The Peanut Butter Solution (1986)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I probably saw this film around the age of 6 or 7, thanks to our Canadian station CBC, channel 9 at the time. I still have stills of this film stuck in my head, at 34. The premise of the film is one thing, but the ghostly couple were/are still some of the creepiest people I've ever seen in a "kids" movie. This film deserves a proper DVD/Blu-Ray release in English. I realize it was made for Quebec, but there is a whole group of fans here in the states that want a great DVD release. This film has a very special place in my heart. It was my introduction to Horror films, which it kind of is. "There ain't no second chances..."

...so you didn't have to. "The Peanut Butter Solution" is a children's film from the 80's that aims for outlandish but settles for strange. The plot? A young boy enters a burnt-out house and sees a Fright so horrifying all his hair falls out. After a depressing sequence dealing with his baldness he's visited by the ghosts of the hobos who died in the house fire... they give him a recipe (featuring peanut butter) that will make his hair grow back when applied to the scalp. It works, but now the boy's hair won't stop growing and eventually leads to him being kicked out of school at which point he is promptly kidnapped by his former art teacher who uses the boy's hair to make paintbrushes in a secret sweatshop full of other kidnapped children.*taking a long sip from water bottle* A lot of the reviews on here are by people who saw this film as a child (like me) and have spent a considerable amount of time trying to track it down as adults (not like me). I watched it recently just to refresh my memory and I remembered why I didn't remember the movie from my youth: It's not very good.The movie is Canadian-made which helps kill any nostalgia an American adult might feel: there weren't many shop signs in French where I grew up. The acting and directing are competent... nothing to shout about but nothing to laugh at. The bizarre storyline unfurls with such nonchalance there's no chance to savor the flavor; Dad doesn't seem bothered that his formerly-bald/currently-mega-haired son has just been kidnapped, so why should you? None of the freakish plot-points are delivered in a meaningful or memorable sequence, so you may as well be watching any forgettable mid-80's kiddie fare. Not much point in seeking this out...I wish this movie lived up to it's twisted fairytale storyline. I wish it held up or got better with age instead of worse. I wish I could recommend the movie to 80's-generation adults and stoners and fans of freaky movies... but I can't. I saw this movie so you don't have to, and if you're asking what you can do to make it up to me, please remember...I'm into cash.GRADE: C

I've got fond memories of this film. Here's what I recall: A kid gets scared in an old house by some ghosts and all of his hair falls out.Everyone makes fun of him ... he gets a toupee, it falls off during a soccer game or something, humiliations galore.He befriends the ghosts that scared him and they teach him how to make a hair restoration paste out of peanut-butter, bugs, dirt (all the things little kids find 'gross') etc., but as often goes in these stories, doesn't follow the directions and/or warnings precisely and the solution makes his hair grown REEEEALLY fast.Other kids convince him to share and they use it on themselves for various reasons (e.g., one kid wanted some hair 'down there' and in a later scene you see him w/ hair growing out of his pant legs.The kids start disappearing and this guy 'The Signor' starts making these amazing, magical? paintings (can't remember what's so special about them, they're 3D, or moving or real or something).The main kid eventually discovers that The Signor has kidnapped all the kids w/ the super-hair and has them drugged to sleep so he can harvest all their hair to make magic paint-brushes.That's all I remember. Don't recall how it ends. Would love to see it again (I can't believe I remember all of this after seeing it on an after-school special 22 years ago!)

I can not believe how many people suffered from the same experience as me. As I tried to explain the following to friends often, I would get a blank stare in response : "A kid goes into a house for some reason, i think he falls backwards, gets amnesia and loses his hair. He glues a wig on his head, plays soccer, it gets ripped off, he runs home. He tries an experiment, his parents destroy it because it contains like dead flies and he is trying to grow his hair back. Then these ghosts or ancestors of his, -something give him another chance at the recipe and he gets it to work, he looks in a toaster at his reflection and his hair is growing...it grows way too fast" BLANK STARES.