Scariest Movie Rabbits

Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 11:07 pm
By Shane Rivers

The phrase “scariest movie rabbits” might seem to be right up there with “most frightening armadillos,” but you obviously haven’t witnessed the bunnies below in action. From gnashing, blood-encrusted buckteeth to guys in freaky costumes, these movie rabbits are guaranteed to scare you senseless. After reading this article, you’ll be keeping a much closer eye on the Cadbury Bunny.

By the way, clicking on the name of each scary movie bunny will take you to a page on YouTube. There, you’ll be able to see these furry bastards in action.

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Name: Jack, Jane and Suzie
Where You’ll See Them: Rabbits (2002)
Why They’re Scary: Director David Lynch has long walked the fine line between artistic genius and just plain fuckin’ crazy, but he may have fallen into the abyss with this series of eights shorts that carry the tagline “In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain…three rabbits live with a fearful mystery.”

Jack, Jane, and Suzie are all massive bunnies dressed in human clothes, and they spend the majority of the series asking such existential questions as “I wonder who I will be?” and “Were you blonde?” Interpreted by many as a vision of purgatory, Rabbits takes place in a single, dull room accompanied by gibberish-spouting mouths, burning holes, references to “a dark place,” and bouts of incoherent poetry. Whenever a mention of time is made, an applause track roars to life.

Since it’s a David Lynch production, clear answers are never given. Instead, the audience is left to ponder why three neatly-dressed rabbits are walking upright and occupying a drab apartment. No matter what answer you come up with, one thing’s for sure: these bunnies are almost as creepy as Robert Blake in Lost Highway. Almost.

Name: Giant Rabbits
Where You’ll See Them: Night of the Lepus (1972)
Why They’re Scary: It’s never a good idea for scientists and rabbits to meet, as it’s either going to result in PETA going nuts or the rabbits growing to monstrous size and rampaging through the Arizona landscape. The latter occurs in Night of the Lepus, and everyone from DeForest Kelley to Janet Leigh gets in on the furry terror.

Just imagine a giant bunny the size of a pick-up truck hopping across your front yard. Chilling, isn’t it? To make matters worse, these creatures are more than happy to kill anything in their path. This isn’t the Easter Bunny, folks.

Even more frightening is how ridiculous the titular lepus look while running in slow-motion across a model landscape. For close-ups, at least the filmmakers had the good sense to use guys in bunny costumes (wait…what?). And to top it all off, the rabbits fresh from killing locals had ketchup smeared on their faces to imitate blood. Now that’s just genius.

Name: The Rabbit of Caerbannog
Where You’ll See Them: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Why They’re Scary: They should’ve listened to Tim the Enchanter. I’m talking, of course, about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Determined to enter The Cave of Caerbannog and confront the Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh, Arthur and his men are shown the way by the eccentric Tim. He warns of the cave’s guardian, a creature with “a vicious streak a mile wide” and “nasty, big, pointy teeth,” and these descriptions are enough to make the cowardly Sir Robin soil his armor. Upon arriving, however, the knights find nothing more than a harmless-looking bunny. That’s when the trouble starts.

Despite Tim’s pleas to “Look at the bones!”, the men of Camelot are unimpressed. But all that changes when Sir Bors approaches and then gets his head torn off (accompanied by the sound of a can opener). Robin soils himself, and the knights rally in an attempt to chop apart their furry foe. The strategy is a complete failure, however, as the bunny leaps from man to man, his teeth and fur soaked with the blood of the fallen. In the end, Arthur is forced to call (yet again) a tactical retreat. Yes, that rabbit is dynamite!

Name: Harvey
Where You’ll (Not) See Them: Harvey (1950)
Why They’re Scary: Elwood P. Dowd may be a drunk, but he’s certainly not crazy. His family thinks he is, though, largely due to his insistence on introducing everyone he meets to his invisible pal, a 6’3” rabbit named Harvey. This leads to Elwood spending some time in the puzzle factory, but he and Harvey are happily reunited by film’s end (after Harvey passes on a two-week trip to Akron, Ohio with Elwood’s doctor).

I don’t know about you, but giant rabbits hanging out with drunks should be cause for alarm. Despite the fact that Harvey seems to cheer up those troubled souls he comes across, one can’t shake the feeling that this bizarre Pooka has something more sinister up his sleeves (well, he doesn’t actually have sleeves, but you know what I mean). The next time you use the restroom at a bar, be sure to choose a stall. Unless, of course, you get off on giant rabbits ogling your privates.

Name: Frank
Where You’ll See Them: Donnie Darko (2001)
Why They’re Scary: Just look at the damned picture. Who wouldn’t be freaked if a guy in a whacked-out rabbit costume showed up in the middle of the night and informed you that the world would end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds? And just to drive home the creep factor, a jet engine falls through your house immediately afterwards.

That’s what happens to Donnie Darko, a brooding teen with a perpetual look of psychosis. In addition to his apocalyptic prophecy, Frank also introduces Donnie to the concept of time travel and the joy of vandalism. And to top it all off, Frank later removes his mask to reveal a human face with a bullet wound through the right eye.

The next time Easter rolls around, you’ve got the perfect costume. Just make sure you’re prepared to pay for your child’s impending visit to a therapist.

Name: General Woundwort
Where You’ll See Them: Watership Down (1978)
Why They’re Scary: Imagine the biggest rabbit you’ve ever seen, and then picture him utterly psychotic and blind in one eye. That’s General Woundwort, the tyrannical leader of the Efrafa warren and chief antagonist in this animated tale of rabbits searching for a new home.

If you’re a rabbit–even a big one–you’ve gotta have some pretty big, fur-covered balls to take on a dog, but that’s what Woundwort does at the conclusion of the film. Due to that action, and his obsession with creating a totalitarian rabbit regime, he passes into legend as the bogeyman of the bunnies.

And that concludes our look at the scariest movie rabbits. I hope you found it insightful and that it opened your eyes to the true nature of rabbits. The next time you encounter a cute bunny, you’ll have enough sense to run in the opposite direction as fast as your legs will carry you.