Hundreds of Beavers Is Wile E. Coyote By Way Of Legend of Zelda

I used to think of my life in stages. My childhood. My adolescence. My adulthood. My, I dunno, later adulthood. My sense of self - the memories that make me me - were built on milestones and achievements and traged𝓡ies. Each step in m𓆉y life existed as its own story, gateways between what had been and what is and what shall be. But, after watching Hundreds of Beavers, I now know I was wrong. It’s simpler than that. Life comes in only two stages: Before watching Hundreds of Beavers and after watching Hundreds of Beavers.

What’s Hundreds of Beavers? God, I wish I could tell you. I don’t mean, “I don’t want to spoil it,” although that’s also true. Rather, explaining it… iis difficult. It’s a movie, I’ll give you that! And while it was made a couple of years ago and hit the film festival circuit last year, it’s just now streaming on Fandor and, if you wanna buy it, Amazon Prime. I bought it because I will never stop watching this movie. Even if you watch the trailer, I promise that you’ll only have kind of an ideaꦰ what this movie is a💮bout. Here you go. Here’s the trailer. I’m sure you’ll have thoughts.

I’ll address some stuff up top. One, yes, this is a real, full length movie that exists. It was made. Humans worked together and made this movie for very little money in the deep, deep wilderness of Wisconsin. Two, you’re only seeing the more normal parts of this movie. They did not ruin it and put all the good bits in the trailers. It gets a lot weirder than that. Like, very weird. Three, it’s also oddly terrifying at certain points? But it’s not a horror film? And, four, it feels like it’s quasi-inspired by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Legend of Zelda.

I’m sorry; I’m giving you way too little to work with. Let me take a crack at this. So. Hundreds of Beavers follows Jean, a man whose home is deꦺstroyed by beavers and now finds himself hunting rabbits for food and pelts to trade. Eventually, Jean is convinced to try to hunt for the pelts of hundreds of beavers for reasons that both don’t really matte🉐r and are more fun without you knowing. Meanwhile, an army of beavers is working on a massive project which we slowly learn about as the movie progresses.

Jean and the Trapper's daughter in Hundreds of Beavers

So, that’s the barebones story more or less. If you’re squeamish about violence against animals, good news: there is nearly zero verisimilitude for you to worry about. Almost every animal in this movie is played by a human being in an animal costume. Is there a horse? Yes, there is. Does that mean what you think it means regarding what we know about horse costumes? Yep. 100 percent. And rather than just letting that gag sit by itself, they take it weirder and stupider. Every choice is the exact opposite of what you’d expect a normal movie to make. Hell, every choice is the exact opposite of what you’d expect this genre of movie to make. None of these choices are wrong, but they are outside the purview of God’s love. I ca⛦n’t stop laughing. This is som🧔ething a sci-fi military would show soldiers to break their minds for reprogramming. It’s fantastic. Some of it makes me jealous.

Here’s the wild part: despite the fact that it’s all overtly puppets and costumes, it somehow gets really, really tense! Again, this is a slapstick comedy with people in dog costumes pulling a sled. But somehow there are a few scenes that are downright harrowing. Somehow in this Cuphead-ass movie, they catch you by surprise and you’re suddenly nervous about an attack by wolves (that is, literally human beings in dorky wolf costumes). I should add that there is kind of some gore, but instead of blood and guts it’s something far sillier. It would have given me so many nightmares as a child. I don&r⛎squo;t know what to tell you.

Oh, and that Zelda part. So, obviously, this movie is hugely inspired by old silent films and Popeye cartoons and the like. But also, there’s a shop where Jean turns in his pelts. And it has the most Zelda shop music ever. It’s not subtle. There’s even a sign with the prices of items that Jean needs to progress through the movie, which he trades up for, piece by piece. When he collects pelts, the movie makes an old arcadey ‘ding’ with a counter on the screen. When he sells pelts, he gets one giant coin. But, and sorry to go back to it, that music is 100 percent Zelda material.ཧ The way the guy minds the shop. The way Jean buys things. It’s, to use an outdoor people term, game-y.

Jean caught by the beavers in Hundreds of Beavers

It’s not just Zelda. And I know that platforming games were inspired by the same types of movies as Hundreds of Beavers - but this specific film has some strong video game overlap. In a few moments, Jean has to literally jump from platform to platform while avoiding dangers. Normal Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton stuff, right? Sure. But there are one or two scenes shot from a three-quarters, almost isometric perspective. Whether intentional or not, those parts simply feel like gameplay - almost the way some scenes did in the animated 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Bros. movie. There’s a floaty𝐆 bounciness to it that’s more familiar to a game than it is to what we ꧋think of as an action film.

But that’s not why you should watch this. Why you should watch this is because it’s humanity’s most bizarre achievement. It’s so strange, folks. Folks, it’s strange. It’s - folks - strange. There were moments that made me laugh so hard I had to pause the movie and just sit there to process like I had a time machine and just accidentally watched myself die in the future. There is one sn🥂owman-related joke that’s so stupid it wiped my mind like one of those Men In Black devices. The end of the movie was so unexpected that I gasped for air as I laughed like the Joker. This movie nearly turned me into the least interesting version of the Joker. I reacted the way cultists do in a Lovecraft story when they pull off a big ritual.

Nothing that has existed has ever been like Hundreds of Beavers. It is not of this world. It shouldn’t be here. It’s like someone brought a movie over from another dimension. It’s wrong. You feel strange watching it. If I was asked to describe the general mood of the movie, I’d say ‘hilarious creepypasta’. It rearranged my mind. I can’t stop thinking about it. There are just﷽ so many gags. It’s so ridiculous. It’s nonsense. It’s dark, ungꦦodly, perfect nonsense.