After many Christmas, Valentine, July 4th, Halloween, and (of course) Walpurgisnacht specials, Darcy and Joe Bob led the Family of Mutants into new holiday territory: the first celebration of Easter, in either its pagan or Christian incarnation. Or, as Joe Bob described it, “Bunny Rabbit Night, which somehow tied up the most important Christian day of the year with creatures that have sex 26 days of the month. And multicolored eggs are somehow supposed to remind children of the day Jesus was tortured.”
While acknowledging speculation that the night’s film would be 1972’s Night of the Lepus, certainly one of the best giant mutant rabbit films ever made, JB said they couldn’t negotiate the rights for the screening.
Joe Bob and Darcy also discussed other films featuring bunnies, such as Donnie Darko and Critters 2 (one of the higher budget and higher profile movies in the category). There was 2026’s Holidays which has an Easter section, 2006’s Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! and – of course – films from Darcy’s resume, like 2017’s Bunnyman Vengeance, and 2019’s Bunnyman: Grindhouse Edition.
Joe Bob then took the discussion of rabbits in a direction that didn’t please Darcy in the least: tips for rabbit hunting. Joe Bob advised using lower gauge buckshot, so as not to blow the bunny apart so that there was no remaining edible meat. He also suggested checking into local hunting ordinances, because the use of dogs for rabbit hunting was limited in some regions.
This all became too much for vegan Darcy who called Joe Bob “Elmer” and told him she was going to put out a poll to see whether the mutant family approved of rabbit hunting. Joe Bob argued that the French supported the hunting and consumption of rabbits. Darcy responded, “May the French be fruitful and multiply” or words to that effect.
Joe Bob said that another option for the Easter special might have been Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which he argued had plenty of gore to qualify as a horror film. He also argued it was unique in being the only film with a female Satan. (Which might be the case if you don’t count Raquel Welch or Elizabeth Hurley in either version of Bedazzled.) Darcy was concerned The Passion might be too sad – but if they couldn’t negotiate the rights to show Night of the Lepus, were they really going to be able to snag the highest grossing R rated film of all time?
So what Rabbit/Easter film was chosen for the night? It was 2018’s Rottentail, the tender story of a scientist named Peter Cotton who is bitten by a mutant rabbit leading to some unpleasant complications.
The screenplay for Rottentail was based on a graphic novel based on a screenplay. David Hayes and Kevin Moyers self-published the novel, which was purchased by Source Point Press, which was just getting into film production and decided to make Rottentail their first production.
Cotton/Rottentail is played by Corin Nemec, most famous for his starring role in the sitcom Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. Producers worried whether he could play the nastier parts of the role. Nemic pointed out he was Ted Bundy in Legacy of Evil.
Rottentail certainly qualifies as an Easter film. It not only features a mutant, killer rabbit, but it takes place over Easter weekend, and is set in Easter Falls with not just one, but two churches featured in the film. The original, historical landmark church in the community was where heroine Anna Banana’s (Dominique Swan) grandfather was pastor. It’s been taken over and recreated by murderous televangelist Jake Mulligan (William McNamara, who steals the film and also the post–credit sequences).
The following were Joe Bob’s totals for the film:
It should also be noted that Darcy and Joe Bob both donned festive bunny rabbit cosplay for the evening.
I learned a new thing about the celebration of Easter sunrise services in Texas. Where I grew up, in a small town in Northern California, sunrise services were often held at a local cemetery (a fine mutant option), but in JB’s Texas youth, Easter sunrise services were celebrated at the local drive-in (with an appropriate religious film shown in the hours before sunrise). I’m putting a Texas drive-in Easter sunrise service on my bucket list.
Joe Bob’s Easter jokes were…um…not great.
Dean Anderson, shown here with his lovely wife Mindy at Joe Bob’s 2023 Jamboree at the West Wind Drive-In in Las Vegas, joined as a contributor to Joe Bob’s website after admirably serving as a camper liaison and a minister of hospitality to the guests and the Mutant Family during the event. Check out the long adventure he and Mindy took across the country that was chronicled on their blog www.deanandmindy.com. Email Dean at deanandmindygotochurch@gmail.com