In Review: Hundreds of Beavers (12A)

By Tim Robins on August 20, 2024

Review by Tim Robins

Hundreds of Beavers is an entertaining romp through the conventions of slapstick comedy. Shot in black and white, the film will bring back fond memories of watching Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel & Hardy all seen through the lens of Looney Tunes Cartoons.

Funny from the get go, the film starts with its suggestive title and a poster homage to It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). The director and co-writer Mike Cheslik has packed his movie with similarly nostalgic nods by creating a cartoonish world in which carrots carved from wood prove irresistibly tasty to rabbits, and sheets of ice and mimic trains and boats.

The plot follows the travails of entrepreneur Jack Kayak (played by co-writer Ryland Tews), who loses his applejack business in a catastrophic disaster involving a beaver, drunkenness (applejack is a potent drink popular in 19th century America) and Kayak’s own hubris. Concussed and left penniless and, apparently, alone in the wintery wilderness of North America, Kayak turns to trapping the wily wildlife, helped by two seasoned trappers (Wes Tank and Luis Rico).

At a trading post Kayak exchanges animal pelts for money and money for tools to kill more beavers in an ever-escalating battle with the flora and fauna, and eventually falls in love with the tradesman’s coquettish daughter (Olivia Graves. In a move straight out of the playbook of fairy tales, Greek mythology and folklore, the tradesman (Doug Mancheski) offers his daughter’s hand in marriage, but only if Kayak can meet his price – literally hundreds of beavers. Kayak’s task takes him deep into beaver country, where he discovers the industrious creatures have startling, and hitherto unexpected plans for their future.

As Kayak engages in a battle of wits with the wildlife, Cheslik engages in a battle of wits with the audience. This is a knowing film – he knows what we know, and we know what he knows, thanks to our childhood knowledge of the slapstick genre, and suspense and escalation are key components. Every time Kayak wolf-whistles, a woodpecker turns up to peck at his head, a situation Kayak eventually turns to his advantage.

There’s a shot where a peeled banana bkin is placed at the front of the frame. Will it be stepped on and what will be the consequences? Wait and see.

There are also knowing nods to films such as Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) and even the conveyor belt scene in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005), a reminder that although slapstick comedies are rarely made these days, the spirit of slapstick lives on in action movies.

The titular Beavers are played by performers in cartoonish animal costumes, who are, in reality, mascots, that the director bought from a Chinese website. Most of the animals are portrayed the same way (the film is a gift for furries), including a far from convincing and barely functional pantomime horse. This all helps distance ourselves from the onscreen, at times “gorey”, violence. Skinning a racoon and wearing its head as a hat is the kind of joke that is only funny in the world of a cartoon.

The film’s budget was a mere $150,000 and has a charmingly homemade feel about it. The director’s father was brought on board to provide some of the music for the soundtrack. Two years were spent on post-production. The resulting live action cartoon is a charmingly low rent Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and all the more welcome because the much-anticipated release of Coyote vs Acme has been shelved as a tax write off.

Hundreds of Beavers is the kind of film where once you start giggling it’s hard to stop and why would you want to? The lack of dialogue puts a lot of the storytelling on the shoulders of the visuals. They mostly work well in spelling out the hero’s thought process. (I lost track occasionally. I’m still not sure how the hero’s ability to make realistic snow sculptures, his acquisition of two man-traps and Beavers’ attraction to poop came together to form two lethal snow-toilets, but it was fun seeing the result).

Slapstick has been used to address serious issues. Chaplin’s Modern Times has been interpreted as a comedic comment on people’s alienation in the face of industrial capitalism. No such claims can be made of Hundreds of Beavers. All it says is “look at me! Isn’t this funny!” Fortunately, it is.

Tim Robins

• Hundreds of Beavers to Watch At Home on AppleTV and PrimeVideo in the UK | Official web site: hundredsofbeavers.com