I want you to think back to the Easter egg hunts of your youth. The colorful baskets and brightly painted eggs, the pastel stuffed rabbits and transparent plastic grass.

Next, think back to your childhood nightmares. The darkness and unfamiliar scary feeling, the monsters chasing you and taking away your treasured possessions.

Now pretend you’re making egg salad and mash all these memories together. Then spread that egg salad all over a performance space on the Lower East Side. Done? Good. Now you have an understanding of the event I attended last night. Creepy and silly, delightful and bizarre, hilarious and dastardly: this is my experience at Full Bunny Contact.

Full Bunny Contact is billed as an Extreme Egg Hunt and Insane Easter Festival. Which is pretty much the best description ever but this event is so unique it’s hard to wrap your head around it. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I arrived with my friends Elaine and Mark last night.

So I knew the event was mounted by the same people who created Nightmare: NYC, well-regarded as New York’s most terrifying Halloween attraction. It’s an all ages event, though specifically geared toward adults. I’m too jumpy to enjoy haunted houses. Full Bunny Contact didn’t make me jump, but it did make me hop. Which is something I’m totally fine with. Rather than scary it is deliciously unexpected, unapologetic, and unforgettable.

The set up is an Easter Carnival with 10 different games to play, prizes to win, and bunnies to conquer. Yep, at most every turn we faced giant cantankerous bunnies. Lesser foe included an over-grown chicken (petite compared to the rabbits) and a Peep. The bunnies do everything they can to keep you from stealing their Easter eggs. Beat the bunnies and win prizes, the most coveted include tickets Broadway and other NYC attractions.

In the center of the large, dark room is a large fighting cage. Ominous bunnies hang off the chain link fence like fierce MMA fighters. This is were the title event is held, Full Bunny Contact. Easter eggs litter the grassy, astroturf floor and the goal is to collect 10 of them in the provided plastic basket. If you can’t manage that (and few could) you can try for the one Golden Egg in the ring which will also earn you a prize.

Sounds easy right?

Not when you have giant menacing bunnies blocking your path, swatting the eggs out of your basket, and doing everything they can to thwart you! In Full Bunny Contact you face one of these bunnies in a head to head battle.

On the fence in the yellow you have Grandma Bunny. She’s the biggest bunny, grizzly, and bitch does not give a fuck.
On the floor in the cape is The Buninator. Agile and protects his eggs like a machine-like precision.
In the middle stands Tattoo. He’s the reigning champion and he’s got tattoos all up his arms. Maybe to indicate every egg-hunter he’s killed.
On the right is Radioactive Bunny. A mutant half-bunny, half-alien/lizard, look out for his tail.

As we were waiting for our turn in the ring, Elaine asked me: what’s our strategy? “Scream a lot?” I said. That’s my strategy for most competitive situations. It wasn’t going to be enough in this situation. We decided to focus on the golden egg.

We had 40 second in the ring. I was facing Grandma Bunny, Elaine took on Radioactive Bunny.

The charismatic ref (who I’d seen before at Brooklyn Bridge Shakespeare!) handed us our baskets, reminded us of a few key rules, and blew his whistle.

The next 40 seconds were a blur of bunny fur, attempts at distractions, and scrambled eggs.

Oh and screaming. Because that’s my athletic strength.

Somehow our strategy worked! Elaine managed to get the Golden Egg in her basket right as the whistle blew! It flew out the next second, but the ref called it for our team!

Yes! Sweet, sweet victory! Eat grass, ya mangy bunnies!

Need I say this was ridiculous amounts of fun? I think the pictures speak louder than words (thanks for capturing the action Mark!) The bunnies may be aggressive on the field, but you can tell there are good people behind the mask. There were plenty of little kids roaming around last night, that number will only increase over the weekend, and none of them looked scared. It’s all in good fun! Even if you don’t win (okay, that’s coming from a non-competitive person. But I stand by it.)

Other highlights of the event:

Ride The Rabid Rabbit: A mechanical bunny instead of a bull! His dopey, innocent face cracks me up, but his moves aren’t so funny when you’re tossed from his back.

The Psychotic Bunny Fortune Teller: he’ll tell you your fortune in the most insane way, maybe pull out a giant machete to cut a carrot, and maybe even shove disturbing things up his nose.

Bunny Hoops: of course, shoot eggs into a basket!

There’s even an event outside: Little Bunny Fu Fu’s Revenge!

Also known as the Warriar Joust. That bunny jouster is known as White Lightning. For obvious reasons.

This is an Easter event unlike any other, I really recommend you check it out! Have a dinner and a movie date planned this weekend? Rain-check the movie and go to Full Bunny Contact instead! Every showtime has special events, including a Bunny Beauty Pageant tonight and a Temper Tantrum Easter Candy Contest on Saturday (yes, that’s as wonderful as it sounds). Check out the website for more details and event info! Tickets start at just $10.

Showtimes: You can show up at any point with in the time frame. I’d give yourself 1-2 hours to get the most out of it.

Wednesday, April 1 from 6 to 10 pm

Thursday, April 2 from 6 to 10 pm

Friday, April 3rd  12 to 4 pm (Day Block) or 5 to 9 pm  (Night Block) * 10pm to 2am (Special Gay Night Dance Party)

Saturday, April 4th from 1 to 6pm (Day Block) or 7 to 11 pm (Night Block)

Sunday April 5th from 11 am to 4pm

At The Clemente located at 107 Suffolk St., between Rivington and Delancey Sts.