It’s 2024. The film industry turns to big budget special effects epics to lure us back to theaters. At the same time, two independent filmmakers go the opposite way. Though they had a bigger budget than on their debut film, all they really needed to catch our attention was Hundreds of Beavers.
Except they couldn’t get hundreds of beavers. Instead, they put a bunch of actors in beaver costumes that could have come from Party City. Also raccoons, rabbits, wolves, and at least one skunk. This isn’t The Lion King. Hundreds of Beavers goes back to the days of silent cinema, sometimes nightmarish, sometimes threadbare, but to the filmmakers’ credit, always funny.
Director Mike Cheslik and his co-writer/star Ryland Brickson Cole Tews make no pretense of grounding their filmmaking in reality. Improbably, the film begins with a primitively animated musical number as Tews’ Jean Kayak celebrates his success selling applejack. Using modern software to recreate the feel of Walt Disney’s Alice comedies, Cheslik already has us off-balance. Then disaster strikes the Acme Applejack distillery, and Kayak must survive a cold and lonely winter.
If you couldn’t guess from firmly establishing Acme upfront, this movie also owes a huge debt to the madness of Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and others. The score by Chris Ryan borrows from Carl Stalling, and you could swear at times this was a Looney Tune if not for being mostly live-action. But Kayak is the child of Elmer Fudd and Wile E. Coyote, with a dash of Harold Lloyd.
It’s less silent film and more physical comedy, as characters do plenty of moaning and groaning. Kayak does have one well-timed spoken line, which may generate the biggest laugh in its obvious simplicity. The human actors do plenty of dramatic gestures, but they’re hapless in the environment Cheslik builds out of paper and possibly an Adobe Creative Suite.
To keep us off-balance, Cheslik also separates the 3 acts of the movie with title sequences — not interstitials, full on credits. Act 1 is the fall of Kayak. Act 2 offers Kayak hope as he learns to hunt and kill from trappers wiser than him. And Act 3… defies description, though Cheslik has seeded its promise throughout the movie. All of it is funny, because Cheslik can stage a gag, even if the effects aren’t the most sophisticated.
But I kind of knew that, as I’d seen Cheslik and Tews’ earlier collaboration, Lake Michigan Monster. Tews directed that one, and it was a movie I more admired than really enjoyed. I loved the aesthetic, much of which carries over here. But that first film moves at a breakneck speed, aping a Roger Corman film without finding the moments of greatness that often happened with Corman. Yet it came close.
Hundreds of Beavers proves their prowess on the cheap. It might not make much sense, but it’s fun from beginning to end. (I mean that — it has a perfect close.) I’ll watch it again, and invite friends over. Because this should not be watched alone. It’s a movie meant for a theater full (or a room full) of people laughing their tails off.
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