Fantasia 2014 Review: Chew On This - ZOMBEAVERS Is Dam Excellent

It begins with the pun.

Sure, you have a slew of straight-to-VOD crap that is little more than a title stretched too thin over its running time. Be it Sharknado or other of its ilk, it's as if a bunch of drunk people (or, worse, marketing executives) sat around a table and coined a phrase and then retroactively crafted a narrative around it.

There are a few things terrific about Zombeavers.First, that's a damn good play on words, there's a certain elegance in its simplicity. You know what the film's about straight from the title, and are now just along for the ride. Snakes on a Plane had that going for it, with its marriage of title and concept, but the film still felt like it was trying too hard to merge concept and execution. Here, we get what we're promised. It's the battling of beastly beavers with baseball bats - What's not to love?

Yet, almost preposterously, there's a lot more going on with this film than first appears. This is, as per Scream or Cabin in the Woods, a highly self-aware horror film. And like those films, I think it all depends on where you stand regarding your love for these genre tropes. It's easy to make fun of something, making it mere farce, but I think it's harder to do something that's both a love letter to the silliness inherent in the form, but also itself an effective representation.

I may suffer myself from the "Beaver plague" discussed in the film, but I enjoyed the hell out of this film. It's commendable how they took this kernel of an idea and really do effectively let it breath into theatrical running time (or, at least, a good solid 79 minutes).

Yes, this is a bikini-clad romp, with a lake-side cabin (no cell reception!) and a toxic-fueled rampage by toothy semi-aquatic rodents. But it comes down to the ontological point of films of this ilk - what, exactly, do you want from a film called Zombeavers? Plenty of skin, scares, and silliness? Of course. How about buckets of gore? Sure. What sets this film apart, however, is that it also has a wittiness to it.

Rather than simply the broad humour implicit in the title, there's a great intelligence behind many of the scene. Director Jordan Rubin has had a long career in TV comedy writing, and there's a beautifully streamlined construction to the script, a clear evidence of professionalism that's often lacking in dreck of this nature. Not having known at all about Rubin's previous work, it was clear that from a strictly technical standpoint - where the beats fell, the way the humour was set out, even the way the camera moved - there was a clear indication of competence at the heart of something that quite obviously could overstay its welcome.

Zombeavers echoes another genre film that was far greater than the sum of its B-movie parts. Yet, Jaws references are aplenty, but they're done in an engaging way. Let's not get too hyperbolic, this ain't no Spielberg classic, but Rubin and his team at least understand fully it seems how to tell a story like this.

The casting too is very well done, with the right mix of obnoxious sorority and frat-bro lunatics that tend to be fodder in tales like this. There's also a very funny bookend involving two guys in a truck that echoes a bit of the banter that's laced through Cabin in the Woods. Cabin is an interesting comparator (and not just because the film shares some production personnel) - what worked for that film, for the uninitiated, was that it took the silliness very seriously, while never forgetting that this stuff is pretty silly. The film was scary when it needed to be, self-aware without being smug, and telling its own story rather than a series of setpiece jokes.

Zombeavers has a bigger hill to climb in some ways, as (to mix metaphors) its wearing its preposterousness on its sleeve. Yet it too excecutes its vision in a quite satisfying way. This is probably the most laudable part, a film called Zombeavers has a vision, not just a shtick.

Without spoiling what I think is some of the film's strongest elements, I commend the film for "going for it" when it needs to. With the silliness at the heart of the flick, there's a weird chasteness that sometimes settles in, as if the filmmakers are holding back from giving the audience exactly what the concept calls for. When trapped on a raft and distractions have to be made, the characters make a bold choice in movie terms, and the film has the (wonderful) temerity to then discuss that choice, laying bare both the hypocrisy of some audiences towards its (fictional) victims and how audiences of this type of film really are often locked into preconceptions of what the "rules" of conduct are when the mayhem is unleashed.

There's a diabolical, Muppet-y sense of play in the film, with the puppeteered critters a welcome change from many over-thought beasties that tend to pop up in these flicks. Once again, there's a back-to-basics vibe to the film with the blood-matted fur and glowing eyes staring from the dark, but it all really does come together. Even the obstacles to our characters escaping are beaver-y, again taking the concept and having it make sense within the world of the film. Rather than reading from a stereotypical, "Book of the Dead"-like tome, our leads read from a nature book that discusses the normally quite benign attributes of the creatures now attacking them, but even the term "herbivore" seems to take on a kind of menace.

The audience I saw it with lapped it all up, and this is most certainly one of those films that will work best communally. Yet it's also a film that will be quick to dismiss as mere tripe. I think for those willing to see past the (gloriously) inane concept you'll find an elegant, dare-I-say sophisticated look at films of this nature and our fascination with it. This is a film that takes its comedy seriously, while ensuring its horrific bits meet up with what we want from a film of this nature. It's got clever repartée, good camera work, great casting and some deliciously lo-fi creature work.

Yes, Zombeavers occasionally goes for the low branch, but for the most part this is a film does exactly what it needs to do to be entertaining while not making you feel like you've lost braincells along the way. It's in some ways an ideal midnight film - quick and too the point, well balanced between character moments and action beats, with an accessible narrative core that's mined to its full extent. There's nothing left on the table here (severed beaver guts aside), they pretty much go down every path you'd hope them to when setting out to make a film with this title.

In the end, I think that's how the film should be judged. Beyond the play on words, there's a real and engaging movie here, well constructed and engagingly told.  Yet we should not forget the almost poetic elegance of the play-on-words that gives the film its title, as well as the ones that are, in as subtle a fashion as this work allows, alluded to with other creatures in the film.

Yes, it begins with that pun, but the film chews its way through with a determination and competence that's laudable. In a world of crime, misery and sadness, why not take a moment to enjoy watch a bunch of big-toothed varmints massacre helpless victims, but revel in the fact that you're not being treated like an idiot while watching something that's prima facie idiotic.

Plus, I liked the buzz I got from the final sequel tease. One can only hope one day that'd fly, because I also think that's something that Rubin & co. could wax on about.

Zombeavers may not win any awards, it might not even be adored by the fickle genre audience that often doesn't want to be reminded about the preposterous elements of the genre. What is has won for me is respect, and I commend its tenacious nature to mine every last drop of narrative and complexity out of a very slight but very funny idea, without succumbing to the woes that befall many sketch comedy-like works that run out of steam about five minutes in.

If I'm to be the only one, I'll jump up and proudly say I'm on team Zombeaver. It's some of the most fun I've had in a theatre all year, and it provides a terrific time if you'll give it and its hairy creatures a chance to get under your skin.