Inland Empire (2006)

Inland Empire (2006): written and directed by David Lynch; starring Laura Dern (Nikki Grace/ Susan Blue), Jeremy Irons (Kingsley Stewart), Justin Theroux (Devon Berk/ Billy Side), Karolina Gruszka (Lost Girl), Grace Zabriskie (Visitor #1), and Harry Dean Stanton (Freddie): 

A doomed Polish film adaptation of a creepy, true Polish folk tale inspires an American film directed by Brit Jeremy Irons and starring Laura Dern and Justin Theroux. Real-life events begin to mirror those in the adaptation which mirror those surrounding the original film which mirror those in the folk tale that was inspired by true events. 

Also, dance numbers and a surprise cameo from Terry Crews!

Laura Dern's actress begins to be haunted almost immediately by strange characters, events, and an occasional loss of self. And by living out life as her character. Or is the character really a character or the ghost of a person doomed by a curse to relive the events of her death over and over until someone breaks the curse? Good question!

Inland Empire is a disturbing, dazzling descent into horror, madness, and parallel lives and worlds. However, you may have to consult its wikia page to figure out its plot. Or watch it several times. 

Even then, this is Lynch prowling the borders between dream and narrative, nightmare and plot. Laura Dern is terrific in a role that requires a lot of heavy lifting in service of a character with more than one character. Cameos come and go. Grace Zabriskie shows up early and late to explain things and terrify Laura Dern's actress. Harry Dean Stanton has a recurring comic bit as a scam-artist assistant to director Jeremy Irons. Mary Steenburgen wanders through. 

And there's the rabbits. Or people with rabbit heads. Surreal, menacing WTF mind games from David Lynch. I've come to the opinion that all of Lynch's work takes place in the same universe. Or multiverse. The monster here could just as well  have strolled through Twin Peaks: The Return or Eraserhead. Or maybe it did! Highly recommended.

Night of the Lepus (1972)

Night of the Lepus (1972): adapted by Don Holliday and Gene R. Kearney from Russell Braddon's The Year of the Angry Rabbit; starring Stuart Whitman (Dr. Roy Bennett), Janet Leigh (Gerry Bennett), Rory Calhoun (Cole Hillman), and Deforest Kelley (Dr. Elgin Clark): This legendarily bad horror movie of the 1970's is indeed wonderfully bad. What makes it fun rather than unwatchable is that the cast is totally invested in everything that's going on. They're old pros. 

Indeed, they really are old pros -- this movie's cast is middle-aged and older in a way one almost never sees any more. The men are all grizzled and pleasantly homely. Janet Leigh is middle-aged and looks it. Everyone can act except the awful little girl who actually sets the environmental disaster in motion. She is terrible, though the film-makers do her no favours by having her yell "Mommy!" about a thousand times over the course of the movie.

Based on a novel with the improbable title The Year of the Angry Rabbit, Night of the Lepus involves man tampering with nature and accidentally creating giant, omnivorous, ultra-violent rabbits that soon rampage across the American Southwest. 

This is an actual shot from the movie of the giant rabbits in a restaurant.

With today''s CGI, this would be a hard sell. The movie resorts to a guy in an unconvincing rabbit suit for scenes involving people getting mauled. The rest of the rabbit effects involve slow-motion shots of rabbits running through miniature sets and close-ups of rabbits with what appears to be ketchup on their mouths. 

Fine moments abound as the rabbit horde imperils life as we know it. I'll leave you to the joy of discovering them yourself. Note that movie posters of the time didn't show the rabbits, suggesting that someone at the studio realized what a stinker they had on their hands. Do you know what isn't menacing? A still shot of rabbits sitting on a mound of dirt while sinister music plays. It just isn't. Recommended as a bad movie.