An Easter Bunny Puppy (2013)

Directed by David DeCoteau

Viewed on Amazon Prime

 

Summary: A dog, who looks nothing like the dog in the poster for this movie, lounges about and sarcastically comments on the misadventures its owners get into. Featuring a plot straight out of a sitcom and multiple montages, this film will have the whole family begging for the sweet release of death.

 

Classic David DeCoteau.

I hate this movie. No, I shouldn’t say that. Not because I don’t hate it, but because I shouldn’t even call this thing a movie. I shouldn’t dignify this any more by even discussing it, but I want to give you all a clear picture of what this is so you all know to stay far away from it and anything like it. In many ways this is a typical piece of DeCoteau dreck, a shoddy piece of animal-based fiction, much like A Talking Cat?!?! and A Talking Pony?!?!, in which the titular animals are barely in the plot and instead the films focus on the shallow, pseudo-romantic relationships of the humans. I could go on and on about how insulting and lazy and dumb this movie is, so let’s just get started.

A Reverse Fourth Wall Breaking Telepathic Dog?!?!

Like many bad movies this one has an opening credits sequence to help pad it out so they can hit that magic number of ninety minutes. But I have rarely seen an example quite as blatant as this one, where the opening credits are shown over a still background with a line of Easter eggs at the bottom of the screen rolling continuously to the left while one of the three songs in the movie plays. This goes on for a full 2 minutes before we cut to an image of the poster for the film where the dog star of the film tells us that the poster was a complete fabrication and that he looks nothing like that dog, and that also for the next ninety minutes all the viewers will be telepathic and will be able to hear him, but none of the characters in the movie will be able to hear him. So that explains how we can hear his thoughts. I’ve seen a few movies with telepathic dogs, but never one like this.

 

Jennifer Writes Novels and Lucy Wears Makeup Like Some Kind Of WHOOOOOORE!

The dog, Russ, gives us a brief tour of the house, introducing us to his owner, Jennifer, who writes mystery novels. During this introduction, Jennifer is working on a story, which she does by dictating into a recorder all the dialogue and descriptions of things in the sequence she is working on. This goes on for several minutes. During this time, we learn that Jennifer is apparently a famous writer who focuses on mystery novels about her detective character, Miss Marbles. Or was it Marples? I don’t remember and it isn’t in my notes so I will never know, because I refuse to watch even a frame of this movie ever again. Then Jennifer’s daughter Lucy comes in and she is scandalized that Lucy has put on some barely perceptible makeup. Jennifer is shocked that Lucy is wearing makeup but Lucy responds that she has to look good for the kyoot new neighbor, because that is all women care about, looking GOOD FOR TEH BOIIIIIIIIZ. This is also really funny to me because it is hinting at this character change in Lucy where apparently she used to not wear makeup or be interested in boys and now she is, but we never see any evidence of any other interests that she has or any other changes in her personality.

 

Jennifer Is So Logical That She Doesn’t Understand How Fiction Works.

Sometime afterwards, Jennifer gets a call from her publisher saying that because Jennifer’s last few books didn’t sell well, and considering the state of mystery novels these days that isn’t surprising, that Jennifer has to write a children’s book called ‘The Easter Bunny Puppy’. Jennifer lightly protests but agrees to write this book because the plot demands it. But Jennifer’s mind is much too logical and cold for her to possibly write a children’s book! We know that because she announces it while criticizing every story that includes elements that are unrealistic, like how does Rudolph’s nose get so bright and shiny? How convenient was it for the kids to just find a magical hat to bring Frosty to life? Why did the Wicked Witch of the West have flying monkeys, wouldn’t birds have made more sense? First off, no one in this movie has any right to criticize any other piece of fiction. Secondly, this feels like we are halfway to a joke that never gets made, because that is where she just stops talking about it. She then says that she must ‘visualize her stories,’ which puts a really dark spin on every book she wrote about murder, and has Lucy dress up like the easter bunny, in a big rabbit suit that she just happened to have for some reason even though Jennifer says they don’t celebrate Easter because they’re Jewish!

 

Make Room For A Montage!

They are acting this out when there is a knock on the door. For some reason, Lucy goes to answer the door, even though pretty much any teenager would not want to be seen by anyone while they are wearing a bunny suit, and who answers the door but the kyoot neighbor boy who just moved there! Suddenly Lucy remembers that she is wearing a giant bunny suit and she runs off, leaving her mom to speak with the new neighbors. Now that that incredibly important scene is out of the way, it is time to get down to business and paint some eggs! They do so during a montage that lasts for, seriously, five full minutes. They take some hard boiled eggs. And then dip them in some dye. Then they do it again. Then they take more eggs. Then they do it again. Then they paint on the partially dyed eggs. All with jaunty music! With every egg they painted I died a little bit more inside.

 

Tired Sitcom Plot To The Rescue!

So during this riveting montage Russ (that’s the dog by the way in case anyone forgot) finally does something and escapes from the house, somehow, only to be brought back by the kyoot neighbor boy, Jake. When Jake gets back, he and Lucy hang out a bit and play chess with a comically large chess set that is clearly for display and not meant to actually be used. While they do this Jake starts expositing that his father is in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, which seems like an awkward thing to bring up during a game of GigaChess. Quickly changing the subject, Jake brings up meeting Lucy the other day in her bunny suit and Lucy deftly avoids that landmine by saying that wasn’t her, it was her twin sister Marion! Cue sitcom laugh track. And yes, that is the main plot for the rest of the movie: Lucy pretends to have a twin sister and occasionally puts on glasses and pretends to be her just so this one guy, who isn’t even that kawaiigood-looking, doesn’t think she was wearing a bunny suit.

 

Not-Villains, Identical Twins, and Dogshit.

After this meeting, Lucy and Jennifer go to join Jake and his mom and a family friend, Mr. Scamen at their cabin in the woods to do an easter egg hunt. While meeting the certainly not villainous Mr. Scamen, it is remarked that he was away while Jake’s dad was arrested for the theft of a Fabergé egg. It is made incredibly, painfully obvious that Scamen stole the egg and planted evidence to get Jake’s father arrested. But setting that aside for a minute, if Scamen managed to steal a faberge egg, that must make him an incredible thief. Maybe, instead of endless montages and pointless discussions about fiction, seeing him steal that egg would have made for a good action opener for the movie. Just a thought. But what is way more important than that is that Jake’s friends show up, and upon learning that Lucy is interested in Jake, they want to meet Marion! So Lucy dresses up like Marion, which means she changes her shirt and puts glasses on, so she can talk to these boys and keep her charade going! What hijinks! So Lucy becomes herself again and goes with Jake to take Russ for a walk in the woods near their cabin. On this walk they have touching dialogue about how they might like each other while having the romantic chemistry of two wet towels. During this touching and not at all emotionless scene Russ takes the opportunity to start loudly farting and pooping. And Russ starts singing about pooping. Because this is a comedy. And Lucy is like, ‘oh no Russ you ruined my romantic tension!’ And then they all go back without anyone cleaning up after Russ. Those jerks.

 

Sweet Momentary Release.

At this point we are about 50 minutes in. I left the room to get another cup of coffee and I had a fierce internal debate about whether I should continue watching the movie or just abandon the room that I was watching it in and never look back. I decided to soldier on. And I regret that decision.

 

No Time For Second Takes, We Have Another Montage To Do!

It is finally the day of the big easter egg hunt in the woods! And Mr. Scamen announces this by clearly flubbing a line. He is supposed to say, “Is everyone excited for the Easter egg hunt?” But he ends up clearly saying, “Is everyone ready for the Easter Hegg hunt?” I watched this scene twice just to be sure. It was so clear. Why not just do a second take? I guess there was no time, because now we have to do ANOTHER MONTAGE. We then have an easter egg hunt in the woods. Where we see an honest to god SIX MINUTE MONTAGE of everyone walking around the woods and picking up plastic eggs that clearly don’t have any candy in them because they all sound hollow when they are dropped in baskets. This montage goes on for so long that the music changes two separate times in a desperate bid to keep your attention! While the egg hunt is happening, Scamen goes to dig something up in the woods, because he was the one who stole the faberge egg all along! SHOCK! But he is too late because Russ dug it up and brought it with him. Why would Russ be interested in this egg? How did no one else notice this item was valuable? Who CARES?!?! The movie is almost done and I’m not going to stop and ask questions anymore!

Obvious Secrets Revealed But Everyone Is Friends Because Crime Solving!

So it is discovered that Lucy has been lying about having a twin and stuff so Jake is upset with her and then they all drive home, having made no progress with Lucy’s love life or Jennifer’s book. And of course we are treated to a lovely driving montage for this trip back home. It is nowhere near as long as the others, but it was still a very unwelcome surprise. So as they are going home, Scamen discovers that the faberge egg is gone and  somehow immediately knows that a dog dug it up and stole it. So Scamen and everyone go to Jennifer’s house and Scamen tries to hunt down Russ and get his egg back. A wacky chase scene happens and Russ narrowly avoids Scamen, bringing the egg to the group and clueing them in to Scamen’s ill deeds. Scamen then pulls out a gun and demands the egg be given to him. The group is saved though, when Russ, a fat old slow Corgi, viciously attacks Scamen! No, we don’t see this, but we do see Russ approach Scamen and then hear bite sound effects. So it totally happened. Someone grabs the gun that Scamen drops and then everyone reconciles and everything is great. And Jennifer declares that this will be the story she writes about in “The Easter Bunny Puppy”. The end.

 

Watch Anything Other Than This.

This is a contender for worst film that I’ve watched for this site. The only one that is maybe worse is Dude, Where’s My Dog?!?, which may have made me a little angrier than this movie. It goes without saying that this movie is not a So Bad, It’s Good, movie.  This is just this festering pile of laziness that no one should ever watch for any reason. This has 25 reviews on Amazon and I am genuinely upset that other people had to suffer through this movie and I pray that they all watched five minutes and then just shut it off. I wish I had done that. But I had to finish it to know just how bad it is and I fear I will never be the same.