BLOODTHIRSTY BEAVERS: So-bad-it's—well, it's still bad. But in hilarious way: 'Zombeavers.'

Canadians may feel this matter keenly, but some consider beavers the world's most boring animal. Boring is relative. I'd personally consider Michelle Rodriguez scowling at flying automobiles boring, as opposed to a real favorite, the dam-building extravaganza Beavers (1988) originally filmed in IMAX back when Christopher Nolan was but an ambitious film student. Beavers is a hypnotically relaxing film, and its waddling stars never fail to induce zen-like calm. Now comes ex-comedy writer Jordan Rubin's answer to that documentary: Zombeavers. It asks an important question. Who are the real monsters: are they rabid stop-motion zombie beaver puppets whose very bite causes horrific transformation? Or is it we, the humans?

Likely it's the latter—as a character here muses, "They're monogamous." "Not like usÉ" replies his sad girlfriend. It begins with comedian Bill Burr giving five hilarious minutes as an idiot truck driver trying to boggle his buddy into homosexual panic, right before they accidentally dump toxic waste on a beaver lodge. Soon, three painfully thin floozies (Lexi Atkins, Rachel Melvin and Cortney Palm) arrive at a nearby cabin for a weekend to relax, swim and complain about guys. The guys show up anyway, and matters degenerate into the usual partying down. These victims-to-be are so busy that the strange behavior of the beavers around them goes unnoticed. for a time.The dialogue: "Here beaver beaver beaver...They're so adorable!" "Humph! They're fat rats with big stupid ass tails!" "Normal beavers have pupils in their goddamn eyes!" "Filthy hairy beasts!" "We can't turn on each other. It's what the beavers want."

You may have seen pornos with more spontaneity and better exposition. At some level Zombeavers is a sell-out of the principle that movies like this ought to have an evil corporation responsible for the spill, so that the CEO can get it worse than anyone. But it's mercifully brief, even given filler like a "Would You Rather?" game and a gag outtake reel to dispel the carefully wrought horror of what has gone before. To his credit, Rubin seems determined to invert structural cliches about the Surviving Dog and the Surviving Virgin. Cortney Palm, as Zoe, the raspiest and most topless of the threesome, gives this movie some grain. She sometimes approaches the vividness and stature of Caroline "Stretch" Williams in Texas Chainsaw Massacre II.

Zombeavers

R; 85 Mins.

Netflix