Something you can’t do in Hollywood is pitch a story about an applejack salesman stuck in the frigid Canadian winter who must fight — wait for it — hundreds of beavers, without expecting to be laughed out of the room.
What you can do, however, is gain $150,000 from independent investors, film in the subzero Michigan and Wisconsin snow, purchase mascot costumes from China and spend five years creating and distributing a comedy masterpiece that ends up making almost seven times its budget at the box office.
This is what director Mike Cheslik did with his 2022 slapstick flick “Hundreds of Beavers,” which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi. The film finds Jean Kayak (Ryland Tews), the aforementioned applejack salesman, struggling to survive after his home was destroyed by two unruly, foundation-chomping beavers. He eventually falls for the daughter of a local merchant, but Jean is only allowed her hand in marriage if he brings the merchant the pelts of those dastardly beavers.
After suffering through dozens of gags, including regular beatings from the beavers, Jean’s survival skills increase exponentially. His innovative traps and methods of hunting result in a video game-inspired run of scenes that make you wonder why such a game doesn’t exist yet. It also creates some of the most organically hysterical situations I’ve ever seen, and that’s not just because it was one in the morning when I watched this.
The film is like watching an early SpongeBob episode, a Looney Tunes cartoon and a Charlie Chaplin bit all at once. But it’s also completely original. If you can find me another movie where a high court of beavers sentences a fur trapper to death in their beaver castle before his daring escape, where they then turn into a Megazord-like amalgam to chase him down, I’d love to see it. Fortunately, one such film already exists. It also contains no dialogue and is filmed in black-and-white. Besides some French-Canadian spoken by a beaver lawyer during a key prosecution scene, this film is pretty much entirely wordless. Instead, its ingenious and cartoonish sound effects are a huge part of why it’s so hilarious.
“Hundreds of Beavers” isn’t just a crowning achievement of comedy — it’s a testament to how independent cinema can thrive when given the proper attention. I wonder how many more films out there, just like this one, haven’t gotten the same recognition. Probably hundreds.
