What am I watching? Why are so many people in beaver costumes? Why are they falling down so much and making me laugh. Those were my first thoughts as I skipped around to see if I could even stand this surreal looking living cartoon. I backed down from searching and let it play and got lost in its long run time. A buffoon learns to hunt beavers and other woodland creatures (other animal costumes) in Hundreds of Beavers. Director Mike Cheslik has created a film both cringey, yet, hard to look away as slapstick and potty humor you might find in cartoons is a constant.
At first I denied myself liking it, but I can deny it no longer. It's a funny, stupid movie that just keeps going with its stupid antics and it's long too. But, it's so worth it for the entire tale.
As you slowly, slowly learn to hunt along side the lead, played by too long a name, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews. An idiot, but, our idiot on a not so simple, humbling and heavy learning quest to not just get hundreds of beaver pelts, but revenge and even love. Oh, and a really crazy action sequence and fight scene with beavers.
And once again, those beavers are just dudes dressed in beaver suits...as is most animal life in the film. That's where you might be repulsed and look away. How the director solved his problems for anything looking to funny was to double down on how stupid or ridiculous it looked.
Jokes just keep coming, it's relentless. You could only compare it to a cartoon for the constant visual gags and real poop jokes.
There's too much to like, like how problems are solved in our protagonist's own "special" way. Video game like shops and maps, a pole-dancing shopkeeper daughter. And, of course, a literary detective duo who are beavers.
Props on how inventive every bit of the films is. I hope this is up on streaming and becomes a cult classic. It deserves to be. Just for how much people accidentally fall down in snow and was left in.
Films provided for review online via Fantastic Fest
