As we march into the final day of Easter Lockdown 2020, I feel it is finally time to ask, Why rabbits? I have a need to delve into the deep-rooted mystic history of the holiday and learn why it is the Easter Bunny and not say, the Easter Pigeon, or Easter Bear, In fact, Easter Bear has a nice mouth flow to it. Easter Bear, Easter beaaarrrrrrr, say it out loud. It works. Anyways, because of this religious holiday which may or may not have been designed by big sugar, over the past four days, I have written about bunnies and rabbits more than any other time in my life. Yet, I don't really know what the bunny of Easter means or stands for. What are its political leanings? Where does it shop? Does it order online from GOOP? You know, the big questions. So, today's movie, the finale of the Easter Lockdown, will be a first step into discovering the truth about rabbits, aliens, Jesus, and the English. Trust me, there are answers to be found in Cute Little Buggers, so many answers. The movie begins with a small town in the English countryside preparing for some festivities and a concert. Although not specifically stated what the festivities are for, I am saying they are Easter-related for the sole purpose of this review being Easter themed. We then meet an amazingly large cast of characters who are still being introduced all the way up until the back half of the film. It really does give the film that smalltown vibe as every member of the community somehow found themselves in the movie. Each character is quirky and goofy, but also has a serious side. Like the man who collects his own pee to drink, the police chief who likes whips, leather, and unsubtle sexual innuendo, the two ladies who are both sleeping with the same man, the returning son of an English farmer who is not so English, and his English ex-girlfriend with a strong french accent. This is just a smidgen of the characters we meet in this film as Cute Little Buggers cast propagates like rabbits. The examples above don't even take into account the pair of aliens. Yes, there are aliens. The plot of the film is broken down into two main stories, the one with the returning son and his family issues, and the other more serious one, where two goofy aliens come to Earth to abduct women using killer rabbit alien hybrids and force them to have their human-alien hybrid babies. As you can tell, both these things are very much based in reality. The problem I had was that the difference in tone between both stories made for a bit of a confusing viewing experience. There was copious nudity, low brow fart and pee jokes, and late-night sex humor, which moved in between some very serious family drama and people dealing with the horrible deaths of their loved ones. The movie jumps from a scene where two guys are fighting for their lives trying to save the captured women, Band of Brothers style, and then an old man makes a bomb out of himself and a bag of urine. Urine, which has been described as extra smelly. Now, this stark difference in tone can work. It works very well in movies like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. It's comedy and drama together in a big hug. But that relationship only works if the comedy works as well as the drama. A movie like this where the comedy falls flat a lot of the time ends up just being an unfunny drama, with horny aliens. You know, typical fare. Cute Little Buggers is also a bit ripe with the CGI blood. I understand using it when talking about the rabbits as no matter what they look like, CGI or practical, a low budget movie might not have enough money to make either look good. But that blood, it looks so bad. CGI blood is almost always a detriment, even to a bad movie. Goofy creatures and monsters in a low budget film tend to work because they add to the ambience of the whole thing. CGI blood just stands out like dead pixels on my TV. In fairness, in the scene with the most blood, a battle where people are losing their computer-generated limbs to computer-generated rabbits, a lot of those people are covered in actual fake blood, but other than that, any spurt of red you see was made possible by your home computer. I do really like the crazy premise behind Cute Little Buggers. Goofy is fun, bad movie goofy is even more fun. So, with this film, I'm not sure if it was the comedy, which didn't land for me, the overdone character drama in a movie about aliens and killer bunnies, or just the overall changes in tone that kind of kept my brain at an arms-length from enjoying this. It doesn't help that the length, which while not terribly long begins to wear you down after too many repetitive scenes of bunny kills, drama, and unfunny aliens. At this point, you might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with rabbits being part of Easter? The answer, nothing. The whole intro was a ruse to link a movie that has nothing to do with Easter with my Easter Lockdown theme. I guess if you need an answer, a quick Googling tells me the whole thing has something to do with the egg being a symbol for rebirth, and you know with the whole Jesus dying and being a reborn thing, they kind of go hand in hand. The problem with that story is it has no pizazz. No aliens are coming to earth and impregnating women...wait, is Cute Little Buggers an analogy for the virgin birth of Jesus? Hell yeah, it is! See, I knew it was an easter movie.
top of page
bottom of page