Hundreds Of Beavers ★★★★

Released: 9 July 2024

Director: Mike Cheslik

Starring: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews

Review By: David Anderson

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, My Dinner with Andre, Snakes on a Plane, these are all examples of films that deliver on their titles; you know what you’re going to get. So too with Hundreds of Beavers, a silent slapstick joy of a film in which there are, yes, hundreds of beavers.

Filmed during the pandemic on a shoestring budget, it’s a simple setup really – a fur trapper is forced to fight the environmental forces of the North American wilderness while attempting to barter his way to comfort through the trade of beaver pelts.

Ryland Brickson Cole Tews charms his way through the film as beleaguered applejack salesman Jean Kayak who takes it upon himself to kill and collect the pelts of hundreds of beavers. This conceit is pretty unimportant, in fact it only really kicks in quite a way in to the film. What we’re really here for is the consistent rate of slapstick gags, the Looney Tunes/ Bunny Suicides comic violence, and the genuinely impressive production design.

The plot kicks off in all singing and all dancing style, as we’re introduced to Kayak in a drunken revelry before he destroys his applejack business, and his life is upended. What follows are the misadventures of our hapless hero as he navigates the inhospitable tundra of Wisconsin. As the plot develops, Kayak ‘levels up’, gaining new skills and weaponry to streamline his killing. This allusion to videogames feels very deliberate, there are as many calls to gaming as there are to the silent era of cinema and classic slapstick tropes. The film zips along and a ‘gameplay loop’ soon develops. This repetition may claw at some people’s ability to enjoy the film, but we’re treated to the gag rate of a Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker production with the vaudevillian joy of performance of a Buster Keaton film. While Hundreds of Beavers looks deceptively simple it belies a rich knowledge and affection for silent cinema and the filmmakers have a box of tricks from this era at the ready for us to marvel at and be entertained by.

The animals are represented by actors in suits. Rabbits, wolves, and beavers alike are anthropomorphised, allowing the filmmakers to subject them to all kinds of horrendously violent deaths. Entrails are scattered, heads are removed, bodies are piled high and dragged through the snow in a grotesque parody of Santa carrying his sack of gifts, and it’s fantastic.

Black and white photography gives the sense of a relic being unearthed. Alongside an apparent slapdash approach to the filmmaking, one could be forgiven for thinking this was done thoughtlessly and with haste. Not so, the filmmaking techniques on display here are inventive, novel, and executed with tremendous skill. The production design on the film is miraculous in its use of live action in camera effects, with SFX and animation. They’re blended together in such a way that you can’t help but marvel at.

A true gem of a film, a work of art seemingly created purely for the love of it. You get the sense the filmmakers would have been content to share it only amongst their friends and be satisfied with a job well done. But we’re lucky enough to be able to enjoy it too, in all its idiosyncratic glory. Hundreds Of Beavers might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re able to go with it, you’ll find a lot to love.