An early draft of this post was originally published on May 20, 2024,
at Give Me Some Light on Substack, months before it appeared here.
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My story begins with a movie trailer.
I had stumbled onto the promo for Hundreds of Beavers on YouTube, and it made me laugh. Then it made laugh again. I leaned forward, intrigued. Somebody had gone to a lot of work to create startling images while also adhering to strict limitations. Who would do this? Who would go to the trouble to dress up actors in goofy animal costumes—costumes that might be mascots for a high-school football tournament featuring the Rabbits, the Raccoons, the Wolves, and, of course, the Beavers—and film a live-action Looney Toons cartoon in a snowbound forest?
I might have chuckled and turned the thing off, but the rapid-fire blasts of slapstick accelerated in ambition and ingenuity. And the range of scenarios flashing past suggested that this just might be as epic as Mad Max: Fury Road. Surely nobody could sustain this kind of high-speed madness into a feature-length film!
But then, those blasts were punctuated with brief blurbs from rave reviews — reviews from credible sources!
Once in a while, a sort of sixth sense triggers a sense of caution in me: Stop reading about this movie. This might be one of those rare occasions when you get to witness something unprecedented without any surprises spoiled beforehand. This might be one of those times where the less you know, the better the experience.
I made a mental note: I had to check this out. But when would I get a chance?
While I skipped detailed reviews, I started keeping watch over local film calendars. Where and when would this mystery movie surface? Months passed, and I found very few mentions of the film—like faint traces of frantic fiddle tunes popping up between stations on a static-fuzzy radio. I wrote to my friend Melissa Tamminga, director of the excellent Pickford Cinema Center in Bellingham, Washington, and one of my favorite film critics. Lo—she, too, was tracking it. And it didn’t take long for her to send me an alert: She was bringing it to the Pickford for a couple of days, and the screenings were selling out fast. Word was spreading. I seized two tickets.
So, in March, my friend Kirk and I took a road trip from Seattle north to the Pickford. We didn’t know what to expect in terms of an audience. Would we make a bunch of new friends, other adventurers who had been similarly intrigued? We didn’t have to wait long to get our answer. Soon, we were standing in line with a crowd so animated that you’d think they were getting an advanced screening of… well, since I mentioned Fury Road, let’s say Furiosa. Or, better yet… Furry-osa?
Tamminga mingled with the enthusiastic moviegoers before the show, wishing us well. She’d already seen the movie; she knew what we were about to witness/discover/suffer. Those paying attention may have noticed that little cut-out beaver faces were grinning at them from hiding places on every movie poster in the lounge. There was a sense in the lobby that something life-altering was about to take place.
And then it did. Here’s my review…
First, you’re laughing. It’s silly.
Then, you begin to realize the staggering amount of planning, the insane amount of belief and conviction, the stamina and the belief that must have been required to accomplish this. Director Mike Cheslik and his co-writer and star Ryland Brickson Cole Tews are mad geniuses.
And then, you’re laughing again.
Then, good lord… you start wishing for a lull, a break, a breather.
But, no. It’s just getting started. This is the epic story set in a frozen Wisconsin of the 19th Century, where Jean Kayak, a well-established brewer of applejack, loses the farm in a catastrophic accident triggered by a beaver. Ruined, Kayak struggles to survive in a winter wonderland that seems cursed to taunt and torment him. What unfolds is sort of like a satirical remake of The Revenant — and I dare say that I enjoyed this film much, much more than that one. I doubt that Leonardo DiCaprio suffered half as much in his Oscar-winning turn as Tews must have suffered here to play out all of these accelerated, acrobatic antics in the snow.
The less I say about what happens from there, the better. Suffice it to say that Kayak’s adventures involve working out ways to survive the winter, carry out elaborate revenge, and eventually win the hand of a beautiful furrier (a woman with hidden talents) from her father, a hard-bargaining merchant. But I’m barely scratching the surface of this frozen wilderness full of surprises.
Hundreds of Beavers just keeps going, to greater and greater extremes of invention, denser and denser layers of recurring gags. Watching madman Cheslik’s movie unfold feels like watching a high-speed juggler who continues to add increasingly unwieldy items to his act until you’re mesmerized, frustrated, even a little scared… and then it goes on for hours so that you’re actively wishing for him to drop something, even as you want to see just how far he can push the ambition.
You start getting tired.
But then you’re laughing again.
Eventually, you’re exhausted. The momentum is taxing, the acrobatic physical comedy belief-beggaring. You start to wonder if slapstick absurdism like this should ever be extended into a feature-length film. You wonder if you’ll make it to the end. Is that getting close? Surely it’s been almost two hours. You check your phone.
You’re only 50 minutes in. This film is an hour and forty-five minutes long.
You decide that this was a mistake.
But the row of sky-high college kids in the row in front of you are laughing like they might have permanently lost their minds. They’re spilling beer on each other, fumbling under the seats for the phones and wallets they keep dropping. They seem to think that the theater is the movie lounge in their dormitory. They’re shrieking, screaming with laughter. One of them has come out of his chair. He might be weeping. Some of them are in beaver costumes. They seem like they’re an extension of the onscreen chaos. Could they be members of the crew, still working for Cheslik? I wouldn’t put it past him.
You realize that you are witnessing a landmark cinematic event: the arrival of an undeniable cult classic, a film people will dare each other to watch until 4 a.m. as a sort of self-torture… and love it. It is an all-consuming mania, a machine of unhinged fantasy that catapults you into altered states even if you never partook of the edibles.
And then you’re laughing again.
You wonder if this is the kind of movie that gives people seizures. You might, in fact, be having one.
Hours later, you’re lying awake. Your eyes are closed, but the movie is still playing in your brain. Beavers. Beavers… everywhere.
Kirk and I tried to find words to sum up our experience on the long drive home, which was just as long as the movie itself. We failed.
I might love it. I barely survived it. I’m deeply scarred by it. I don’t know if I could ever sit through it again.
But I know this: I want to have more of whatever these filmmakers have that made them capable of achieving something so singular, so sustained, so ambitious, so insane.
2024 is turning into the Year of the Anti-Blockbuster. It’s become a festival of movies made with unconventional methods, a lot of low-budget ingenuity, and an obvious passion for their risky ideas. And I can’t get enough of it. Riddle of Fire, Love Lies Bleeding, Gasoline Rainbow… these are movies that keep me on the edge of my seat with that rare joy of discover. I can tell the filmmakers love movies as much or more than I do, and that they love what they’re doing. Hundreds of Beavers is one of those movies.
I highly recommend that you give it a chance, even if you’ve missed out on your opportunities to see this with a roaring crowd. But know this: Hundreds of Beavers is a movie that must be watched uninterrupted if you’re going to appreciate it properly. Watching it with your phone in hand, or at home where other things are happening, you will not suffer it the way we all should suffer it to experience the rollercoaster of amazement, exasperation, exhaustion, and then new highs of incredulity.
It may not be your thing. But I suspect that it will impress upon you just how lazy, how routine, how unimaginative most contemporary comedies really are. Cheslik, Tews, and company approached this project as if they were competing for an Olympic event, aiming to set an unmatchable record in a sport of their own invention. I still don’t know what I think of it, but I surrender. Give them the gold.
Hundreds of Beavers is currently streaming free of charge for subscribers to Hoopla. (Check your local public library to see if they offer access.) It’s also streaming for a bargain rental price on Amazon and other streaming services.