The Peanut Butter Solution – aka – A Movie That Scars
There are certain movies you see as a child that leave indelible marks on your mind, usually because they manage to artfully scare you shitless while simultaneously tapping into some deep-seated, previously unrecognized childhood psychological terror.
For me the movies that best dredged up these fears tended to contain the following:
Witches who kidnap and kill children
Big metal cages (to keep kidnapped children in)
Dungeons/cellars (any dark setting below ground)
Demented toy makers who kidnap children
Escape-from-evil attempts gone horribly awry
Now the extra special movies were the ones that managed to take one of these fear/themes and really expand on it, take it to the next level of creepiness. One such movie is The Peanut Butter Solution. When casually mentioned in conversation, the only people who have ever known what I was talking about were my boyfriend (who apparently still owns his VHS copy), and recently a fellow coworker. Even my sisters, who were all definitely present for viewings, have no memory. Ahh, ignorance is truly bliss. Here is me attempting to describe the plot to the unknowing:
“Ok so there is this kid who’s hair won’t stop growing, and he gets kidnapped by this old man who straps him to a weaving loom or something…because the guy is making paintbrushes out of his hair, like harvesting the hair as it’s growing directly into this giant loom…and they’re special paintbrushes, they’re magical.”
Yeahhhhh. Nuts. So I finally decided after all these years to really ‘research’ the movie. Originally released in 1985, The Peanut Butter Solution is the story of a young boy Michael who wanders into a long abandoned, recently burned-down mansion and stumbles upon the ghosts of its homeless former inhabitants. Totally spooked, he passes out, sleeps through the night and wakes up the next morning completely bald – the result of his extreme fright. The hair doesn’t grow back, Michael becomes depressed, kids pull off the wig he tries to wear, etc, etc. Eventually one of the ghosts returns to tell Michael the secret to growing his hair back – it’s the peanut butter solution!
Here is young Michael applying the mixture. He doesn’t heed the ghost’s warning though, uses too much peanut butter and over the course of a day or two is transformed into Cousin It. Eventually Michael is suspended from school for becoming a class distraction:
What follows next is inexplicable and twisted, as the best/worst childhood film plots usually are. An art teacher at Michael’s school, “The Signor” – recently fired for being a TOTAL old man creep and not allowing children to use their imaginations – kidnaps Michael, along with fifty other children, dresses them all in pink scrubs and sets up what is essentially a giant paintbrush-making concentration camp, with Michael’s head as the source of the brush hairs. You see, Mike’s locks have become magical from the special powers of the mysterious peanut butter solution, and when placed on the end of a brush, they allow the holders to paint whatever is held in their imaginations. Whaaaa? Yeah, welcome to crazytown.
Here’s Michael, in an all-yogurt-diet-induced-perma-coma (I kid you not), with his head in the hair sorter.
The child slaves:
The mastermind:
Eventually Michael’s crackerjack older sister Suzy (a dead-ringer for Chunk from the Goonies) and friend Connie (who puts some of the solution on his private area in a botched attempt to grow pubes) crack the case and rescue Michael from a future of paintbrush manufacturing enslavement.
Genius. Scenes of the Signor and his freaky little child factory were by far the most disturbing (and lasting) images for me. There were coats made of hair and slave hammocks and who the heck knows what else. Bottom-line – creepfest.
In my YouTube search today I managed to find several versions of the original 1985 trailer. One is from Canada, where the movie was filmed and which actually hints at the film’s underlying disturbia. The other US version is all playful and family-friendly, which is no doubt why were allowed to watch it in the first place. Check them out for a walk down memory lane and a peek into my childhood nightmares.
Canadian Version – link only, those Canadians don’t like embedding I guess:
US Version:
I’ve never seen it, but I still think the creepiest part is the shout-out to Skippy at the end of the Canadian trailer.
Also, is the Signor supposed to be Italian?
phoebe
November 26, 2008 at 4:16 am
yeah, i was just thinking: did skippy pay for that product placement? seems a little risky associating your brand with creepy moving hair (ew- hair in peanut butter! gross) and child labor/enslavement.
jif must have lapped them in sales the year this came out.
jessica
November 26, 2008 at 2:20 pm
The Signor is actually French. I guess French-Canadian. Go figure.
Katie
December 2, 2008 at 4:17 am
This is worse than Watcher in the Woods….way worse.
amanda
December 2, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I couldn’t remember the title to this movie so I described it to a coworker. She thought I was telling her a joke but I told her it was real. She did some googling and we came across this, so she now believes me. A little more googling, and I came across the entire movie online! I have it listed as my website, so I think you can just click my name to take you there.
Philip
January 15, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Philip I’m so glad I could help you to not appear crazy. I’ve been there.
Katie
March 5, 2009 at 10:39 pm
That is a very creepy movie, and I’m glad someone finally knows what I’m talking about. I have asked people if they had seen this movie (without knowing the title, so I tried painfully to describe it), and they had no idea what I was talking about and definitely thought I was crazy. Check it out, but don’t let your kids see it.
Jeanna
May 14, 2009 at 8:08 pm
oh man i remember this movie! I was looking for it on netflix because I feel a little crazy…like the whole thing never happened! freaky deaky movie…another on this level of freakiness…The Witches. Gives you the same scary butterfly feeling in your belly hahaha
rhiannon
June 16, 2009 at 4:34 am
the Witches scared the living daylights of me as well. that scene where they all drink the soup and turn into rats? nightmares.
Katie
June 16, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Thank you so much for doing this write up. I have been racking my brain for years trying to figure out if this movie was a real memory or some kind of drug induced pseudo reality that was created in my mind during a weeks long drug binge back in my early twenties. It is all coming back to me now, we must have watched this movie a half dozen times between 3rd and 5th grade, around 85′ to 87′. Now I know that I am not completely crazy, it’s only marginal. By the way, it troubles me to think that there is a person walking the streets that thought this whole concept up!
Mike
August 11, 2009 at 2:11 am
I was just talking about this movie the other day with my friends. I couldn’t remember the name so I was trying to explain the movie. Because of the psychotic plot line, they all thought I was on some sort of drugs and had no idea what I was talking about. But by Jesus, I knew if I googled it I would come up with something! Thanks for the site! It makes me a little less psychotic!!
Jennifer
August 17, 2009 at 1:14 am
This is hilarious! I am a year late…but I remembered this horrible movie and googled peanut butter, hair and this popped up…this has definitely left an ever-pressing scar in my life!
NATALIE
October 24, 2009 at 10:24 pm
yeahh there were 2 movies that will forever last in mind.. peanut butter solution, and Paperhouse. Both equally disturbing but yet for some reason.. i enjoyed them. There was just something that made u think, how did someone come up with this and how is it that i came across them and felt a desire to watch them more than once? and i was like, 9 years old? they both had a unique story despite the creepy undertones.. but these are the types of movies i have always been drawn to. look at the modern day films like mirrormask or pans labrynth.. there are still weird films being made to this day. it’s been years since i’ve watched either of the movies, but i may have to revisit my past that has potentially molded me into who i am today lol
vanessa
November 6, 2009 at 7:31 am
ah i’ll have to check into paperhouse, haven’t seen or heard of that one!
Katie
December 14, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Thanks god, I’ve been searching for this movie for a long time. Everybody I spoke about this one said didn’t know it…I even thought it was something in my imagination.
Joaquin
November 22, 2009 at 4:23 am
THANK YOU for writing this! it absolutely made my week. If you look on Amazon you will see there are so many people who have vague memories of this movie and cant find a friend who has heard of it. I remember being totally scared of it – but now I want to watch it again!
KT
December 11, 2009 at 4:54 pm