A major reason that I support theatrically releasing independent cinema can be found in the trajectory that Hundreds of Beavers (2024) has taken over the past year. As more theaters cater more and more to crowd pleasers, it becomes harder to discover other cinema on the big screen. Unless you’re someone like A24 or Neon, it may be difficult to have any cultural permanence without a few very vocal fans pushing word out. As much as I love discovering older films on streamers, there is something missing when there’s not that audience there on day one doing what they can to make to turn unknowns into the hot new property.
In the days following me watching this slapstick film directed by Mike Cheslik, I was excited to know that they had an active Twitter account announcing upcoming screenings. While I don’t know that it’s the all-encompassing goal I’m hoping for, I’m still proud to learn that Hundreds of Beavers was at least a very profitable movie for a shoestring budget. Prior to watching it, I was aware of a vocal fan base who insisted that it was one of the greatest films of the year and that, by being distributed by Tubi, stood to reach a wider audience than the buy-in services would allow. Abrupt commercial breaks aside, the uprise of second-wave enthusiasm made me excited to press play.
As I’ve gotten older and my sensibilities have become more “complex,” I do sometimes worry that the basic thrills of slapstick have lost their edge. What can a simple pratfall do that a labyrinthian play on words do better? Maybe it’s the side effect of enjoying art that requires you to think about it long after it’s over, but my concern was that I’d at best be able to notice what a younger me would appreciate in Hundreds of Beavers. Have I gotten so in my head that I can’t just let go and have a good time once in a while? It could also be built-in skepticism caused by 2024 being a very dark year where seeing happiness just makes you hypothesize the tragic. Our lives have lead us to a very divided timeline that probably should’ve been eradicated a decade ago.
This is all to say that watching Hundreds of Beavers wound up being my version of Sullivan’s Travels (1941): the Preston Sturgess masterpiece about an artist wanting to comment on reality before learning the value of escapism. As I pressed play, I found the childlike wonder opening up inside me. The critical eye fell to the wayside in favor of admiration for what great indie cinema always does. It makes me feel a sense of discovery. I want to lean forward and ask “Who are you?” and sign allegiance to your career in hopes that it leads to bigger and bolder visions. Hundreds of Beavers is a film that inspired my synapses to fire off every half-minute as a new gag lit up the screen. For as much as I assumed this was a silly, albeit amateurish, production, it ended up being so much more. It was a labor of love whose built-in logic was immaculate. You quickly get over the beaver costumes looking “fake” and soon buy into the Looney Tunes-meets-Guy Maddin madness on display. Even amid the backdrop of a snowy mountain where most of the cinematography is a jarring level of white, you see humanity turn into a cartoon that is as much driven by the juvenilia as it is modern ephemera and classic tropes.
This film reminded me so much of classic Maddin like The Saddest Music in the World (2003) that I was shocked to learn that this was made by some purebred Americans hailing from the northeast. The creators, Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, met at a high school in Wisconsin and things took off from there. Knowing this, the sensibilities begin to make more sense as they share that creative antagonism that only young men truly have. When you’re figuring out who you are, there’s almost a need to act out and do dumb things to cater friendships. Cheslik and Tews seem like great guys if their work is anything to go off of. They seem like the type of nerds who love physical comedy and spent hours fantasizing and storyboarding ideas like this before they could ever afford a camera. Once they could, it felt like all bets were off and soon all they needed was a budget. Following Lake Michigan Monster (2018), made for $7,000, they expanded their vision by asking the all too important question: what if there were HUNDREDS of beavers? I imagine them laughing as they wrote the idea down and set their sights on their Mt. Kilimanjaro. How do you make something of that scope real for a couple hundred grand?
That is the aspiration by which Hundreds of Beavers exists. The title stimulates curiosity as the artwork shows a man sporting a comically mismatched beaver head on his cap. Even in a world of B-Movie blunders, there is the curiosity to see if this is the one that will break the pattern and deliver something of true chutzpah. I won’t suggest that this is necessarily a groundbreaking production, but the lo-fi execution convinces me that these guys are bound for greatness. I always admire somebody who uses their resources effectively, and I think this rivals The People’s Joker (2024) for the most resourceful film of the year. If there are any shortcomings, they’re hidden underneath a barrage of jokes that come quick and often by a cast that works double duty. Given that this story is told through the mold of contemporary silent film with only sound effects and music to go by, it makes the payoff all the more impressive.
What’s impressive is that it isn’t simply a pastiche of yesteryear. Even as it labels Monty Python and Buster Keaton as key influences, they merge the past with the present in unsuspecting ways. At its core, Hundreds of Beavers is a film about murdering beavers in order to acquire trading supplies. There are, of course, endless arrays of conflicts that keep this from being an easy achievement. Much like The Revenant (2014), protagonist Jean Kayak (Tews) is ultimately at war with nature. When the beavers learn of his plan, they attack with endless explosions, bodies flying everywhere, and even bowling. While some of the humor gets a little juvenile, it’s all done with a kindheartedness that keeps the animosity to never ruin the tone. Instead, it’s perfectly wacky and encourages you to wonder how Jean will get out alive. Even the idea of a man being chased by beavers seems funny when there’s karmic undertones to fuel the dash to the finish line.
The third act finds Jean with an ultimate goal that seems untenable. If he can acquire a hundred beavers, then he will receive something coveted that will make his life better. Along with a banjo-driven soundtrack that adds to the comedy, the final third feels like a video game play-through that goes horribly wrong. Whereas most consoles will take the act of accumulation seriously, Cheslik and Tews decide to blow everything up and challenge the absurdity. Even for a film rooted in gravity-defying physics, this element of realism allows the finale to feel curious. Short of turning into Elmer Fudd, Jean wanders around in that cartoonish fashion trying to avoid the perils that he’s learned about. For everything that’s happened to him, there’s admiration that he’s still standing. But alas, the concept of taking down a hundred beavers is a goal nobody would think to achieve after the journey he’s had.
Most of all, I think that Hundreds of Beavers is a film that excels because of its reverence for the format. Even as it plays with the boundaries of silent films, it reveals the ways that modern technique still owe some debt to reveling in the physical. There can be rich emotion in watching a character wander around a largely white backdrop as a man in a beaver costume chases him. It’s absurd and horrifying if taken too literally, but within the realm of cinema it’s irresistible. Even with the accomplished craft of its crew, it has that wondrous eye of guys who spent high school imagining cartoons blowing up. There is so much love put into this that elevates the simple concept into a film that I can only hope resonates as a modern indie comedy classic.
Another reason to love this film is that I think Hundreds of Beavers is conceptually a film that feels out of time. Most contemporary works use physicality different, often questioning where the true lines of violence and humor are. Is there a way to put your characters through the wringer and still have the audience with you? What I’ve discovered is that there are ways. You just need to have the vision necessary to pull it off. You can’t simply be cruel. There must be drive and passion along with a visual creativity that, even on a shoestring of shoestring budgets, shines through.
When I watch this, I recognize the ambitious nature of cinema to be something greater. In a time where a lot of films conform to stuffier and self-aware sensibilities, Hundreds of Beavers reminds us that it’s okay to just laugh and have a good time. It’s not a film just trying to be a throwback. It’s finding ways to incorporate modern concepts to create something richer. Even in an age where people call out cheesy effects for looking fake, I don’t think there’s anyone who’d rationally attack this film for being an outright cartoon. If you do, maybe you’re in more need of a laugh than I am. This is everything that comedy has been missing lately, and I hope Cheslik and Tews’ follow-up will be even bigger and crazier. What’s bigger than hundreds of beavers? I don’t know, but that’s the fun of watching movies.
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