The Peanut Butter Solution

I can't vouch for how scary this film might seem to a child - this is one of the few IMDb reviews written by someone who didn't see the movie when young - but I can confirm that it has a very weird tone that could be disturbing to kids: the way the story is told is just a little off-kilter, making the whole thing feel like a bad dream.

The bizarre plot concerns 11-year-old Michael (Mathew Mackay), who investigates a burnt-out spooky mansion where something frightens him so much that all of his hair falls out. Bullied at school for being bald, Michael is delighted when he is visited by two ghosts who give him a recipe to solve his problem, the crucial ingredient being peanut butter. Painting the concoction on his head before bedtime, he wakes the next day to discover that the mixture has worked - but having put too much peanut butter into the solution, his hair growth is rapid and unstoppable.

Matters get even more strange when Michael is abducted and used by mad painter Sergio (Michel Maillot) as the source of hair for his magic paintbrushes, which are assembled by other kidnapped children. It is up to Michael's sister Suzie (Alison Darcy) and best friend Connie (Siluck Saysanasy) to come to the rescue.

Given a bigger budget and a better cast, I could imagine this film receiving the same level of love and admiration reserved for family favourites like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Labyrinth and Coraline - it certainly has a lot of imagination - but as it stands, it's merely a curiosity remembered fondly by those who saw it at an impressionable age. I can imagine most adults struggling with the cheap production values, poor performances and awkward storytelling - factors that help to make it a surreal experience but which discerning grown-ups might not find that appealing.

my family are complete movies buffs and i must have seen hundreds of movies in my childhood, almost none of which i can recall with such vivid detail as this one. i loved the peanut butter solution so much that i went to see it twice in the cinema when i was about 7 or 8 years old. i still talk about it and tell people about it to this day. strangely, my sister cannot remember a single thing about it or ever even going to see it although she went with me both times, and until i decided to look it up here i had never heard of or spoken to another person who had seen it. thank you, IMDb, for assuring me that have not lost my mind. as soon as i get the chance i am going to start scouring video stores to find a copy of this to rent and watch as an adult and show to my sister and friends. i hope i enjoy as much as i did as a child.

I just was cleaning out our basement and came across our old betamax movie collection.

Aahh memories....

Anyways one of the movies was Peanut Butter Solution...it immediately brought back forgotten memories, but sadly, since we no longer own a beta machine, I cant watch it.

Now, I haven't seen this movie since I was a (young) kid, but one thing I do remember about this movie was that it FREAKED ME THE HELL OUT! (Along with another movie we has on Beta, ET, but thats another story)

I'm reading here its a comedy? I don't remember the complete story, except for the fact that the peanut butter stuff grew hair (sounds funny) but I don't remember laughing at all, I remember my sister loving this movie but I hated it cause it scared the hell out of me, and creeped me out big time, I really am looking forward to finding this somewhere and watching it now that I'm older....And although ET still freaks me out to the point of not being able to watch it, maybe this will be different.

A lovely trip down memory lane. I saw this film when I was a child of seven, again when I was ten and snippets of this film have followed me ever since. I just finished watching the film again moments ago, the first time as an adult. Now, this film was somewhat frightening when I was seven, it does have some spooky elements, I don't recommend it for young children. I do feel however that this movie does deserve a second look by adults. The acting isn't award winning, and the special effects certainly wouldn't stand up to today's standards, however this film does have a unique premise and the dialog rarely comes off as childish, this isn't really a childs movie and I feel it was mis-marketted as one. One notable point about this film for most Canadians in their twenties and thirties will recognize several faces from other Canadian films and television from the early 1980's. This film was produced in english, the first film released by La Fete that I am aware of, to be produced in english not just dubbed over. If you enjoyed this film I also recommend watching The Dog that Stopped the War (1984) a great film put out by La Fete immediately before the Peanut Butter Solution. The Dog who Stopped the War can also be found by its original french title Guerre des tuques, La (1984).

I too, saw this movie when I was very young(seven), and I remember getting quite scared by it. The funny thing is that at seven years old, I was very much into action/sci fi movies, and I had just recently watched my first Horror movie, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3, which I thought was great. The only other Horror movie I had seen at the time was 'The Gate', which I thought was kind of creepy. One day after walking through the video store, I came across 'The Peanut Butter Solution', and it looked so strange, that I decided to rent it. I watched it later that night and it scared the hell out of me! I understood that it was only a movie, but at the same time, I was worried that I would wake up bald. I actually slept with one hand on my head for a long time after watching it. I'm 21 now, and last year my sister and I decided to watch it again, but it was so bad that we turned it off. We're big movie fans, and the dialogue was too bad to handle, at least on that particular day. It's not a good movie by any means, but it's definitely worth viewing, especially if you want to see something weird and creepy.