Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Hundreds of Beavers

Today, Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post forages into... the unknown.

Into the wilderness.

Into a cold, brutal place.

Against a vast and dangerous enemy.

Today's post is about a 2022 movie that chronicles the efforts of one man to survive against the threat of....

HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS!!!!

WARNING! This movie is weird! 

• It's in black and white.
• There's no spoken dialogue. (Jean grunts, moans and screams in pain but otherwise does not speak.)  
• While mostly live action, there is frequent use of animation to move things along.
• And all the critters in this movie (including the beavers) are just people in critter costumes.

You have been warned.  

In the late 19th century in the frozen frontier of Wisconsin, Jean Kayak is doing pretty well for himself as a seller of applejack.  

HEY KIDS! Let's learn something! 

Applejack is a strong alcoholic drink produced from apples. Popular in the American colonial era, the drink's prevalence declined in the 19th and 20th centuries amid competition from other spirits. Applejack is used in several cocktails, including the Jack Rose.It is a type of fruit brandy.

Men from all around, hunters, trappers and farmers, love Jean Kayak's Applejack and he's making a good living while enjoying the product himself but...

Beavers.   

A beaver eats through the support strut holding up a giant keg of applejack which falls into a fire and explodes. The explosion destroys Jean's entire supply of Applejack, all of his apple trees and his home.  

Jean Kayak is alone in a cold unforgiving wilderness with only the clothes on his back.

Which he will lose.  

Jean tries to catch various critters for food using a variety of outlandish lures and traps but they do not work and mostly Jean winds up getting hurt and humiliated as the critters constantly thwart him.

(Think Coyote Vs. Road Runner) 

One bit has Jean creating big female snow bunnies complete with snow breasts to lure male rabbits. Two male rabbits walk by, turn to show they are holding hands and walk on. 

Female snow rabbits not their thing. 

Jean does make some human connections: a merchant and his comely daughter who knows how to skin and gut critters. (She makes him a new set of clothes from raccoons because by this point, the hapless Jean is completely naked.)

And Jean meets a trapper who is really good at his job and becomes a mentor to Jean. 

With the motivation of a woman he loves and the tutelage of the experienced trapper, Jean Kayak gets better at outwitting and outfighting beavers.  

But the beavers are not to be trifled with either. Inside their ever expanding dam, they've built a massive factory and a rocket ship and if none of (Wait! Rocket ship? Yep, rocket ship. Please try to keep up) and if none of that makes any sense to you, well, sorry but that's the kind of movie this is and you should just go with the flow as Jean faces off against many, many beavers.

One might say..... HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS!!!!

So Hundreds Of Beavers is a movie that exists.

And who the hell came up with this?!?!

Mike Cheslik and Ryland Tews, friends since their days at Whitefish Bay High School, came up with the idea while at a bar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in October 2018. Cheslik directed, wrote, edited, and created the visual effects for the film while Tews co-wrote the film and played the role of Jean Kayak.  

Funding was pieced together from a variety of sources and the film was shot with a budget of $150,000 over the winter in 2019 and 2020.

The beaver suits were purchased online from a Chinese mascot website, with the teeth being modified by the filmmakers

For a brief take on what the hell this movie is like, here is a clip of the big brawl between Jean Kayak and the beavers.

Or if you wanna watch the whole damn strange thing, click here while Hundreds Of Beavers is still on You Tube.

The movie is also on Amazon Prime.  

Does Hundreds Of Beavers count as a Christmas holiday movie? There is a graphic while Jean is hanging with the trapper that tells us it's December 31st and by this point, Jean has been out in the snowy wilderness a long time so I guess December 25th comes and goes while Jean is dealing with the beavers. 

There's even a few holiday themed tunes heard on the soundtrack so yeah, it can count as a holiday film.   

So if your friends are debating what to watch and one of them says "I wanna watch a movie with beavers!"

And you say, "You wanna watch a movie with a beaver?"

And they reply, "Fuck no! Beavers! Lots of beavers!" 

"Maybe a dozen beavers?" you suggest and your friend replies, "Fuck NO! I wanna see HUNDREDS of beavers!!!"

Then Hundreds Of Beavers just might be the movie for you.