In this black-and-white silent film, Tews plays Jean Kayak, a hapless apple salesman who finds himself in an increasingly over-the-top battle against an army of beavers (all played by humans in mascot suits). The film premiered September 29, 2022, at Fantastic Fest and will be available on digital April 15, 2024.
Previews: Trailer
Hundreds of Beavers contains examples of the following:
- Acme Products: Jean Kayak brews Acme brand Applejack.
- Badass Santa: The Master Fur Trapper is framed as one, being a bearded sleigh driver hauling a massive sack of animal skins across the snow and being accompanied by Christmas music in his introduction and the "rescue" before the beaver wearing his skin unzips the disguise.
- Bear Trap: One of the many different items you can trade beaver skins for.
- Big Damn Heroes: Played with when it appears The Master Fur Trapper has come back to save Jean Kayak from the Beavers. It turns out that the Beavers made a suit out of him.
- Bamboo Technology: The Beavers end up building cranes, a whole factory, and an entire space program out of timber.
- Bait-and-Switch: Jean tracks several rabbits over a long distance and is able to infer their entire life story. When he finally reaches the end of the tracks, all that is left are their two young rabbit children. Jean tears up, overwhelmed with emotion, but after a Gilligan Cut, we see that he did in fact kill the rabbits anyway.
- Bloodless Carnage: Parodied. Jean and the Master Fur Trapper catch and kill woodland critters in all manner of gruesome ways, but the blood and gore are represented by packing peanuts.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: The Merchant, who demands Jean bring him Hundreds of Beavers before he even thinks of being allowed to marry his daughter.
- Brick Joke: If a joke isn't a running gag then you can bet it will show up near the end when you least suspect it.
- Canines Gambling in a Card Game: The Master Fur Trapper's sled dogs play cards every night. Even when there's only one left, he plays solitaire.
- Character Development: Jean begins the story utterly helpless in the forest, but he slowly gains skills and knowledge until he's a master fur trapper.
- Chekhov's Armoury: If there is a gag in the first half of the movie, it will without doubt return somehow multiple times, usually combined with another gag.
- Companion Cube: The various snowmen that Jean builds. He even gets into arguments with them.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: It's a sign of the times the movie is evoking that The Merchant apparently decides whether or not his daughter The Furrier can marry Jean. Even there she has enough agency to signal to the Master Fur Trapper she doesn't want to marry him when the Merchant proposes he take her hand in marriage.
- Distracted by the Sexy: The first bait he makes is well endowed snow bunnies.
- Fusion Dance: The beavers come together to form a giant to chase Jean across the frozen lake in the film's climax.
- Homage:
- The log flume chase bears a strong resemblance to the rail car chase in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- At the end of the beaver prosecutor's otherwise gibberish speech, he shouts, "J'accuse!"
- The music for the end credits is Lubricator, included because of its use for the notoriously incongruent ending of the 1985 Filipino film Blood Debts.
- Jitter Cam: Whenever a brawl happens the camera suddenly becomes handheld to both hide most of the action and to differentiate itself from the more classic locked shots.
- Joker Jury: Jean is eventually arrested by the beavers, and is put on trial in a court where the judge, jury, prosecution, and defense are all beavers.
- Meat-O-Vision: Initially played straight (Jean sees a rabbit as a giant cut of meat and a nest of eggs as a pan of fried eggs), then parodied (geese are seen as giant pretzels, other rabbits become slices of pizza, and some fish become underwater soft-serve ice cream cones).
- Mistaken for Gay: The Merchant is after offering a wedding ring to The Master Fur Trapper, who is flattered but refuses. The Merchant has to correct them that he's supposed to give the ring to The Merchant's daughter.
- Mugged for Disguise: Jean kills a beaver to wear its skin as a disguise.
- Old-Timey Ankle Taboo: The Furrier titillates Jean by rolling back her sock to reveal two inches of ankle, which drives him wild. She then does a pole dance while wearing lingerie.
- Retraux: The film is framed as a black-and-white silent movie from the dawn of cinema.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The baby rabbits.
- Running Gag: Quite a few. Some of the most reoccurring include:
- Jean whistling and summoning a woodpecker.
- The Merchant spitting at a spittoon and missing.
- The Furrier putting Jean in awkward situations.
- Savage Wolves: Wolves present a serious danger, killing the Master Fur Trapper and all of his dogs.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Learned from the Master Fur Trapper, Jean is eventually able to track the various animals of the forest rather well and even recognize their habits.
- Sherlock Homage: A beaver Sherlock and Watson follow Jean's trail throughout the film.
- Silent Movie: The film has almost no dialogue, with only a few incidental mutters and exclamations. Most communication is done by gesture and expression. When conversation does occur, it's silent or conveyed in one scene through Title Cards.
- Suddenly Speaking: When the Merchant delivers his tirade to Jean, it's inaudible because the film is silent. He and the Furrier both say, "Pardon?"
- Stylistic Suck: All the woodland animals are portrayed with either obvious puppets or human performers in theme park-ready costumes.
- Title Card: When the Merchant's dialogue is plot vital, it appears on title cards.
- Title Drop: "If you want to marry my daughter, you need to trap... Hundreds of Beavers!" Bonus points in that it is delivered as silent intertitles, with the main line treated as a title card.
- Toon Physics
- Villainy-Free Villain: The beavers just want to explore space and not get killed by Jean.
- Though one beaver does destroy Jean's initial brewing business by sabotaging the supports on his vats.
- Wingding Eyes: Whenever an animal dies, their eyes become Xs.
- The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): The Master Fur Trapper is killed by wolves, leaving the novice Jean to take his place.
