This week, Video Vulture takes a look at exploding rodents.

• Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) — All of the students at Vince Lombardi High School love the music of The Ramones, which is causing the various authority figures to fret. After all, a scientific experiment conducted by the principal (Mary Woronov) proves that rock music causes laboratory mice to explode. Eek!

• Frankenhooker (1990) — Bereaved inventor Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz) is attempting to revive his dead girlfriend, and to that end, he has created a deadly drug he calls “super-crack.” (Er, just go with us on this one.) Having synthesized a huge crystalline lump of the stuff, he pipes the vapours into the cage of his pet guinea pig in order to measure the substance's lethality. The fuzzy little guy lets out a shrill squeak before popping like a balloon. Success!

• Contamination (a.k.a. Alien Contamination) (1980) — I'm telling you, lab animals have the worst luck. In this cheap, tacky Alien clone from Italy, mysterious slimy green pods are appearing everywhere. When warmed, these pods burst open, spraying any bystanders with a sticky green goo that makes people explode. Ewwwww. After several messy detonations, a team of scientists decides to observe this phenomenon under laboratory conditions. An innocent guinea pig is lowered into a Plexiglas chamber, while the scientists ready a syringe full of alien explode-o-goo, and hide behind a protective barrier. You can guess what happens next. We're gonna need a lot more Windex….

• Ninja Scroll (1993) — Exciting, violent and fast-paced, this Japanese animated feature remains a favourite of English-speaking anime fans. Set in feudal Japan, it tells the story of a young swordsman facing a team of supernatural killers known as the eight devils of Kimon. One of these assassins is Zakuro, a facially scarred female warrior specializing in explosive booby traps. Her victims often turn up with freshly stitched-up scars, only to detonate in a huge explosion after returning to camp. One of Zakuro's “living bombs” is a little grey rat that destroys an entire building, including one of Zakuro's colleagues. The guy had been a jerk to her earlier, so she wasn't exactly broken up about it.

• Total Recall (1990) — You know what else blows up rodents real good? Bullets. A rat finds this out after eating a chocolate-coated tracking device and leading the bad guys on a wild goose chase. Gun-toting villains don't take bad news very gracefully.

• Raising Arizona (1987) — Unstoppable bounty hunter Leonard Smalls (Randall “Tex” Cobb) is presented as a sort of apocalyptic biker bringing chaos and destruction wherever he rides. Plants ignite and shrivel in his wake. Fear and darkness envelop the land he treads on. Most tellingly, he flings a hand grenade at a cute little bunny rabbit, just to be mean. Kaboom!

What's that you say? Rabbits aren't rodents? Oh. Oops.

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) — OK, OK, this one's another lagomorph, but really, the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog actually deserves to be blown up. He's got a vicious streak a mile wide! Don't believe me? Look at the bones! I warn them, but do they listen? No! It's just a harmless li'l bunny rabbit, isn't it? Well, it's always the same….

This outwardly cute and cuddly predator decapitated three of Arthur's knights before the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch was brought in to deal with the wee beastie, who, being naughty in the sight of the Lord, did snuff it. Amen.