Hundreds of Beavers

By: Louisa Moore / www.ScreenZealots.com

This film was screened at Fantastic Fest

I attend several major film festivals every year, and its always a pleasure to discover a gem thats hiding somewhere in the cinematic void. Genre film fests are among the most interesting because they showcase independent horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and other avant-garde, eccentric, micro-budget works of art. Thats why director Mike Chesliks Hundreds of Beavers was the perfect fit for Fantastic Fest. This black and white game of man vs. beaver is my favorite film that I saw at the festival this year, and its not even close.

In what I can only describe as a Looney Tunes cartoon meets Charlie Chaplin meets Cannibal! The Musical, this dialogue-free film...

This is a fantastic "wait for it" film. Pleasantly surprised.

Hunky "Jean" (Ryland Tews) has quite a successful little cider business until the pesky beavers manage to destabilise the whole enterprise leaving him homeless with nothing but the clothes he stands up in - and with an hard winter approaching. It's only now that he realises just how much the terrain favours the critters who must now become his prey if he's to survive and not starve to death. The rabbits are no slouches, the fish no fools and the beavers - well they are actually quite brutal as they fell just about every tree they can find to fuel a construction that makes the Aswan dam look like the work of an amateur. Luckily, there is a trader (Doug Mancheski) with a beautiful daughter (Olivia Graves) who will supply all sorts of useful t...