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• 1 2023-03-01T07:20:29-08:00 Night of the Lepus - Summary 12 plain 2023-03-17T15:31:27-07:00

       Night of the Lepus, is an American Science fiction horror film directed by William F. Claxton that was released in July of 1972. Given its 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie does not fail to live up to this review as it takes the audience on a one of a kind experience. The story takes place in a small south-west town, where farming is the main way of life. In one of the beginning scenes, the audience learns from two ranchers that the coyote population has been killed off. Given that coyotes are rabbits’ primary predator in the area, the rabbit population was allowed to grow rampant. Quickly becoming overpopulated, the rabbits begin to invade the ranches, damaging the crops of the townsfolk. Rancher Cole Hillman seeks to put an end to the invasion and reaches out to researchers Roy and Gerry Bennett, who were working on researching insect populations. Cole wants to avoid the use of cyanide to poison rabbits, in an attempt to protect their livestock and crops. Respecting Cole’s wishes, Roy Bennett decides to use hormones to disrupt the rabbits’ breeding cycle. If the rabbits’ reproduction cycle is thrown off, the rabbits will not have offspring during the prime harvesting season. 
  

       Once at the laboratory, the Bennetts, and their adolescent daughter Amanda, begin their experimentation with the control group. Roy chooses to inject a specific rabbit with the new hormones that have been received, but never used before. Amanda voices her concern and newformed attachment to this rabbit, stating that this was her favorite rabbit, even naming him Romeo. When the Bennett parents turn their back for a moment, Amanda switches Romeo with another rabbit who has not been injected yet. Begging to keep just one rabbit, her parents agree to letting her take one that has not been experimented on. Not knowing that Amanda has switched the place of Romeo and a member of the control group, Amanda takes Romeo. Releasing Romeo back into the wild, Amanda has just sent the whole movie into action, sadly.

  
       Continuing with their research, Cole and the Bennetts begin inspecting the rabbits’ burrowing areas when they discover a large, mysterious animal track. Amanda and the audience discover that this footprint belongs to a giant rabbit when she ventures into a gold mine, searching for a missing friend. This ferocious rabbit has blood covering its faces, scaring the viewer immensely. It is soon discovered that the genetic mutation has passed to the rest of the rabbit population. As the movie continues, these rabbits wreak havoc over the town, destroying and dismembering almost every citizen and animal they come across. The townspeople then attempt to blow up the mines that are rabbit infested with dynamite, but the rabbits escape before they can be exterminated. When the townspeople realize that there are too many rabbits to simply shoot by themselves, they come up with an elaborate plan to round up the rabbits with the use of a cars’ lights at a drive-in theater and lead them to the train tracks. These train tracks are lined with electric wires and as the rabbits hop on them, they are electrocuted or shot by the National Guard. The closing scene shows an aerial view of a green field and then slowly zooms in on an ever so terrifying, rabbit. However, this rabbit is normal-sized.