Fellman's Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

Zombeavers is a 2014 horror/comedy film directed by Jordan Rubin. It’s pretty much exactly what you think it is. Zombie beavers, teenage sex scenes, and bad special effects. And the beaver jokes are rampant. They’re all college students, so they’re not the most mature people in the world. And every chance there is for a beaver joke, they try to squeeze one in there. 

What’s it about? So, we start off with a couple of truckers, driving down the road, having a conversation, when they hit a deer. The collision makes one of the barrels that they’re carrying fall off the truck and into the local river. The barrel floats down the river towards a nearby beaver dam, where it springs a leak and sprays whatever it is that’s inside of it, all over the beavers. Cut to the three leading ladies of the movie, Mary, Jenn, and Zoe. They’re heading to a cabin for the weekend to get away because Sam’s boyfriend cheated on her, and they want to get away for a couple of days. Later that night, the girls boyfriends, Buck, Tommy and Sam, show up and scare the girls by making them think they’re prowlers. The three couples separate to do what couples do alone at night in a cabin in the woods. While in the bathroom, Jenn is attacked by one of the zombie beavers and Tommy comes in and kills it with a baseball bat. They put it in a garbage bag and leave it on the front porch til the morning. The next day, everyone decides to go swimming in the lake, and while out in the water, some beavers attack and Buck is yanked underwater and his foot is bitten off. Mary, Zoe, Sam, Tommy and Buck swim to the raft in the middle of the lake for safety while Jenn is on the shore of the lake. Sam grabs Zoe’s dog, Gosling, and tosses him in the water as a distraction so they can all swim to shore. Tommy, Buck, and Zoe leave the house to try and get Buck to a hospital. They get stopped when a tree is blocking their way, assumingly put there by the beavers. Tommy gets out to try to head forward on foot when another tree is heard falling and Tommy is seen as part of the growing pile of trees blocking the road. Zoe and Buck are saved by Smyth, a hunter who lives nearby, and all three of them drive back to the house, but can’t get in because it’s been boarded up by Sam and Mary. Jenn, having been scratched earlier by one of the zombie beavers has turned into a beaver-like zombie herself and chased Sam and Mary into the bathroom where they start to have sex. Because, if zombie beavers are gonna get you, why not, right? Meanwhile, Zoe saved herself by jumping out of a second story window from Mrs. Gregorson, the nextdoor neighbor who had been bitten by a zombie beaver and had already turned. Zoe escapes with Mary and is the lone survivor when the two truckers from the beginning come down the road and don’t see Zoe in the way…  

What’s good? It’s good for a laugh. It’s certainly entertaining. There’s some scenes that are pretty funny. Like the beginning with Bill Burr and Robert Shafer, that is a great scene.  

What’s bad? The effects are bad. And it’s not ironic, either. That’s just the budget that they had and what they came up with. The beavers are like wet, dirty Muppets… 

The actors? Not the best actors. They’re not horrible. But it’s definitely a B movie. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  

The effects? The transformation from person to beaver-like zombie is not entirely realistic. And the beavers themselves looked like they were kind of just being shaken back and forth a little bit.  

You see that deer? He said he saw that deer, but I can’t help but not believe him, because it literally exploded when he hit it, moments later. How fast would he have had to be going for a deer to explode like that? It popped like a water balloon. Deer don’t explode like that. Maybe if you’re driving a MAC truck 80 mph down the highway they do. But just a pickup truck on a backroad? I don’t think it works like that. 

The barrel was fine until it got to the dam. That barrel went through all that damage. It was smashing against all those rocks. It went over waterfalls and bounced up and down, left and right. But it didn’t spring a leak until it got down to that beaver dam… 

She’s squeezing the dog. She’s squeezing that dog’s head trying to make him not listen to the music in the car, but she’s squeezing his head. What do you think he wants more? To listen to techno, or to have his head squeezed? That’s actually a pretty hard decision. I don’t know if I would rather listen to techno or have my head squeezed either… 

Just let the fishing rod go. If something is strong enough to rip your fishing rod out of your hands and into the lake, just let the fishing rod go. You’re clearly not going to be able to get it back. Just call it a day and get out of there. That guy started investigating, and then he got eaten by zombie beavers. Kinda his fault… 

Gratuitous nudity. In a movie like this, you’re expecting to see some sort of gratuitous nudity. And you won’t be disappointed. Luckily, college girls like swimming topless before they go investigating beaver dams. 

Walking towards a beaver dam. Even if they weren’t radioactive and incredibly aggressive, it’s probably not wise to walk towards a beaver dam. Just, in general.  

She covers her tits when she sees the bear. Zoe has no problem walking around topless, but when the bear shows up, she covers her tits like now she’s self-conscious? Like, the bear’s embarrassing her? Or, em-bear-assing… I couldn’t help it… 

Hell, ain’t we all. The girls are all in bikinis and Zoe’s topless and they come across Smyth as he saves them from the bear and they say “We’re looking for beavers.” And he goes “Hell, ain’t we all…” That’s just one of the few random beaver jokes that take place in this movie.  

It seriously could be dangerous. When the guys show up and start making all kinds of noise outside Zoe only goes to check because she knew they were coming. If you hear some strange noises outside of a cabin in the middle of the night, the last thing you want to do is go check it out. Who knows what it could be.  

You’d think they would be more careful. Jenn tells Tommy there’s a rabid beaver in the bathroom and they all go looking for it at the same time. You’d think they’d use a little more caution than stacking on top of each other and squeezing into the doorway.  

Are safety orgies a thing? Is a safety orgy a thing? Like a “Just in case” kind of orgy? Because, if zombie beavers are gonna take over the house, get it in while you can, you know? 

He sacrificed the dog. Sam throws Gosling into the water with the beavers as a distraction so the rest of them can swim to shore. I mean, I understand the rationale, but still… Aww… 

Why didn’t they take a weapon? Why didn’t they at least take that bat Tommy used to kill that one beaver? At least have something. When you’re dealing with any kind of zombie, you have to at least have something. 

Why didn’t they all go? And why didn’t the others just go with them, anyway? Just squeeze into the car and get the hell out of there? I mean, sure, it would be uncomfortable for a while. But there are zombie beavers chasing you. Aren’t zombie beavers worse? 

The beavers made Tommy part of the dam. The beavers made Tommy a part of the dam. They made a tree fall on him and he became another part of it so that when he turned, he couldn’t move. He was just a beaver-like, zombie person; stuck in a beaver dam. 

Was she duct taping a dresser to the door? How exactly was that going to help? And, apparently, it didn’t, because the beavers just started biting through everything, anyway. And all the reinforcements they made were pointless because the beavers were coming up through the floors and whatnot. 

Buck only had one foot. She kept telling Buck to hurry up and telling him to “come on”, and it’s like, he’s only got one foot. Cut him a break. You’d move slower too if you only had one foot. It’s probably a lot more difficult. It probably takes some getting used to. You’re used to having two feet.  

She jumped headfirst out of a second story window. Zoe seemed to jump out of that window without even thinking it through first. Like, did she think she was on the first floor? Or is she just super-hardcore? Because it took her all of two seconds to rationalize jumping out that window.  

Might as well have sex before the zombie beavers get them. Sam and Mary get stuck in the bathroom and very quickly start having sex in the middle of a zombie beaver attack. And you know what? Who can blame them? If you’re gonna die, might as well go out enjoying yourself.  

The bloopers at the end are great. It’s great to see bloopers of films in the credits because they’re usually the best takeouts from shooting, and a lot of stuff happens on set that you don’t get to see when you’re watching a film.  

The theme song in the credits is fantastic. The Zombeavers theme song is excellent. Whoever wrote it didn’t get enough credit for it. The Frank Sinatra style was totally the way to go with that. 

What happened to the rest of the zombie creatures? Where did the rest of the zombie creatures go? They couldn’t have died? They were zombies. All those people were beaver-like zombie people. What happened to them? Nobody killed them.  

Zombees. What would Zombees even do? Aside from possibly cross-pollinating other things with the zombie virus. Maybe, creating a planet full of bee-like zombie people? But that seems rather farfetched… 

So, yeah. Go and see Zombeavers. It’s the best movie about mutant, undead beavers that you’ve seen anytime recently. I can assure you that. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…