Review by: Jay Andrews-Tracy
Bunnyman is a classic horror B movie. You can tell that the writer and director Carl Lindbergh had a vision of the true events that this story is based upon. The story the movie is based on goes like this: an Urban legend in Fairfax Virginia, circa 1970, there had been several sightings of a man dressed up in a creepy bunny suit, and he kidnapped people and scared them, sometimes hung and killed them. There were reports of a hatchet involved, too.
A lot of the legend has to deal with a man who was in an asylum named Douglas J. Grifon. This man and several inmates escaped when they were being transferred from the asylum to Lorton Prison, and killed fellow escapee Marcus Wallster in the process, thereafter he became the Bunny Man. Although these are just urban legends, there has not been a false accusation about what really transpired, because there was no records of this happening, but this does not necessarily mean it was not true.
The movie does not reference any of the Urban Legends that are out there, and from what I can tell there are a few. This is the one that makes the most sense to me, which is why I decided to put it in the review. Urban legends make movies a lot more impressionable because it makes people want to look up if this has ever actually happened, like me.
The film obviously took it a little more gory, and more serious somehow, but still in a B-rated kind of way. The movie starts off with the Bunny Man (also played by Carl Lindbergh) who revisits his childhood, and has killer memories of what happened before he became the Bunny Man.
The movie starts off slow, and builds up to the suspense of the killings. The plot is deep since there are two other movies before this one. There is really one surprising scene where it busts out using Die Krupps’ (A gothic, industrial band) ‘The Machinist’ song, which is quite fitting for the Bunny Man himself. I do not want to give the plot away too much, but it does get very entertaining.
The editing is very B-rated too, and I am sure the director wanted it that way because of how the movie is supposed to be, style-wise. The bunny suit is to be something to be fairly scared of. It’s almost though the suit is something from a dark carnival, and meant to scare people as it haunts the night.
If you want a cheap thrill, and enjoy B-rated horror movies, I recommend this movie. It is not completely horrible, and it is not completely good, but the film sure is better than some other B-raters out there right now. I think that if they put more effort into the production it could have been a better movie. Check it out anyways, and tell me what you think!
Bunnyman Vengeance escapes the burrow on VOD October 20th and DVD/BD release from Uncork’d Entertainment on November 21st!