Horror Day: Night of the Lepus and Night of the Hell Hamsters
Ian: Two different sorts of funny, one intentional the other not. Lepus features a bunch of Hollywood stars past their prime taking on giant killer rabbits. It’s funny in parts but the joke wears thin and while there’s a surprising amount of gore for its time, it never manages to be remotely scary. Its biggest problem is that rabbits are just too darn cute, even giant killer ones. Hell Hamsters is a silly UK/Australian production about demonic hamsters. It revels in its low budget, using the extremely crap hamsters to get extra laughs. It also references numerous horror classics, not least of which is The Exorcist. A fun 15 minutes.
Dipa: I found Night of the Lepus a tad bit disappointing because I was expecting it to be more of a laugh out loud horror comedy and it seemed like a film that would generally be appreciated by a much younger audience. I agree with Ian that the joke gets worn out very quickly making the rest of the film rather dull. As a hamster owner, I must say that I will never look at my hamsters, Hamsterdam and Piglet, in the same way again! I thought it was 15 minutes of pure genius and would definitely recommend it.
Ian: I should just add that my brother, Andrew, has been bigging up Night of the Lepus since we were kids and he got to see it as part of the BBC’s horror double bills when, for some reason, I didn’t. It’s not the classic he made it out to be, that’s for sure!
