Hundreds of Beavers is a 2022 American independentslapstickcomedy film directed by Mike Cheslik in his feature directorial debut, and written by Cheslik and Ryland Tews. The film stars Tews as applejack maker Jean Kayak who, in trying to win the hand of a merchant's daughter, finds himself embroiled in a conflict with beavers.
Cheslik and Tews, who previously collaborated on multiple projects, developed the idea for Hundreds of Beavers in October 2018. The film was shot in black-and-white in rural Wisconsin and Michigan across twelve weeks during the winter of 2019-2020. Editing and post-production were completed in 2022. Produced on a low budget of $150,000, inspiration for the film came from watching comedians such as Abbott and Costello, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and The Three Stooges alongside video games and Let's Play videos.
Hundreds of Beavers premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 29, 2022, and has been met with critical praise and numerous accolades. Multiple outlets have listed the film among the ten best films of the year. Cheslik and Tews rejected the distribution offers made to them due to the limited release schedules and instead self-distributed their film; the original theatrical run grossed more than five times its production budget. It received a video on demand release on April 15, 2024.
Plot
Two beavers sneak into the orchard of successful 19th century applejack salesman Jean Kayak and eat the support beams of his two giant kegs. One rolls away with a drunken Jean not noticing while the second keg rolls down to his house and explodes, destroying his orchard and knocking Jean out. Jean wakes up in winter and repeatedly fails to catch food. He finds a group of beavers collecting logs to build a structure and attacks a pair, but is beaten up by them. He catches fish by making his fingers bleed and using them as lures, and when he sells the fish to a local merchant, he notices a fur trapper turning a large profit.
Jean buys a knife and cuts his shirt into rope. He hunts rabbits and realizes they use a tunnel system. He rigs an exit with the rope and lures them into it, but raccoons eat his catches before he can get to them. He cuts up his pants to hoist the rabbits in the air and out of their reach. Jean catches a raccoon and runs into an Indian Fur Trapper, who trades him snowshoes for the knife, and the merchant's daughter skins the raccoon and makes it into clothing for Jean.
Jean breaks his leg when he falls into a pit made by the trapper, who rescues him and takes him on as his protégé. Wolves start killing the trapper's dogs, and when the pack attacks in full, the trapper gives Jean his trapping guide before being killed. Jean erases it and starts a new guide as he begins to master the area, finding creative ways to trap the area's animals, selling them to the merchant and trading with the Indian Fur Trapper for better gear. He and the merchant's daughter develop a mutual attraction, but the merchant demands hundreds of beavers for her hand in marriage. A pair of beavers styled after Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson begin investigating Jean's traps.
Jean realizes the wolves in the area are hoarding the trapper's large collection of beaver carcasses. When the detectives report back to the beavers, who have built a massive dam, they send a large squadron after Jean. He lures them into the wolf cave and seals the entrance with icicles, allowing the wolves to slaughter them. He brings the bodies back to the merchant's cabin, only for it to be a cardboard cutout made by the detectives, who take the bodies to be buried.
Jean sneaks into the dam, but is eventually caught and put on trial for his beaver killing. He is found guilty and set to be skinned and made into a coat, the same thing having happened to the trapper. Jean narrowly escapes his restraints and beats up the group of beavers trying to kill him. While trying to escape, he notices the beavers building a rocket ship out of one of his kegs. He accidentally pushes a beaver into it, causing it to malfunction and launch in the wrong direction, breaking the dam and creating the Green Bay with the flood.
Jean rolls the bundle of beaver bodies into a snowball, which he rides as the beavers climb on top of each other to form a giant figure and chase him. The Indian Fur Trapper latches onto the rocket with a grappling arrow and launches it at the beavers, destroying the figure. The snowball of hundreds of beaver pelts stops at the merchant's cabin, and Jean is allowed to marry the daughter.
Filmmakers Mike Cheslik and Ryland Tews met at Whitefish Bay High School and came to collaborate on film projects.[3] The duo made Lake Michigan Monster, a black-and-white film that cost $7,000, in 2018.[4][5] The idea for Hundreds of Beavers was created by Cheslik and Tews while at a bar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in October 2018. Cheslik directed, wrote, edited, and created the visual effects for the film while Tews played the lead role.[6] It was originally conceived as a parody film of The Revenant and survival films.[7] The script was a two-page treatment filled in with notecards and gag drawings which Cheslik compared it to the screenwriting techniques of George Miller.[8]
Enough money was raised to film the first act, which was shot over the course of three to four weeks. The footage was then showed to other investors which allowed the rest of the film to be shot.[9] The black-and-white film had a budget of $150,000. It was filmed over the course of twelve weeks by a six-person crew using a Panasonic GH5, which filmed it in 1080p, in winter in 2019 and 2020.[6][4][9][10] The crew stayed at a cabin in Manitowish Waters.[11] Nine weeks of filming was done in Stephenson, Michigan, and the northern Wisconsin towns of Manitowish Waters, Pembine, and Superior.[12][6]
The beaver suits were purchased online from a Chinese mascot website, with the teeth being modified by the filmmakers.[13] Eric West, Daniel Long, Jay Brown, and Mike Wesolowski wore the beaver costumes.[14] Over 1,500 visual effects were made using Adobe After Effects. Editing and post-production took two years to complete.[6][4][10] Tews' father Wayne composed and performed songs for the film.[11] Sound designer Bobb Barito used wooden kazoos, wooden clapper toys, and other wooden objects for the sounds in the film and used audio distortion for scenes including violence as "Violence sounds funniest when it's really distorted".[10]
Cheslik and the producers chose to distribute the film themselves and Kurt Ravenwood oversaw the promotion campaign. They were aided by Jessica Rosner, a former executive at Kino Lorber. It was shown at fourteen independent theaters in the Great Lakes region, including the Music Box Theatre.[19] The filmmakers rejected distribution offers made after festival showings as those plans would only show the film in theaters for a week before sending it to video on demand.[9]
As of November 2024, the film was never shown in more than 33 theaters at once. An encore showing was conducted in around 70 theaters starting on December 5.[24] It was distributed in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom by Lightbulb Film Distribution on July 9.[25] A 35mm print of the film will be shown on February 26, 2025, in Dallas, Texas.[26]
The streaming rights were sold to Cineverse.[27] The film received a video on demand release on April 15, 2024.[28] More than half of the film's box office earnings were made after being released through video on demand.[29] It was released on Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome on January 28, 2025.[14] A special editionVHS version will be released.[26]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 105 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Sustaining a zany premise with stylistic bravura and inspired gags, Hundreds of Beavers is a comedic gem that gives a dam."[30]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, gave the film a score of 82 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[31]
Dennis Harvey, writing for Variety, praised the film's editing as it could "milk every gag without belaboring it," the soundtrack was "equal to the visual imagination on display," and that the "ingeniously home-made lark never runs out of steam."[4]Peter Bradshaw, who gave the film 4 out of 5 stars in The Guardian, praised the "sheer sustained silliness" and the "film's absolute dedication to gag productivity".[32] Nick Schager, writing for The Daily Beast, declared the film "a marvel of slapstick invention" and "an overstuffed live-action homage to the golden age of animation".[33] It received an 8 out of 10 review from FilmInk.[34]
Joseph Johnson, writing for The Harvard Crimson, gave the film 4.5 stars and praised it as "a groundbreaking technical achievement" due to the large amounts of complex animations.[35] Pete Volk, writing for Polygon, praised the film's visuals despite its small budget as it "nevertheless looks better than many modern blockbuster productions".[36]
Matt Zoller Seitz, who gave the film a perfect 4 stars in his RogerEbert.com review and later listed it as the fourth best film of the year, compared its low-budget filmmaking style to Eraserhead, El Mariachi, and the films of Wes Anderson.[37][38] Nick De Semlyen, giving the film 4 out of 5 stars in Empire, compared the film's "wacky wavelength and pure energy" to the early work of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson.[39]Daniel Scheinert praised the film, stating that it "is the key to making theatres fun, and is the future of cinema".[40]
Hundreds of Beavers was listed among the top 10 of the top 50 films of 2024 on Letterboxd[41] and the highest-rated comedy.[42] For 2024, it was listed as the 42nd best film by The Guardian,[43] 3rd best by The A.V. Club,[44] and one of the ten best films by the Los Angeles Times[45] and The Boston Globe.[46] The editors of RogerEbert.com listed it as a runner-up for the ten best films of 2024[47] and Slant Magazine listed it as a runner-up for the 25 best films.[48] It placed 38th in IndieWire's poll of 177 critics.[49]The Boston Globe also gave a special mention to Tews' performance for its critics' selection of the ten best performances of 2024.[50] Film critics Alonso Duralde and Chris Stuckmann both named Hundreds of Beavers the best film of 2024.[51][52]
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