Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hundreds of Beavers’ on Tubi, An Indie Movie/Labor Of Love With The Heart Of A Slapstick Silent Film (And Plenty of Beaver Costumes)

Hundreds of Beavers hits streaming on Tubi after first finding release in 2022 via film festivals and on the screens of independent movie theaters. Director and editor Mike Cheslik wrote Hundreds of Beavers with Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who also stars; Olvia Graves, Wes Tank, Doug Mancheski, and Luis Rico also appear. Beavers appear, too. And rabbits. And raccoons. And wolves. And sled dogs. But these characters, while mischievous as they are sentient, are represented either in cartoon form or as people playing them while dressed up in plushy full-sized costumes. Hundreds of Beavers is kinda strange, kinda random, and often pretty funny, especially as 19th century entrepreneur Jean Kayak (Tews) escalates his battle with the local wildlife. By the time somebody in a beaver suit shows up wearing a deerstalker cap like Sherlock Holmes, you’re either on board with this film, or it’s probably not for you.

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The Gist: “The color is good, we’re all feeling bold, I’m beginning to get that applejack mood!” If only we could stay with the live-action Jean Kayak and his singing animated patrons at his rural brewery and orchard forever. But the beavers in these wintry parts have other ideas. Chewing through the struts on his storage tanks, the wildlife cause a massive calamity, leaving Jean cold and in need of a new line of work. Oh, and he’s hungry. Hungry enough to imagine a bunny – again, it’s a guy in a bunny suit, but we’ll assume you’ve suspended all disbelief – as his next meal. As Jean pictures the rabbit as a turkey leg, or other forest creatures as slices of pepperoni pizza, we were laughing with the ability of Hundreds of Beavers to channel classic cartoons with shameless adoration.

There’s a trading post over yonder, where the merchant (Mancheski) will sell you essentials like  tobacco, an ax, or a length of rope. But he requires beaver pelts for currency, and Jean is sorely lacking. Which is a problem, not only because it’s freezing and he’s without vital resources, but because the merchant’s furrier daughter (Graves) is quite comely.

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Mime, sight gags, physical comedy, and cartoon-live action hybridism are the name of the game in Beavers , which makes up for the dialogue it doesn’t include with lots of sideways tumbles into consequence-free violence and the mounting struggle between Jean and the oh-so-crafty beavers. When silent movie titles do appear, it’s to give Jean an ultimatum. If he wants to win the merchant’s daughter’s hand, he’ll have to amass the largest amount of pelts yet –  hundreds of beavers! But the varmints of the region have other ideas.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The Beaver ? Howabout Zombeavers ? Hundreds of Beavers is neither. It actually feels more akin to the silent film era, especially with its expansive view of risk to life and limb. You could think of Safety Last! , the 1923 Harold Lloyd classic, as an example. At the same time, if the angry rodents in Beavers tied a damsel to train tracks and started twisting their evil mustaches, we wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Performance Worth Watching: Shout-out to the editing and visual effects, all handled in-house by Hundreds of Beavers filmmaker Mike Cheslik. Whether it’s the way live-action mixes easily with animation throughout, exclamation points superimposed above the heads of actors in mascot-style rabbit costumes, Jean Kayak fashioning a trap that would make Wile E. Coyote proud, or the full processing of a fake raccoon carcass down to entrails that resemble novelty snakes, the frenetic visuals in Beavers always keep the action moving along at a delightfully wacky pace.

Memorable Dialogue: Hundreds of Beavers is largely dialogue free, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a script. You’ve got prompts like [Jean grunting], [Jean laughing], [Jean surprised]. You have your music cues, such as (romantic orchestral music) and (dark orchestral music). And you’ve got plenty of nonverbal expression that goes a long way toward exposition.

Sex and Skin: None. Well, that’s not exactly true. Like during one of his mishaps, when Jean Kayak ends up naked, resulting in a series of gags where his naughty bits are obscured by tree branches and beaver pelts.

Our Take: Is Hundreds of Beavers bound to become a classic in our new age of legalized cannabis? It’s not a stoner movie, per se. There is no Harold & Kumar -style exultation of reefer, though there is an entire sequence about the fun of getting blitzed on boozy applejack, complete with a rousing match of beer applejack pong. Instead, Beavers is great at escalating its strangeness in new and unexpected ways. In a film with no tangible spoken dialogue, that takes place mostly in a forest or field resplendent in winter white, it takes strange turns into dark whimsy, comedy with cartoon murder on its mind – think icicles as projectiles – or the province of fables from centuries past. Not all of it works, but it’s always inventive, and it’s often a visual treat, especially as Jean Kayak comes into contact with a malicious group of toothy rodents intent on turning his hide into a trenchcoat. Stoner movies are famous for their catchphrases. But with Hundreds of Beavers , maybe the takeaway for our culture will be an upswing in grandiose pantomime.

Our Call: Stream it? We’ll say Stream It. But hey, that’s us. And we grew up loving Tom & Jerry in its violent cartoon era, and random snippets of silent movies. Hundreds of Beavers is a fun feat of filmmaking that feels superficially like a lark but is also happily deeper than that. You know, like a hole in the ice obscured by snow.

Johnny Loftus ( @glennganges ) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

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