Hundreds of Beavers

Hundreds of Beavers is the true story of the formation of Green Bay in Lake Michigan on the eastern side of Wisconsin, as well as the inspiring tale of North America's greatest fur trapper, a man known as Jean Kayak, as he embarks on a perilous quest to defeat hundreds of beavers, all in an effort to win the hand of his true love.

Once known as Jersey Lightning, Applejack is an Apple-based brandy first produced in colonial New Jersey in 1698 by a Scotsman by the name of William Laird. Years later, in the state of Wisconsin, an addiction to that evil devil apple juice destroys the life of Applejack Salesman Jean Kayak.

Penniless, with nothing to his name, and clad in only his long underwear, Jean Kayak must carve a new life out of the frozen Wisconsin wilderness with only his bare hands. But his efforts are continually thwarted at every turn by the forest’s population of beavers and raccoons, as well as a few ducks, a bunch of rabbits, and one violent woodpecker. Also, wolves ate his dogs one by one, and his best buddy too, the man who was teaching him how to be a trapper.

Despite these set-backs, Jean Kayak refuses to be deterred, and eventually, he becomes the greatest fur trapper in North America.

His slow climb to success leads Jean Kayak to his true love, the local sexy furrier girl, who was more than willing to show him a little ankle, despite the fact that her father, who runs the local trading post, hates Jean. And because he hates Jean, in order for Jean to win the sexy furrier girl’s hand in marriage, her father demands the steep price of one hundred beaver pelts.

Jean is more than willing to take this task on. Not only is the sexy furrier girl his one true love, but he also remembers all the trouble the local beavers gave him as he was working to become a famous trapper. But unfortunately, this quest, and its resulting massacre of beavers, causes him to run afoul with the beaver community. They not only steal his pile of pelts, and arrest Jean in a very clever trap, but they also take him back to their massive Beaver-built wooden fortress and put him on beaver trial for multiple counts of beaver murder.

Jean Kayak has no choice but to fight his way free.

A live action Looney Toons starring an abused Daffy Duck-ian hero, in a world where the laws of physics rarely apply, all while being an indictment of the beaver trapping industry of the mid-1800s that decimated the beaver population of North America, Hundreds of Beavers is simply hilarious.

Peak goofball cinema.

But to be fair, this film is also probably one of those cinematic experiences that is best seen with a boozed-up and ready to party midnight audience, so it's probably a good idea to have a couple of good gummies before settling in.

But also to be fair, while light on dialogue, heavy on slapstick, and featuring a bunch of video game style action rendered in what is obviously the cheapest special effects that a handful of pocket change can buy, despite the fact that at first glance, this film appears to just be the result of some most likely drunk Wisconsin dudes running around the woods with a camera while dressed as furries, Hundreds of Beavers is actually a lot more clever than you’d expect.

It really is a live-action Looney Tunes.

Writer, director, editor, and apparently even the film’s main visual effects artist, Mike Cheslik, only had a budget of about $150,000, most of which probably went into the construction of the various animal costumes. Due to this general lack of available resources, they clearly decided to just lean into it, taking a page from such classic comedies as Monty Python and the Holy Grail—where the sound of the horses’ hooves were done with coconut halves most likely brought to set by a few swallows of indeterminate origin—as well as the kind of old cartoons where if character is dead, their eyes turn into Xs.

It embraces its unavoidable silliness.

This approach shows a sophisticated understanding of the inevitable end result of his project, which is something so many low budget genre filmmakers never seem to get. The simple fact is, when you have so little money and resources available, your film is not only not going to look real, it’s probably not even going to look good. You just can't afford it to, so… Cheslik obviously decided not to worry about it. That he never tries to hide this fact means that the film really isn't hurt by the obviousness of its own limitations. This is good, because it’s always obvious that this movie was made with almost no money. Always.

It also doesn't hurt that Hundreds of Beavers is really funny too.

Of course, as soon as a fun movie like this is made on such a shoestring budget, filmheads out there will get all puffed up and start strutting around, proclaiming that cheap films like this are the future of cinema, because they want to poo-poo Hollywood for indie cred, but they're full of shit. Hundreds of Beavers is not the future of cinema. Not at all. Make no mistake, Hundreds of Beavers is definitely a very entertaining and funny film, but as much of a good time as it is, it's a one-off. You’re not going to want to watch a bunch of films like this.

The novelty is part of the charm.

All that aside, this film is definitely worth watching though, especially if you enjoy Looney Tunes And Daffy Duck, which I do.

Come for a classic story of true love and it's myriad pratfalls, not to mention a shocking glimpse of stocking, and stay to see a guy rip a beaver’s skeleton right out of its big furry body, not to mention a pretty cool high-speed toboggan chase done in the style of a lo-fi version of the Speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi too.

In the end, Hundreds of Beavers might be a little long, but it’s also a semi-silent black and white live action cartoon about one man’s outright war against nature, that ends with him fighting a massive Beaver-Voltron, so… it kind of feels like traditional complaints are just a waste of time, right?

I mean, what exactly are you looking for when you turn on a movie like this?

Because let me assure you, if you’re looking for the classic story of Man vs Beaver… hundreds and hundreds of Beavers… then Hundreds of Beavers will most certainly deliver.