit, check it out.
It’s not for me.
I don’t think it’s as so bad.
52:54
It’s hilarious.
There are parts where it’s bad, where it is funny and enjoyable, but like it’s a ridiculous idea that they just don’t quite lean into it.
Again, it’s like the acting talent on the film.
53:09
It’s sad to say that again, it’s not as a riveting as it could be because, again, the force Kelly as bones as elegant.
He here he’s, you know, not bad, but he’s not really doing anything other than wearing a turtle back.
And it’s the same with, you know, Janet Lee and Stuart Whitman.
53:29
Like they’re putting pretty, you know, they don’t put in bad performances.
Wouldn’t I think everyone’s like wooden abroad, but like no one’s care is mad.
That could have to carry the film.
It’s a ridiculous idea and premise.
Your mileage is going to vary on how much you find the spectacle of it all.
53:49
I was entertained enough I thought it was like fun and enough I wouldn’t watch it again.
It does drag on.
Feels like an eternity.
Could be a 55 minute episode.
Like, you know, Tales from the Craft or you know, Twilight Zone.
54:06
I’m like a 5.
It’s fine enough.
And again, if you find this kind of thing to be in your wheelhouse, check it out.
Other than that, stay away.
I’m actually surprised you gave it A5.
I’m going to give it a four out of 10.
This is my second time viewing this movie.
54:21
You know, I thought maybe potentially I would find something different about it to like a little bit better than the first time I watched it, but I really didn’t.
I think that it’s a, you know, we’ve mentioned all the things about it that really don’t work.
You know, Bunny rabbits as a killer animal just don’t really work.
The idea that this movie stretches on and on for 88 minutes, really dumb.
54:41
You said Tales from the Crypt.
I would probably say something like, you know, like a Hammer Horror episode from the from the, you know, 60s and 70s.
But they’re not.
They’re not British.
Yeah, that’s true.
But whatever the case, like it’s just way too long of a movie that was really drawn out.
55:01
And you don’t like I said, I mentioned the fact that this could have been expanded upon in quite a few different ways, right?
Like we could have taken a much more specific look at the science behind it so that there was more of a a theme about around, you know, sign maybe scientific meddling or, you know, ecology, things like that.
55:23
But we don’t do that and we don’t really look at the how they spread or proliferate or, you know, like take a look at the, you know, how that affects the community or anything like that.
So it’s really wasted on a lot of like just really plotting elements to the plot that don’t really add much.
55:39
And it’s sort of just ends up becoming very boring.
And again, I think that that’s a problem for the movie because it doesn’t lean into its it’s obviously ridiculous premise.
It doesn’t really, you know, try to be funny or, you know, even recognize the fact that bunnies really are not a serious threat.
55:59
And so it ends up feeling way too serious, which make it, which takes away from the entertainment value, I think.
So we give it a four out of 10.
I really, you know, I, I don’t really recommend this as a movie that most people should watch.
56:15
You know, if you, if you’re really heavily into animals attack films.
And sure, it is like, you know, historic in that sense, you know, from the early 70s being one of the earlier examples of it, but certainly not a good movie.
56:31
And again, we did this technically to tie into Easter, but really the only tie in is the fact that has rabbits in it, so little Easter bunnies.
So yeah, it’s OK, but would not recommend to most people.
56:49
All right, so we are going to take a week off next week, but we’ll have an episode because we’re going to be doing the special reposting of one of our classic episodes and I hope to do more of that.
I think that’s going to be fun and, you know, draw attention to some of our older episodes and potentially, you know, fix them up a little bit.
57:13
Maybe, you know, some of the audio quality and some of the older episodes is not as good as our newer ones.
We weren’t doing editing and stuff.
So I think it’d be a pretty fun time.
And then we’re going to try to do that, you know, throughout the the coming year and kind of highlight some of the older episodes, especially like the the one that we’re doing is only, you know, probably 4 years old, but I wouldn’t mind highlighting some really early, you know, films that we did that are really good conversations.
57:42
So we’re going to be working on that.
But after that, do we have a plan for what we want to do?
Anything on the forecast here?
We’ll see.
We might be coming up on something like Difficult Films Month.
Again, I think that’s coming up pretty soon, like when we generally do that.
58:01
So potentially that or you know, a couple of other things that we could have on the horizon.
So we’ll find out.
That is true.
Yeah.
Up to difficult films month yeah.
Do you want to?
We could do Funny Games three-way.
58:17
That’s.
True.
Yeah, we do.
That still is one of my favorite videos of all time.
There’s somebody edited Funny Games as a trailer set to the friends to me, like, and I sent that to you, but like, it’s like, you know, just like.
58:32
The wacky zaniness of Yeah Yeah.
Funny Funny games.
Serbian Film too.
Another baby.
Too relevant in today’s.
You know what if we did for difficult films?
58:48
The Melania film.
That would be a different and is the definition of it, I think.
Hello, I am Melania Trump.
Tough to get through, tough to stomach.
Yeah.
Overall difficult.
59:04
I I my husband says he voted with the ballots of mail but we shouldn’t have other people do it and this is OK?
That’s great, fucker.
All right.
59:20
Well, thanks for listening.
Oh yeah.
By the way, one last thing before go Yankees baseball star.
Yeah, so.
That’s why we had to push our our.
Recording.
That is true because I refused.
I refused to record on the high holy day of opening day though.
59:41
Netflix day.
They’re fucking ridiculous.
I mean, like again, I do love Matt Vasgersian, Hunter Pence, Amsterdam, Mohawk Legend and CC run the broadcast.
They were fine.
But I can’t stand the whole, this is like, why don’t you watch?
1:00:01
You know, I have Netflix.
I don’t watch like Monday Night Raw at all.
I don’t want to see like every 3 seconds.
Oh, you’re so and so in the car.
Crowd from, you know, the 4th season of like here’s you know, Stevens little little Stevie from the 4th season of this from 2015.
1:00:18
I’m from Netflix.
Remember that watch that.
You know with the Boo.
Fuck that.
Yeah, I I’m, yeah, I hate this whole like everyone cut cable now they’re just shoving 70,000 feet apps into your face and make it even more expensive now.
1:00:39
So yeah, yeah, sorry.
No problem.
Well, so if you if you like our episodes, I hope you enjoyed this one.
You should subscribe to us on pretty much any podcast app you can think of.
We’re on Apple podcasts or home based Spotify, whatever you use, I’m sure we’re on it.
1:00:57
So subscribe, leave us a nice review that helps.
So we’re on Facebook and Blue sky and search for us on there Blood Micron podcast.
Follow us, give us a like and we have an e-mail address, [email protected] where you can write to us.
Let us know what you like, what you don’t like, what movies you want us to cover.
1:01:12
Keep that in mind.
You can also donate to us on our Patreon page.
Anything you donate goes back towards beer.
So we appreciate that in advance.
Thanks for listening to our episode on Night of the leapest.
We hope you have a nice Easter and enjoy the the rerun that we have coming up next week and we’ll see you back in two weeks for another fresh episode until then.
1:01:32
Drink a lot of ham gravy.
Take care.
Hosting screenshots is expensive. If you want to see more galleries, consider donating!
