Hundreds of Beavers

In the nineteenth century, a drunken seller of applejack loses his distillery in a fire and ends up stranded in the winter woods of Wisconsin. Ill-equipped to survive, he tries his hand at trapping but repeatedly comes off worse against the local wildlife. After falling for the daughter of a fur buyer, he sets out to master the trade in order to earn the approval of her stern father. His efforts bring him into conflict with a great many beavers, along with other animals, in a largely dialogue-free comedy that blends slapstick with silent-film and video-game imagery.

Mike Cheslik directed and co-wrote the film with Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who also produced and stars as Jean Kayak; the cast includes Olivia Graves, Doug Mancheski, Wes Tank and Luis Rico, with twenty-nine credited performers in all. It was released in January 2024 and played to a modest worldwide box office of about one million dollars, a figure in keeping with its independent scale.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 7.3 from roughly 330 votes. Critics were considerably more enthusiastic, giving it an average of 8.3 from sixty-nine reviews. The gap suggests a film that found stronger favour with reviewers than with the general audience, though the audience score remains clearly positive.