Slapstick comedy has never been my preferred mode of humour. “Too obvious!” “Too expected!” “Too on-the-nose,” I’d wail as a dude slips on a banana peel and falls, face first, into a pie. My style of humour was that of ‘Kids in the Hall’, or more recently ‘Broad City’ or Tim Robinson’s ‘I Think You Should Leave’. Humour that slyly sneaks up on you, perhaps with wordplay or simply an absurd premise, and gives you something wholly surreal and unexpected in a hilarious way. 

Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews’ Hundreds of Beavers is openly, lovingly, unapologetically slapstick. And, like Carol says in her review from Fantasia last year, “is stuffed with silly slapstick bits of all kind—from physical humor to the scatological.” Its humour is on its sleeve and is obvious enough that it still hits for me, even without the benefit of much dialogue. An exclamation point above the head of a startled rabbit, realized as a kind of sports team mascot, tells you everything you need to know. And, somehow, I love it for many, many reasons. 

Hundreds of Beavers tells the story of Jean Kayak, a pioneer-era woodsman and applejack (read: alcoholic apple cider) brewer. Jean, unfortunately, gets a little too high on his own supply and manages to blow up both his applejack stock and the orchard and brewing equipment he relied on for income. Waking up alone in the frigid winter with nothing more than the clothes on his back, Jean must do what he can to survive the cold. In his quest for food, Jean encounters and tries to trap and kill several animals, including rabbits, fish, raccoons, and yes, beavers. We follow Jean as he works his way up the food chain and a progression of successes and failures, working towards a goal of not just surviving but thriving in the frozen wilderness. 

Despite being rooted in silent film aesthetics and traditions, the structures within Hundreds Of Beavers are fairly modern. While on the surface it looks and plays out like a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon come (partly) to life, there’s also an underlying foundation of video gameyness in its presentation. For much of the film, especially as Jean develops his ‘trap line’ (a sequence of increasingly-elaborate traps meant to rack up beaver pelts), it feels as though we’re watching a not-especially-skilled video game player figure out how to solve a particular problem through trial-and-error. Like many games from Zelda to Fallout, Jean’s map expands and becomes more complex as he discovers new locations and unlocks new abilities, and it’s very satisfying that the film’s internal logic has Jean returning to these locations. I love when a movie is internally consistent, even when that consistency comes in the form of “hey, he’s back at that hill where he built the giant decoy carrot!” An ever-increasing count, a high score perhaps, of dead beavers helps you keep track of how close Jean is to the ‘hundreds’ he needs to accomplish his goal.  For much of its runtime, it feels like Hundreds of Beavers is so much like a video game that it should be streamed on Twitch.              

A key part of Jean’s progression through the game of wilderness survival is the store, to which Jean returns throughout the film as one would in a game like Metal Gear. The store, run by The Merchant (Doug Mancheski) contains useful items of different prices that are ‘unlocked’ as Jean obtains money and pelts, while also signifying key changes in Jean himself. Jean starts out with a comically-small knife which he immediately uses to attempt to commit seppuku out of sheer despair, before thinking better of it and trading it to an indigenous trapper (Luis Rico) for snowshoes to better traverse the snowy landscape. As he gains some small bit of confidence in his abilities to trick and trap his buck-toothed nemeses, Jean uses the barter system along with a small bit of ingenuity and luck to eventually purchase ropes (handy for when you don’t want to cut up your clothes), bear traps, a gun, and perhaps an engagement ring from the surly but tender merchant. 

Also located at the store is the merchant’s daughter, the mildly-twisted Furrier (Olivia Graves). She captures Jean’s heart very quickly, after bonding over beaver entrails*. She represents the princess (in another castle?) and the ultimate goal for our hero, but is herself highly capable and a tiny bit mischievous. However, her hand in marriage is locked behind the ability for Jean to win an engagement ring from her father, the merchant. The ring can only be obtained in exchange for “hundreds” of beaver pelts which, while highly problematic and transactional, at least shows that the merchant values his daughter highly. And so the game is afoot, as Jean leverages his newly-developed trap line and the knowledge he’s gained from his trial-and-error attempts against the beavers to win the hand of his betrothed.  

Like every great video game, there’s satisfaction to be found when Jean completes an objective and finally develops a complex Rube-Goldberg trap after trying and failing so many times. It’s these attempts that remind me the most of a video game experience – specifically, watching someone try and try at a particular sequence or level and being frustrated on their behalf each time. But Hundreds of Beavers also taps into the humour of that situation. After a while, watching the exact same sequence play out with only iterative improvements blows past frustrating and straight into hilarious territory. I haven’t yet had the chance to watch the film with a real audience in a theatre (though I hope to rectify that soon) but I did watch it with my kids who hooted and hollered at the screen, chastising or giving tips to Jean like they were watching sports or a playthrough of Minecraft. Hundreds of Beavers ended up being one of the most fun movie nights we’ve had in a while, and is almost certainly an absolute riot with a big crowd, especially those screenings where Cheslik and Tews show up with an army of beavers to crash the party. 

In the final boss fight of the game, er, movie,  Jean must infiltrate a beaver dam that we catch glimpses of throughout Hundreds of Beavers, slowly being constructed by the industrious beavers like a wooden Death Star. I’m reminded of one of Bowser’s palaces in the Mario games or the elaborate and frustrating scenes in Castlevania as Jean dodges obstacles on his way to obtain the pelts he needs to win Olivia’s heart. But in a sequence that never happens in video games, Jean is caught by his flat-tailed foes and put on trial in what would be described as a kangaroo court, if there were any kangaroos and not beavers present. In a refreshing change to the formula we’ve seen in countless ‘man vs wild’ movies, Elmer Fudd cartoons, and similar media, the beavers and other wildlife portrayed in Hundreds of Beavers are the exact kind of assholes, both to Jean and each other, that you don’t mind seeing get theirs in the end. You are, or at least I am, rooting for Jean to succeed, which is a major storytelling feat for Cheslik and Tews to pull off.

There’s an infectious DIY charm to Hundreds of Beavers. For a movie on a limited budget and with limited resources, it cuts no corners**. It’s the kind of movie that so clearly came together in the frosty wilderness of northern Wisconsin out of sheer will and vision from the team behind it, including director and co-writer Cheslik, co-writer and star Tews, stunt choreographer Jon Truei, cinematographer Quinn Hester, and a cast of beaver costume-clad devotees that are game for anything. Scenes like Jean Kayak making several attempts to attack the beavers via reckless tackles that wouldn’t be out of place on a middle school playground, only to have the shit beaten out of him, seem like they were a blast to shoot. They remind me of the best kind of pro wrestling, and not just because watching the film with any sort of audience is a participatory experience akin to cheering or booing wrestling matches. When Hundreds of Beavers or a pro wrestling match or character is at its best, it’s unapologetically silly and aware of itself, but is also willing to commit and take the conceit to its (il)logical end. It goes all in on the bit. While Hundreds of Beavers may not necessarily inspire me to seek out Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton movies, it’s taught me how to appreciate silents and slapstick. With it’s homemade charm, off-kilter quirks, and a sense of intriguing danger, Hundreds of Beavers is like a refreshing chug of Jean Kayak’s applejack.

*this scene is like grisly body horror rendered in plush, and I have not stopped thinking about it.

**I dare say that Hundreds of Beavers would be a lesser experience with a bigger budget.

Hundreds of Beavers is currently in theatres, with a home release scheduled for “sometime in April.” Check out the film’s official website for showtimes, and please read Carol’s review of the film from Fantasia last year and her interview with fight choreographer and secret beaver, Jon Truei.

Sachin Hingoo will never look at My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’s Applejack the same way again.