Dir. Diane Foster (2024)
A town comes under attack by the Jackalope and its army of bunnies during an Easter celebration.
Holiday horror is a favorite of genre fans, and despite the prevalence of movies celebrating seemingly every holiday, Easter is woefully underrepresented. There are a couple of films here and there, but absolutely nothing like you see with Christmas, New Year's, or Halloween (obviously). I was excited to hear about Easter Bloody Easter, a new film from director (and lead actress) Diane Foster about a town that is being attacked by a horde of evil bunnies. Like the best holiday horror films, Easter Bloody Easter is chock full of Easter references, holiday parties, and themed songs to carry its audience all the way from Good Friday to Lent (or something, I'm not sure how the timeline works).
Jeanie's (Foster) husband has disappeared and she is trying desperately to find out where he went. Her best friend Carol (Kelly Grant) tries to comfort her as she is tormented by town bully and head Church Lady Mary Lou (played by Allison Lobel, who also penned the script). Mary Lou is jealous of Jeanie's husband, hoping that he's gone for good and trying her best to impress by taking charge of the town's Easter festivities. Unfortunately for the trio (and the rest of the town), the town comes under attack by the evil bunny army of a Jackalope, a gigantic rabbit who is able to shapeshift into human form. As the bodies begin to pile up, the town finds itself in a fight against a platoon of Monty Python villains during their most important religious holiday celebration.
While all of the actors do a fine job in the film, the real star is the script. Dozens of hilarious one-liners and ridiculous non sequiturs pepper the dialogue, and the characters are over-the-top to the point of ridiculousness. It's wildly entertaining, despite it's slow-moving plot (more on that in a minute), and it's exactly the type of indie flick that has the potential to gain a ton of fans. It does a decent job of balancing the "horror" with the comedy, and though it never even teeters into scary territory, it takes its absurdly unscary villains as serious as possible, making the whole thing into a cartoon. Foster does a great job behind the camera, delivering some excellent shots while lampooning a ton of genre film tropes in the process.
All praise aside, the film does move incredibly slowly, and it's far too long. It's got an hour and forty five minute runtime, and it easily could've shed probably thirty minutes or so of that in order to get it into a more palatable range. While the action sequences are absolutely delightful, there are a lot of unnecessary plot movements that don't really need to be there. When it attempts to be funny, however, it largely delivers, and a movie that makes you laugh as often as this one is able to hide a lot of sins that would otherwise be dealbreakers. Plus, it's got its own Easter song, the fantastic town-wide dance number to Do The Bunny Hop.
There's a lot to love here, and this one rings as a film that could easily become a cult classic later on. It's a bit long, and it's plot is utterly and completely ridiculous. But if you're looking for an insane (and relatively sacrilegious) Easter horror film, you could certainly do a lot worse. Which is kinda surprising, because there's very few to choose from as it is. As someone who supports any and all holiday horror, I will happily recommend this to anyone looking to spice up their late March/early April.
Who this movie is for: Holiday horror lovers, Easter Bunny fans, Egg hunters
Bottom line: Completely absurd and hilarious all the way through, Easter Bloody Easter is the killer-bunny-missing-person-sacrilegious-holiday-horror-comedy you didn't know you needed in your life. With barebones effects, adorable monstrous bunnies, and a script that is exceptionally well done, this is an excellent flick to fill the Jackalope-sized hole in your holiday horror lineup. It's streaming starting 3/26, and the soundtrack is already out now, both just in time for Easter!
