Recently, we posited that Sasquatch Sunset might be the weirdest movie of the year. Well, stop the presses. We have a challenger. Hundreds of Beavers has entered the chat.
Hundreds of Beavers is about a drunken frontiersman named Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) who, after losing his applejack brewing business, decides to go into trapping. He learns the trade from a mentor (Wes Tank), seeks guidance from a Native American local (Luis Rico), and as he brings beaver pelts to the trader (Doug Mancheski), he acquires more equipment that helps him grow his new venture. He even finds himself smitten with the trader’s daughter (Olivia Graves), and in order to impress her and her father, he embarks on a quest to bring in as many beaver pelts as he can. Hundreds of them.
Unfortunately for him, the beavers are not on board with this plan.
Hundreds of Beavers is the brainchild of writer/director Mike Cheslik and co-writer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (who also stars in the lead), the guys who are also responsible for the 2018 creature comedy Lake Michigan Monster. The story is told in the form of a classic silent film, shown in black and white with all of the purposeful overacting and silly music that goes with it.
But the silent film aesthetic is not the movie’s only gimmick. Not by a long shot. All of the animals in the film, all the beavers, rabbits, raccoons, dogs, and all others, are portrayed by actors in mascot costumes. And this is what Jean Kayak is doing battle with over the course of the movie. It’s ridiculous in the very best way possible. Laugh-out-loud hysterical. It’s like a feature-length Looney Tunes cartoon.
And it only gets more and more ludicrous as the film goes on. Which makes it get more and more awesome. By the climax, it turns into a video game-inspired, stunt choreography-filled action flick, with Jean Kayak battling, well, Hundreds of Beavers, in a Kill Bill-style rumble.
At first, one wonders how the filmmakers are going to keep this concept going for close to two hours, but they do. Hundreds of Beavers does not overstay its welcome in the least. It’s a riot from start to finish.
Watching Hundreds of Beavers is sort of like experiencing a fever dream. Nothing about it is grounded in reality, and that’s what’s so entertaining about it. Both physics and biology take a massive beating at the hands of director Cheslik. Anything can (and does) happen, and watching it happen is hilarious. It is literally a live-action cartoon, full of slapstick comedy and visual gags.
Possibly the best part about Hundreds of Beavers is the fact that, despite the main human characters all being fur trappers and traders, there is no animal cruelty in it whatsoever. Of course, animals get beat up and killed, but they’re all either puppets or people in costumes. So there’s nothing for PETA to get upset about. And watching people flop around in costumes getting hurt is fun. That’s slapstick!
While Sasquatch Sunset is a nature documentary gone wild, Hundreds of Beavers is absurdist fiction at its finest. Both are wildly creative and different from anything else that will be seen this (or any) year, and both will have their detractors who just think that they are stupid. That’s okay. We don’t need those kinds of people at this party. Hundreds of Beavers is comedic gold, and nothing can take that away from it.
GRADE: A
Running Time: 108 minutes
Streaming Release Date; April 15, 2024
