Remaking "Night of the Lepus" by Joe Ekaitis
A few thoughts on
Remaking "Night of the Lepus" by Joe
Ekaitis
The premise of "Night
of the Lepus" really wasn't so bad. It was in the
execution that the movie lost its way. Had the resulting
1972 film been produced by the likes of the creative talents
behind 1980's hit "Airplane!", it would have been
considered a camp classic. Instead, the slow-motion
closeups of cute little puffball bunnies instead of big lanky
hares or jackrabbits, the brief glimpses of people in bunny suits
and the deadpan acting combined to relegate the film to the
status of "cult classic". These cultists,
however, list it among the worst sci-fi films produced, a list
often lacking such deliberately bad films as "Attack of the
Killer Tomatoes".
Could "Night of the Lepus" be successfully remade with today's much greater special effects palette? Your humble author says "Yes". For a remake of "Night of the Lepus", consider the following changes:
Instead of a warren of giant rabbits,
the monster in the remake of "Night of the Lepus" would
be a single rabbit that increases in size, strength and hunger,
especially for flesh, throughout the movie. By having only
one rabbit as the monster, we avoid the unintentional humor over
the breeding speed of rabbits. Also, a rabbit WILL turn to
predation (mostly on mice or the young of other similar species)
if it senses that it hasn't eaten enough plant material to
convert to protein. Thus, at first, the monster rabbit, no
larger than a black bear, is considered an inconvenience and a
nuisance but quickly becomes a tourist attraction as it placidly
grazes in the same field with a local rancher's horses. The
obligatory "zoologist-from-the-big-city" tries to tell
the rancher that the rabbit's diet is seriously lacking in just
such protein-producing fodder but his warnings fall on deaf
ears. Continuing to grow, the rabbit eventually denudes an
entire orchard and destroys a grain elevator and silo to get at
the grain. Though he still hasn't injured any person or
farm animal, the rabbit is now so large that a horse is the size
of a mouse in comparison. While hundreds of tourists watch
and several TV news crews coo about the "gentle giant",
the rabbit's instinct to supplement its diet with a more
concentrated form of protein kicks in. Fortunately, the
horses are within easier reach than the tourists and the news
crews. Now the rancher HAS to admit that the zoologist was
right and the zoologist assures him that the average rabbit will
only indulge in such a meal only once, rarely twice, but most
often, not at all in its life. Of course, this is no
average rabbit and unknown to the zoologist, the first taste of
flesh brings out even more predatory tendencies.
The breed of the monster rabbit would NOT be the cute domesticated puffballs in the original movie. Instead, a large hare or jackrabbit would be the model. Hares even have the ability to stand upright to look for danger, or, in the case of the monster rabbit, to look for prey. The giant rabbit could be created entirely by using advanced computer animation techiques, similar to those seen in films like "Jumanji" and "Mouse Hunt". Realistic movement can be achieved by using film of other animal behavior as the motion model. For instance, after the monster rabbit becomes predacious and begins to actively hunt prey, it would be a fairly simple matter to map the giant rabbit and, say, a fleeing deer over footage of a large Arctic wolf chasing (how ironic) a hare. While the deer's movements would be modeled after those of a real deer in flight, the giant rabbit would move in the same manner as a wolf chasing its prey. When the rabbit grows big enough and hungry enough to scour the oceans for food, footage of a polar bear catching a seal would provide the motion model for the giant rabbit hunting (sorry, GREENPEACE) a dolphin.
As for disposing of
the monster, the mutation runs its course and the giant rabbit's
metabolic functions outpace his ability to feed himself. He
collapses and dies near a farm and as his huge corpse is hauled
away by helicopter crane, his hind foot is the last part to leave
the ground. No one notices that a badger has been gnawing
at the huge rabbit's foot. The badger calmly waddles away
as the camera cranes back to show the large imprint in the grass
near where the rabbit fell. A barn is visible next to the
imprint and gives some idea of the giant rabbit's eventual
size. The scene dissolves to the same field and barn by
night. There is a commotion in the barn. A horse
whinnies in terror then falls silent. A huge paw with
stiletto claws tears through the wall of the barn from the
inside. Cut to black. Roll credits. :)