This page is referenced by:

• 1 2023-03-09T06:06:23-08:00 Night of the Lepus - Background 11 plain 2023-03-17T06:52:29-07:00

  Despite what seems to be a fever dream of a movie, Night of the Lepus is based on Australian author, Russell Braddon’s, 1964 science fiction novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit. Braddon’s outlook on the book provides a perfect explanation as to how both the novel and the film turned out the way they did. Braddon said that he wrote the book “as a joke” and, which is not shocking, it only took him four weeks to complete. Although Braddon wrote his novel as a joke, the storyline is not one that is completely fabricated. In the mid-1800s, European settlers in Australia brought rabbits with them, creating a population boom. The rapid spread of rabbits throughout the southern half of Australia was described as “the world’s fastest mammal invasion” (Iannella 2). Since the mid-1950s, Australians have attempted to take biological control of rabbits using the myxoma and rabbit haemorrhagic disease viruses (RHDV) to limit their population. The use of genetic interference has been recorded to have genetic resistance to these viruses from the rabbits. It was reported that “at the introduction in 1950, myxomatosis caused up to 99% rabbit mortality, and initial RHDV mortality was recorded as high as 95% in 1995,” (Iannella 8). 

       Both the novel and the film were written and released within twenty years of these Australian biological attempts. Russell Braddon is also Australian which plays a key role in understanding where he might have gotten inspiration from, and he indirectly provided a key social commentary on the time period. In the film Night of the Lepus, the rabbits experience a genetic resistance to the hormones and create an opposite effect as intended by the researchers similar to the genetic response from the rabbits in Australia. The opening scene of the movie includes a television personal discussing the rabbit invasion, which had a striking resemblance to the situation that occurred in Australia.