| Hundreds of Beavers | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Mike Cheslik |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Quinn Hester |
| Edited by | Mike Cheslik |
| Music by | Chris Ryan |
| Distributed by | Cineverse Vinegar Syndrome |
Release dates |
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Running time | 108 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $150,000 |
| Box office | $1.144 million[1][2] |
Hundreds of Beavers is a 2022 Americanindependentslapstickcomedy film directed by Mike Cheslik in his feature directorial debut, and written by Cheslik and Ryland Tews. Theblack-and-white film stars Tews asapplejack maker Jean Kayak who, in trying to win the hand of a merchant's daughter, finds himself embroiled in a conflict with beavers.
Cheslik and Tews, who previously collaborated on multiple projects, developed the idea forHundreds of Beavers in October 2018. The film was shot in rural Wisconsin and Michigan across twelve weeks during the winter of 2019–2020. Editing and post-production were completed in 2022. Produced on alow budget of $150,000, inspiration for the film came from watching comedians such asAbbott and Costello,Buster Keaton,Charlie Chaplin, andThe Three Stooges alongside video games andLet's Play videos.
Hundreds of Beavers premiered atFantastic Fest on September 29, 2022, and has been met with critical praise and numerous accolades. Multiple outlets have listed the film among the ten best films of the year. Cheslik and Tews rejected the distribution offers made to them due to the limited release schedules and instead self-distributed their film; the original theatrical run grossed more than six times its production budget. It received avideo on demand release on April 15, 2024.
Two beavers sneak into the orchard of successful 19th-centuryapplejack salesman Jean Kayak and eat the support beams of his two giantkegs. One rolls away with a drunken Jean not noticing while the second keg rolls down to his house and explodes, destroying his orchard and knocking Jean out. Jean wakes up in winter and repeatedly fails to catch food. He finds a group of beavers collecting logs to build a structure and attacks a pair, but is beaten up by them. He catches fish by making his fingers bleed and using them as lures, and when he sells the fish to a local merchant, he notices afur trapper turning a large profit.
Jean buys a knife and cuts his shirt into rope. He hunts rabbits and realizes they use a tunnel system. He rigs an exit with the rope and lures them into it, but raccoons eat his catches before he can get to them. He cuts up his pants to hoist the rabbits in the air and out of their reach. Jean catches a raccoon and runs into an Indian Fur Trapper, who trades himsnowshoes for the knife, and the merchant's daughter skins the raccoon and makes it into clothing for Jean.
Jean breaks his leg when he falls into a pit made by the trapper, who rescues him and takes him on as his protégé. Wolves start killing the trapper's dogs, and when the pack attacks in full, the trapper gives Jean his trapping guide before being killed. Jean erases it and starts a new guide as he begins to master the area, finding creative ways to trap the area's animals, selling them to the merchant and trading with the Indian Fur Trapper for better gear. He and the merchant's daughter develop a mutual attraction, but the merchant demands hundreds of beavers for her hand in marriage. A pair of beavers styled afterSherlock Holmes andDr. Watson begin investigating Jean's traps.
Jean realizes the wolves in the area are hoarding the trapper's large collection of beaver carcasses. When the detectives report back to the beavers, who have built a massive dam, they send a large squadron after Jean. He lures them into the wolf cave and seals the entrance with icicles, allowing the wolves to slaughter them. He brings the bodies back to the merchant's cabin, only for it to be a cardboard cutout made by the detectives, who take the bodies to be buried.
Jean sneaks into the dam, but is eventually caught and put on trial for his beaver killing. He is found guilty and set to be skinned and made into a coat, the same thing having happened to the trapper. Jean narrowly escapes his restraints and beats up the group of beavers trying to kill him. While trying to escape, he notices the beavers building a rocket ship out of one of his kegs. He accidentally pushes a beaver into it, causing it to malfunction and launch in the wrong direction, breaking the dam and creating theGreen Bay with the flood.
Jean rolls the bundle of beaver bodies into a snowball, which he rides as the beavers climb on top of each other to form a giant figure and chase him. The Indian Fur Trapper latches onto the rocket with a grappling arrow and launches it at the beavers, destroying the figure. The snowball of hundreds of beaver pelts stops at the merchant's cabin, and Jean is allowed to marry the merchant's daughter.
Filmmakers Mike Cheslik and Ryland Tews met atWhitefish Bay High School and came to collaborate on film projects.[3] The duo madeLake Michigan Monster, ablack-and-white film that cost $7,000, in 2018.[4][5] The idea forHundreds of Beavers was created by Cheslik and Tews while at a bar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in October 2018. Cheslik directed, wrote, edited, and created the visual effects for the film while Tews played the lead role.[6] It was originally conceived as aparody film ofThe Revenant andsurvival films.[7] The script was a two-pagetreatment filled in with notecards and gag drawings which Cheslik compared it to the screenwriting techniques ofGeorge Miller.[8]
Enough money was raised to film the first act, which was shot over the course of three to four weeks. The footage was then showed to other investors which allowed the rest of the film to be shot.[9] The black-and-white film had a budget of $150,000. It was filmed over the course of twelve weeks by a six-person crew using aPanasonic GH5, which filmed it in 1080p, in winter in 2019 and 2020.[6][4][9][10] The crew stayed at a cabin in Manitowish Waters.[11] Nine weeks of filming was done inStephenson, Michigan, and the northern Wisconsin towns ofManitowish Waters,Pembine, andSuperior.[12][6]
The beaver suits were purchased online from a Chinese mascot website, with the teeth being modified by the filmmakers.[13] Eric West, Daniel Long, Jay Brown, and Mike Wesolowski wore the beaver costumes.[14] Jon Truei was the fight choreographer.[15] Over 1,500 visual effects were made usingAdobe After Effects. Editing and post-production took two years to complete.[6][4][10] Tews' father Wayne composed and performed songs for the film.[11] Sound designer Bobb Barito used wooden kazoos, wooden clapper toys, and other wooden objects for the sounds in the film and usedaudio distortion for scenes including violence as "Violence sounds funniest when it's really distorted".[10]
Inspiration was drawn from theMario video games,America's Funniest Home Videos, and theslapstick comedy ofAbbott and Costello,Buster Keaton,Charlie Chaplin, andThe Three Stooges.[6]Ernst Lubitsch'sThe Wildcat also inspired the film. Tews based his movements in the film onJackie Chan, while specific allusions to silent comedies include a scene that references the 1925 filmSeven Chances, in which Keaton is chased by a horde of angry women.[3] The second act ofHundreds of Beavers was designed to be like watching alet's play.[16] The film's poster is similar to the poster forIt's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World[11][17] and was praised as one of the best film posters of 2024 byIndieWire.[18]
Hundreds of Beavers, with a runtime of 108 minutes,[19] premiered atFantastic Fest in 2022.[20] It premiered in Canada at the 2023Fantasia International Film Festival[21] and in the United Kingdom atDukeFest on August 13.[22] It was also shown at theSitges Film Festival[23] and at theLibrary of Congress on July 27, 2024.[24]
Cheslik and the producers chose to distribute the film themselves and Kurt Ravenwood oversaw the promotion campaign. They were aided by Jessica Rosner, a former executive atKino Lorber.[20] Milwaukee-based ad agency SRH (named after Matt Sabljak, Ravenwood, and Sam Hogerton) spent $37,636.19 promoting the film.[25][26]Hundreds of Beavers was shown at fourteen independent theaters in the Great Lakes region, including theMusic Box Theatre.[20]
The filmmakers rejected distribution offers made after festival showings as those plans would only show the film in theaters for a week before sending it to video on demand.[9] As of November 2024, the film was never shown in more than 33 theaters at once. Anencore showing was conducted in around 70 theaters starting on December 5.[27] A35mm print of the film was shown on February 26, 2025, in Dallas, Texas.[28]
Aerofilms [cs] premiered the film in theCzech Republic on May 9, 2024.[29][30] Lightbulb Film Distribution distributed the film in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom on July 9.[31] Tews toured 40 cities in the United Kingdom over the course of four months. A German release, managed by Lightbulb and 24 Bilder, opened in 68 theaters on February 13, 2025.[32] The streaming rights were sold toCineverse.[33] The film received avideo on demand release on April 15, 2024.[34] More than half of the film's box office earnings were made after being released through video on demand.[35] It was released onBlu-ray byVinegar Syndrome on January 28, 2025,[14] and has sold 10,000 copies.[36] Aspecial edition version forVHS is set for release.[28]
Hundreds of Beavers has grossed $678,349 in the United States and Canada, and $450,824 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1,129,173.[1] The showing at the Music Box Theatre earned $8,000 in one day, the highest individual gross for any screening of the film. $5,000 was earned after three days of screenings at theBrattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[32] It crossed over $1 million in gross after its release in Germany.[32]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 97% of 106 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Sustaining a zany premise with stylistic bravura and inspired gags,Hundreds of Beavers is a comedic gem that gives a dam."[37]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, gave the film a score of 82 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[38]
Dennis Harvey, writing forVariety, praised the film's editing as it could "milk every gag without belaboring it," the soundtrack was "equal to the visual imagination on display," and that the "ingeniously home-made lark never runs out of steam."[4]Peter Bradshaw, who gave the film 4 out of 5 stars inThe Guardian, praised the "sheer sustained silliness" and the "film's absolute dedication to gag productivity".[39] Nick Schager, writing forThe Daily Beast, declared the film "a marvel of slapstick invention" and "an overstuffed live-action homage to the golden age of animation".[40] It received an 8 out of 10 review fromFilmInk.[41]
Joseph Johnson, writing forThe Harvard Crimson, gave the film 4.5 stars and praised it as "a groundbreaking technical achievement" due to the large amounts of complex animations.[42] Pete Volk, writing forPolygon, praised the film's visuals despite its small budget as it "nevertheless looks better than many modernblockbuster productions".[43]Vulture award it as having the best stunts in a non-action film.[15]Matt Zoller Seitz, who gave the film a perfect 4 stars in hisRogerEbert.com review and later listed it as the fourth best film of the year, compared its low-budget filmmaking style toEraserhead,El Mariachi, and the films ofWes Anderson.[44][45] Nick De Semlyen, giving the film 4 out of 5 stars inEmpire, compared the film's "wacky wavelength and pure energy" to the early work ofSam Raimi andPeter Jackson.[46]Daniel Scheinert praised the film, stating that it "is the key to making theatres fun, and is the future of cinema".[47]
Hundreds of Beavers was listed among the top 10 of the top 50 films of 2024 onLetterboxd[48] and the highest-rated comedy.[49] For 2024, it was listed as the 42nd best film byThe Guardian,[50] 3rd best byThe A.V. Club,[51] and one of the ten best films by theLos Angeles Times[52] andThe Boston Globe.[53] The editors ofRogerEbert.com listed it as a runner-up for the ten best films of 2024[54] andSlant Magazine listed it as a runner-up for the 25 best films.[55] It placed 38th inIndieWire's poll of 177 critics.[56]The Boston Globe also gave a special mention to Tews' performance for its critics' selection of the ten best performances of 2024.[57] Film criticsAlonso Duralde andChris Stuckmann both namedHundreds of Beavers the best film of 2024.[58][59]
| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mórbido Fest | November 6, 2022 | Bronze Skull Award | Hundreds of Beavers | Won | [23] |
| Kansas International Film Festival | March 29, 2023 | Best Narrative Feature | Won | [21] | |
| Phoenix Film Festival | April 2, 2023 | Best Director | Mike Cheslik | Won | [60] |
| Capital City Film Festival | April 15, 2023 | Best Narrative Feature | Hundreds of Beavers | Won | [23] |
| Fantasia International Film Festival | August 9, 2023 | Bronze Audience Award for Best International Feature | Won | [23] | |
| Astra Midseason Movie Awards | July 3, 2024 | Best Indie | Nominated | [61] | |
| Astra Film Awards | December 8, 2024 | Best Truly Indie Feature | Nominated | [62] | |
| Chicago Film Critics Association | December 11, 2024 | Best Use of Visual Effects | Nominated | [63] [64] | |
| Milos Stehlik Award for Breakthrough Filmmaker | Mike Cheslik | Nominated | |||
| St. Louis Film Critics Association | December 15, 2024 | Best Comedy Film | Hundreds of Beavers | Won | [65] [66] |
| Best Costume Design | Casey Harris | Nominated | |||
| Indiana Film Journalists Association | December 16, 2024 | Best Special Effects | Mike Cheslik (visual effects) and Jerry Kurek (assistant effects artist) | Runner-up | [67] [68] |
| Original Vision | Hundreds of Beavers | Won | |||
| Breakout of the Year | Mike Cheslik (director / co-writer / editor / visual effects) | Nominated | |||
| New York Film Critics Online | December 16, 2024 | Best Debut Director | Mike Cheslik | Nominated | [69] [70] |
| Florida Film Critics Circle | December 20, 2024 | Best Picture | Hundreds of Beavers | Nominated | [71] |
| Best First Feature | Won | ||||
| Best Visual Effects | Nominated | ||||
| Breakout Performance | Ryland Tews | Nominated | |||
| Alliance of Women Film Journalists | January 7, 2025 | Best Animated Film | Hundreds of Beavers | Nominated | [72] |
| International Cinephile Society | February 9, 2025 | Best Breakthrough Performance | Ryland Tews | Nominated | [73] |
| Dorian Awards | February 13, 2025 | Campiest Flick | Hundreds of Beavers | Nominated | [74] |
| Unsung Film of the Year | Nominated |
