‘Hundreds Of Beavers’ Combines Silent Movies With Looney Tunes For Unique Hilarity
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If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if Buster Keaton made The Revenant as a Merrie Melodies short, have I got the movie for you!
In Hundreds of Beavers, 19th-century applejack salesman Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) faces off against the beavers who destroyed his farm in a series of creative and hilarious levels that feel like an old-school video game crossed with classic Looney Tunes.
Along the way, he tries to charm the daughter (Olivia Graves) of a merchant (Doug Mancheski) and befriends a master trapper (Wes Tank) as he learns to survive in the wilderness.
Shot in black and white with no dialogue, this movie channels the best of silent-era slapstick with a slightly warped Adult Swim sense of humor. The mixture of animation, live-action, practical effects, and people in animal costumes makes Hundreds of Beavers one of the most memorable movies I’ve seen in ages.
I had a smile on my face for the full 108-minute runtime as the setups get increasingly complicated and we see the escalation of this war between a man and the titular hundreds of beavers.
It’s reassuring that, even as big studio franchises struggle to generate equally big returns at the box office, we can still get fresh, creative, unique films from independent voices to remind us that film is an art form rather than just a business.
