His animal buddies might not think he’s a bad guy, but to humans, Kevin Hart’s Snowball—one of the many stars of The Secret Life of Pets—is the stuff of nightmares. On the surface, he’s an adorable bunny; in real life, he’s a hardened gang leader bent on taking humanity down a peg. And cinephiles with a good memory—or basically anyone who’s ever heard of Donnie Darko—know that Snowball is far from the first fierce bunny to appear onscreen.

It’s easy to see how Bunnies As Monsters has become a trope: what’s more delightfully ironic than warping nature’s most adorable, fluffy creatures into fang-baring, red-eyed demons? You may be surprised, though, to see just how frequently Hollywood has drawn from the scary-bunny well over the years. Here are just a few highlights.

In Family Films

Before we jump straight to campy horror flicks, let’s start somewhere more unexpected: a movie that was deemed “family friendly,” but unlike The Secret Life of Pets, turned out to be anything but. Yes, we're talking about Watership Down.

This 1978 British animated thriller was based on a novel by the same title, and sounds innocent enough at first blush: it’s about a bunch of bunnies looking for a new home! But, as is often the case, the devil is in the details: it all starts when a rabbit named Fiver has a horrific apocalyptic vision. And that’s just the beginning.

The film was deemed suitable for all ages by the British Board of Film Classification, despite its disturbing imagery of bunnies gnawing one another to a bloody pulp. Why? As a 1978 memo explains, “animation removes the realistic gory horror in the occasional scenes of violence and bloodshed, and we felt that, while the film may move children emotionally during the film’s duration, it could not seriously trouble them once the spell of the story is broken.”

Uh-huh. Many children still found the movie terrifying. There’s a reason people like to splice Watership Down clips together with songs performed by Marilyn Manson and “Lux Aeterna” from Requiem for a Dream.

In Cult Classics

Pop culture’s most iconic scary bunnies have come from the world of film—specifically, beloved cult favorites Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Donnie Darko.

The killer bunny in Monty Python has proven to be a classic—and also very marketable as merchandise. It’s easy to see why: this one’s no ordinary rabbit.