Back in December of last year I did a small news post about the release of Finnish comedy horror Bunny the Killer Thing (directed and co-written by Joonas Makkonen), it didn't seem my thing as it seemed to revolve around sex jokes which I usually don't appreciate. However having watched Bunny the Killer Thing for review I have to say it was frankly hilarious from start to finish (or should that be 'start to Finnish'?), something I was not expecting.
During the prologue a man finds himself kidnapped and at the mercy of a mad scientist. The scientist injects him with a strange serum that starts a mutation within his body, with new found super strength he breaks free from his bindings, knocks out the kidnappers and flees into the nearby woods where he further transforms. Meanwhile a group of friends are journeying out to a cabin in woodland for a weekend of partying, on the way they pick up three shady British guys whose car has broken down. The partying starts in earnest but the festivities are interrupted by the kidnapped man who has now mutated fully into a six foot tall rabbit-man armed with an enormous and deadly member, and thirsty for female copulation...
Bunny does not take itself seriously and it is all the better for it, it is joyfully ridiculous at times, the horror has its tongue firmly in its cheek, after all it is hard to take a man in a naff looking bunny suit whirling his (very big and very fake looking) penis around like a helicopter blade while growling the only word he knows 'pussy', seriously, more on that later. The film is a weird mix of Finnish and English, for the majority of the time all characters, British and Finnish alike talk both broken English, broken Finnish and a mix seemingly at random. As such the whole film is subtitled, it can be hard to make out what characters are saying so I guess they were needed, but a lot of the time what is subtitled is slightly different to what is actually being spoken.
The characters are mostly all likable, there can be some danger in horrors to have people too fun to watch die, here by the end most the cast have been killed in various crazy ways, if the death scenes were not so unique then I would have probably minded more. Best of the male cast is Jari Manninen as lovable giant Mise, his simple friendly nature makes the growing bromance between him and Tim (who he insists he calls Mr Black on account of him being black, in return Mise insists Tim calls him Mr White) believable and natural. Of the other male cast Lucas does a great job of being menacing (though gets far too little screen time), Vincent is a gentlemen which was pleasant to see during his interactions with drunk Sara, and Tuomas was really funny such as the way he keeps chatting up a girl while they are both being chased by the murderous bunny. On the female side Enni Ojutkangas as Sara is pretty great, it helps that she is very easy on the eye, Nina is played perfectly as a brooding psycho, and Emma and her respirator mask was plain odd in a good way.
With the three British guys added to the group there was a bit of a red herring on where the danger was going to come from, while they blatantly are up to no good it is instead the titular bunny who steals the show in the horror stakes. This creature is obsessed with sex and is only interested in females, that's not to say it ignores the males though, it has super strength (at least one death via it's member being used as a club) and also limited intelligence, ready to have his way with anything. Tuomas spends a good portion of the film being chased by it due to the female genitalia artwork he has on his clothes, while later on a character who has had his eyeball ripped out is abused due to the bunny mistaking the hole left as something else. This horror is all over the top funny with some great looking special effects, terrible but in a great way, people lose eyeballs, far too many males end up with severed manhoods and someone even dies by accidentally getting a beer can fired into their neck! The finale with the Killer Thing pretty much sums up the whole film in the way he is stopped. The creature is crazy, bounding around with limitless energy growling that word over and over, the characters add to this charm in the way they react; bemusement and terror somehow all rolled into one.
It is a testament to the film that nasty subjects such as rape and murder become so amusing here, the creature is a force of nature with certain human characters being the real scum, thankfully all of these get their much deserved comeuppance. With both the monster and the human characters all horny it's good that a lot of the humour comes from slapstick and not endless sex jokes which get tiresome really quick. Teen Jesse who builds a fully functional crossbow out of spare parts he finds laying around within minutes, people simultaneously trying to flee the Bunny and grab all their alcohol, the over the top and unique death scenes, a fun and completely random after credits sequence, and the fact just no one takes themselves or their film roles seriously leads up to a film that on many occasions I could not help but laugh out loud at.
I never expected to like this as much as I did, a foreign film whose wackiness makes the film, despite the sex obsessed subject matter this is a film so wonderfully shot and with such a likable cast that I was glued to the movie right up until the very end. Bunny the Killer Thing was released via Artsploitation on DVD and Blu-ray on March 22nd in the USA, it is to get a release on most VOD outlets from May 16th, so if you happen across it give it a try and see if the humour appeals to you.
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