Only one reason to see HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS: it's THAT Funny!

Mar 31

Mar 31 Only one reason to see HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS: it's THAT Funny!

Recently, it has been an experience of firsts. For starters, it has been the first that “beavers” have popped up in my research queue. Thanks to very helpful websites like the Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conversation Biology Institute, I now know that beavers have orange teeth and they slap their tail in the water when there’s danger. Even more amusing, a couple of weeks ago was the first time that I would participate in covering a movie premiere as beaver mascots frolicked around me. As strange and bizarre Los Angeles can be, I bet even some of the Thursday night commuters fighting through traffic on the street were wildly curious what the beaver mascots were doing along the sidewalk.

The reason for the beaver madness was the west coast premiere of “HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS.” It is a silent movie-ish (there are some sound effects) slapstick comedy movie of one plucky man versus nature.

“
In this silent supernatural epic, a drunken applejack salesman is thrust into the frigid wilderness. Can he go from zero to hero, become North America’s Greatest fur trapper, and defeat Hundreds of Beavers?
”

— HUNDREDS OF BEAVER SNYOPSIS

Right from the first second of the trailer, immediate connections to the silent movie comedy greats like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are made. Then in the very next, it’s on a whole different level. This indie movie used the beautiful nature of Wisconsin and Michigan as their set while they tested the patience of friends wearing beaver mascot outfits to film a movie in sub zero weather that contained stunts like walking around with barely any clothing and rolling down cliffs. After dealing with low visibility from the mascots to frostbite, it was all worth it to have the audience absolutely clutching their sides from laughing so hard.

“HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS” is really the most cathartic movie to just relax and laugh. For all of the stress and chaos of living just life, a good two hours of the freedom to just laugh at someone getting pecked in the face with a woodpecker puppet is just necessary for mental health. For anyone who has grown up with or absolutely cherish the comedy of Looney Tunes and Animaniacs, this move will tickle that familiar funny bone.

But if one wanted to analyze it, there is plenty to dig into. The production alone is absolutely fascinating. The movie is produced so smoothly that one would never know that it was due to the tremendous effort of the crew. There was the massive under taking of the storyboarding effort, lugging all of the equipment, and the pure dedication of friends. After four years of filming and producing the movie, there must be hours of behind the scene stories. Please let this movie be distributed with commentary bonus features!

The physical comedy is hilarious, the animation is quirky, but the most charming part of the movie are the puppet props. Balancing out the loud parts of physical comedy and surprise (but mesmerizing) pole dancing, there are bits of the movie that are squishy and adorable. These little pieces add even more of a cartoonish charm to the movie. Of all of the pieces in the movie, the fish puppet and racoon guts were the most stand delightful. These stuffed pieces starred in a short scenes but they delivered buckets of comedic timing and emotion. CGI and special effects are wonderful but I'm of the generation that grew up with Barney and the Muppets. Puppets will always be cool and absolutely fascinating.

The ones responsible for spreading the beaver fever are Mike Cheslik (Writer, Director, Editor, VFX) and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (Main Star, Writer, and Producer). These two had to wear many beaver hats to create and produce a movie that contained over 1500 visual effects. The two had already produced their first feature, “LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER”, in 2018 so they were not complete rookies in the movie industry. May “HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS” gain even more attention to this duo as the world needs more of their humor and skills.

Watching “HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS” is definitely a cascading effect. A few people will see it, they laugh their guts off. Then those few people will tell their own friends who will watch the movie themselves and will immediately tell their friends . Those friends will be skeptical until they start bursting out laughing and then they will tell their own friends. The “you gotta see this!” is an enough of a reason to trudge through traffic, find parking, and watch the movie in a movie theater. Just like the engineering beavers have shown us, it just just takes one stick to grow a dam to a multi floored castle complete with chainsaws and a courtroom. That’s what beavers do, right?!