1920s and 1930s are well known to be the golden age of horror films. The strong foundation was laid by Warner Bros and Universal Studious. They created the movies you’ve probably never watched, but 100% have heard about.

Even Dracula perhaps would not be a beloved character he is today, but a bookworm’s niche interest. Modern teenagers would not obsess over vampire love stories nearly as much. That could be a preferable variation though.

But the horror craze was not exclusive to America, despite how strong the association is today. Numerous European independent filmmakers added their own vision to the growing industry.

Soon, the war came and people did not request scary stories anymore. The genre would be dead for long twenty years.

European films grew in the context of surrealism and psychological approach. They were much more artistic than the american counterpart. Had much smaller budgets too.

One such film was released in France in 1937. Directed by Bruno Piaf. The movie is called “How Rabbits Scream at Night”. The author was barely invited for any interviews and never came into wide public discussion. His movie rolled around a few theatres and was successfully forgotten to be preserved only in local French archives.

To be remembered for any amount of years, you have to be special.

I've found the film to have a few different variations from people's descriptions. The version I found had some episodes portrayed differently. This makes me think that it had a few different cuts altogether. I cannot fundamentally prove this theory though.

A short recap:

Ms. Jaolie lives alone in her family manor while her husband is away in America on business all the time. She has a friend, Janett, who comes every weekend to knit and chat. Apart from that, there is nobody in the mansion but two servants. The grey rooms are always empty.

Ms. Jaolie seems to enjoy the company of her friend, but when everyone leaves, she is lonely and everything around her is meaningless.

Ms. Jaolie is knitting with Janett when they run out of wool. The material is kept in a storage room down the hall.

Ms. Jaolie cautiously walks through the darkness to the phantasmagorically big dark pantry, now conquered by spiders. The webs tremble under the long-forgotten blow of the wind.

Ms. Jaolie has to apply force to get the box open, but there is no wool left inside. She is sure she bought a whole pack just three months ago. Then she notices footprints on the dusty floor. Much bigger and more crooked than hers.

The madame returns to Janett, rings the servant bell and takes a rough, commanding stance. Not long after, the man arrives, Denis. Ms. Jaolie immediately gets to mocking him. She keeps calling him a useless piece of a junk and an idiot. Her friend is visibly distraught by the scene. Janett stands up for the man and asks everyone to calm down.

‘No one listens to my complains here anyway, Janett’

Ms. Jaolie notices again and again that her things are misplaced, only to be later found somewhere else, in a completely different part of the manor. She is aggressive and cruel towards Denis and Sophia. Ms. Jaoile thinks that they are making a fool out of her.

The servants are fed up with her hate, but don’t move on from the job.

This consuming torture comes to an end one night. Madame hears footsteps somewhere deep in the halls of the building. Shurk, shurk, shurk. Ms. Jaolie grabs a candle and wanders out of her room.

The hallway is filmed to be visibly endless. She walks down it for almost three minutes. The doors are repeating. The further it is, the darkness is stronger, taking in the woman.

And yet, there is nobody to blame the sound on. Ms. Jaolie sighs and turns around when a loud sound strikes from the entrance. Something giant fell down there, broken apart into small metal pieces.

Ms. Jaolie walks down the stairs and cannot make herself look away from the giant mechanism on the floor. Once a symbol of this place, built by her grand grandfather. Now it’s nothing. She confesses to herself - they will not repair this thing. Almost three meters high, with lots of patterns and built-in miniatures. It’s lost forever.

But a light takes her out of sorrowful thoughts. The moon rose and looks at the woman through the wide window above the front door. The moon seems cartoonishly big and bright.

When the camera switches back to Jaolie, she is no longer alone. In the darkness of the hallway there is man waiting for her to notice him. He has a full black suit apart from a white vivid rabbit mask. The black-and-white recording makes the rest of his body disappear in the darkness.

The man emerges from the blackness, towering over the lady. He touches her arms and weaves her body into a dance. They dance together in a large empty hall. You can notice as Ms. Jaolie somehow gains confidence from this. Her movements, first uncertain and forced, soon add to the rhythm; lock in to the pure emotion.

Then, at the last moment, the rabbit pulls her closer and bites into the woman’s shoulder with his long front teeth. The scene cuts to black.

Two days later, Janett optimistically comes to the mansion as per usual. She immediately sees the broken clock, but it’s not the worst offender. The whole house is in horrendous disarray. Everything is upside-down; dust everywhere.

Weirdly, Ms. Jaolie seems to be wearing a black masquerade mask of a bunny all the time. This one is from metal or plastic, painted over.

‘I fired all of them. They were lazy.’

As soon as Janett sees the hostess, she starts thinking about any ways to get out of this manor. When they sit down together for knitting, Janett asks for the bathroom. Ms. Jaolie points to the hallway without taking her eyes off the needles.

The guest, however, doesn’t go to the toilets, but to the right, to the exit, to the darkness that fills the whole path, to the escape so highly awaited. The same way Jaolie went recently. The poor woman grabs the wall to not fall or stumble upon something. Soon, the whole screen is black too. You can hear only her footsteps. They stop.

‘Who are you?’

In another two days, Mr. Jaolie finally comes back for one week. He walks into the ruins of what used to be his house. All dirty and vile. His wife is already waiting for him at the entrance. The man is unnerved, but approaches madame for a kiss.

Ms. Jaolie tells her husband that she asked the servants to leave for the rest of the day. The dining hall is just for the two of them. Mr. Jaolie smiles and follows his wife to the door on the left. A long table is sparkling with candles. Lots of huge dishes outshine the white patterned cloth.

Mr. Jaolie raises his eyebrows, absolutely stunned by his wife’s hospitality. He asks the woman, what are all of these plates that smell so good? She grins back and asks for him to sit.

The hostess takes the biggest dish on the table and pushes it to her husband’s side. Little does he know, Denise’s, Janett’s, and Sophia’s heads are on the platter. The husband screams and backs away. He backs away into the open arms of a tall man in a rabbit costume who immediately bites the gentleman in the head. Blood drips down, covering the victim’s eyes.

Ms. Jaolie strikes a knife into the man’s chest. He slowly kneels and collapses. Ms. Jaolie and the Rabbit man kiss with passion.

The end.

I think a lot about this movie since I watched it. All the scenes are so slow and self-contained. It’s honestly amazing how big they made the mansion to look for the camera. The grey walls with lots of empty spaces, once covered by the paintings.

The plot is boring, I won’t argue with that, but there is something I am failing to describe. I am bad at reviewing art. Yet, many times this movie sparked interest in people. The amazing thing is it’s difficult to find a copy nowadays. That’s a degree to which the film is forgotten.

You have to be a nerd or really in love with classic movies. In 2012, the film got the only theatre adaptation ever which was arranged by the Sao Paulo University. Groups of students could decide themselves which scenario to put into action.

Choosing a movie scenario is not a novelty, but requires much more work to rewrite the whole thing for the stage. Moreover, you had to choose something old because new movies would fall under copyright. And yet, the students chose this.

There is no video recording of the whole thing and overall, this is not what this story is notable for. What we know is that Ms. Jaolie was played by Julia Rosa. Some of you, internet freaks, may already understand where I’m going with this.

Julia was 5'4". Dark-skinned and brown eyes. She had long hair. Maybe the most notable feature of her appearance. It always looked naturally light and smooth.

Julia Rosa successfully finished the Bachelor of Dramatic Art and tried to find a job in the San Paulo itself. The fate was not friendly to her however. She was not able to find anything respectable in her field, occasionally playing minor roles in local theatres.

The young actress soon gave up on her craft. She left her little apartment she rented in a questionable district of the city and moved to Rio de Janeiro. From there, her life is covered by a faint barrier of detachment.