Hundreds of Beavers (2022/2024)
Directed by Mike Cheslik
Cineverse, 108 minutes, PG-13.
★★★
Rabbits, and wolves, and raccoons, oh my! And hundreds of beavers. Sort of. Hundreds of Beavers is one of the sappiest movies I’ve ever seen. Yet … it’s so camp that you can’t look away. Like an old Henny Youngman comedy routine, you tell yourself that you’re not going to laugh, but you do until your face hurts!
Hundreds of Beavers was cowritten and directed by Mike Cheslik and could be called his Covid project, as he filmed it in the dead of a Wisconsin/Michigan winter during 2019-20. It unexpectedly grabbed people’s attention at a few film festivals in 2022, and gained wider release in 2024. It’s so unusual that it almost defies description. It’s what you might get if you crossed a Buster Keaton silent film with Looney Tunes, some Charlie Chaplin slapstick, a snowy Road Runner episode, Rube Goldberg, W. C. Fields’ 1933 short The Fatal Glass of Beer, and cosplay. Wait! Did I say cosplay? I’ll get to that. It’s also possible it has a hidden serious message that has eluded most reviewers.
It opens with a cartoon that spared no expense in the making because it was probably drawn in a morning, with the afternoon devoted to writing a song that tells the sad tale of Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews). Jean is a maker of hard cider who likes his own product too much. When his orchard and cabin burn down, Jean is left with nothing. That’s not a good thing at any time, but it’s especially perilous in the north woods during the early 19th century–long before any social services. This gets us to the cosplay part. Jean tries to make a go of it as a fur trader; all of the animals, including sled dogs and a pantomime horse are humans in bargain-basement costumes ordered from a Chinese mascot Internet site. Thus we have 6-foot tall beavers, rabbits, and other beasties. All Jean can see is food in the form of wily rabbits that elude him. The snow blows furiously, always in a direction that threatens to extinguish the fire he makes by rubbing sticks together. The snow “effects” reminded me of Fields declaring, “It ain’t a fit night for man nor beast,” except that after the opening song there are silent-film title cards and the film is devoid of sound except for chirps, grunts, ummms, and ahhhs.
Jean’s only chance of survival is to become a trapper, a pursuit at which he is hopelessly inept. He falls in with Master Trapper (Wes Tank) and also encounters Indian Trapper (Luis Rio), but Master Trapper and his dogs meet an unfortunate end, so Jean must secure enough hides to take to The Merchant (Doug Mancheski). He’s a rifle-toting skinflint with set prices for everything and a singular talent for missing the spittoon as he chews tobacco. Jean is also attracted to The Furrier (Olivia Graves), but he has no chance with her unless he can provide “hundreds of beavers.” Watching Graves eviscerate the animals is hysterical, as she is clearly pulling plush innards from them.
As the movie come-on puts it, Jean must go from “zero to hero,” which he does by developing fiendishly silly ways to trap animals. (with X’s in their eyes of course!) And what are the beavers up to as they construct a dam that rises like a skyscraper of wood? Two beavers dressed like Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes are roaming the woods as well, but are they any match for the increasingly adroit Jean? His furry superhero suit alone must be seen to be believed.
If this sounds as if it’s like the dumbest idea ever for a movie, it just might be. It could also be one of the smartest! Hundreds of Beavers was made for $150,000 and has paid off many times over. You could also see the film as a warning; nature was decimated by the real fur trade. Or maybe it’s just fluff. Hundreds of Beavers has cultists called–what else?–“the beaverati.” I again emphasize that the special effects are more surreal than real, assuming you could teach elementary school-aged designers about surrealism. How to rate it? If you’re serious, a 1 is in order; if you simply surrender, it’s a 5, so I split the difference.
Rob Weir
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