I watched it when i was 3 and i could sleep in days. It was the freakiest movie i ever saw. Me too i almost lost my hair watching it... just kidding. but still, after 15 year i am still almost affraid to watch this movie. I think it is a child traumatism
shareWow. I don't know whether to cue the "Twilight Zone" theme, or "It's a Small World". You've solved a mystery that has been with me since childhood. Am I the only person in the world who has heard of a movie titled "The Peanut Butter Solution"? And why do I feel immediately creeped out when I think of it?" It's one of those vague memories from childhood, in which you cannot recall specifics (such as where you saw it and who you saw it with, or what the hell it was about!), but you can recall a potent sense surrounding how it made you FEEL. I assumed, until now, that my childhood imagination had probably created fear where none existed. After all, the title includes the words "Peanut Butter", which cannot POSSIBLY be as sinister as I made it out to be. It sounds more like a Judy Blume book than some freakish, twisted film! The one image that comes to mind is a boy seeing his hairless reflection in a toaster. Also, I remember him sneaking into a dilapidated doorflap. I think I got scared soon after that, so I may have panicked and turned it off. I get the feeling that I watched it alone, because I'm not sure I would have been so scared if someone else was right there with me (plus, I'm an only child, so I'm sure I entertained myself more often then not). I'm 22 now, and it came out in 85', so chances are, I watched it sometime between 86' & 88'.
But you guys rock. It's like a support group for victims of childhood trauma associated with viewing obscure 80s fantasy/horror movies. We have to stick together if we're gonna get through this. No, but in all seriousness, there is something really cool about finding out that there are other people in the world who share the most obscure, random memory from childhood (that you assume nobody else would EVER understand). In fact, each of your descriptions are almost (if not entirely) identical to mine. I swear that I looked this film up in the IMDB a few years ago to see if I could be reminded of anything, and there were NO posts.
I have GOT to watch this film again at some point. Definitely NOT by myself this time.
We should all get together and watch it again. Maybe we all have something else in common? This could be a deeper conspiracy than we think.
shareI completely agree with everyone. For a long, long, time I have been trying to remember this damn movie. My aunt rented it when I was 7 or so and we watched it and Beetle Juice. I remember the kid's hair being used for paintbrushes and the painting on the wall he walls into. I also thought this was an odd dream I had when I was a kid because none of my friends had seen it. Finally I got to the point where I knew it wasn't a dream. This movie really freaked me out and I did have nightmares about it. I watched the trailer for it. It's adverstised as a "light-hearted comedy". Which is funny because it totally wasn't funny at all for me when I was seven.
shareYES YES YES!!!! I AM SO GLAD TO SEE THAT THIS MOVIE HAS FREAKED AS MANY POEPLE OUT AS IT HAS DONE TO ME... I SAW THIS MOVIE MAYBE 12 YEARS AGO. ME AND MY SISTER WERE ONLY ALOUD TO RENT MOVIES AT THIS OLD LIBRARY IN DOWNTOWN NORMAL AND SOMEHOW ALWAYS GOT THIS MOVIE BUT COULD NEVER FINISH IT CAUSE IT SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF US EVERYTIME. BUT WE ALWAYS KEPT RENTING IT. I DON'T KNOW WHY THOUGH. VERY FREAKY
shareAdd another one to the list. odd coincidences...
Was talking to a Canadian friend of mine today and I mentioned a movie about some way cool snow fort and paint filled snowballs I saw on HBO when I was 6 or 7. (I'm 28 now) She refreshed my memory of The Dog Who Stopped The War, and we started talking about other films from our youth.
I told her I remembered a VERY disturbing film about some kid who gets scared, loses his hair, his hair starts growing and wont stop and then gets kidnapped. She had the same reaction "Jeez, that movie was f'ing creepy" "Thats the peanut butter solution"
Instantly I flashed back to how I felt when I saw it as a kid. I wasnt really scared per se, but man this movie had seriously bad vibes. Correct me if im wrong, but wasnt there some scene where the kid is like strapped down on a rack while his ever growing hair is like harvested by slave children or something? I think I even remember the kid looking like he was pale and dead.
It's really funny to see how many other kids thought this was twisted as well.
They showed this movie in my Kindergarten class and I had nightmares for months. In fact, my nightmares were so bad that I "created" an imaginary friend who had the "power" to get rid of bad dreams. I also had many people who thought I was insane when I described what I remembered of the movie: a kid goes into a weird house, loses all his hair from fright, ghosts tell him how to mix peanut butter (with rotten eggs?) and then his hair won't stop growing...I didn't remember the rest very well, just an evil man who was somehow connected to paintbrushes and a picture at the end that comes to life. I think the living pictures/magic paintbrush part confused me as a kid. For years, I thought this movie was called "How To Make Peanut Butter" and it haunted me because I couldn't find any reference to it anywhere. Luckily, I finally found it on imdb by looking through all the matches to a search for "peanut butter". I really want to see it again just to be able to place the strange memories that I have of the film. I very clearly remember the wig/soccer scene, possibly more than any other part of the movie, because I remember feeling so bad for the kid who was bald!
This was just one of many scary/inappropriate movies that we watched in my kindergarten class. We also watched Look Who's Talking (which is rated either PG-13 or R), Alice Through the Looking Glass (which really freaked me out b/c of the Jabberwocky and the weird characters), and--believe it or not/worst of all--the music video of Michael Jackson's Thriller!
Oh my gosh-- talk about weird! My kindergarten class ALSO was shown the video Thriller back in like 1988/1989. What the heck was up with that video and the idea to show it to us?!
This whole thread is like deja vu for me. I love talking to everybody who has seen this whacked movie. Are you in your early 20s too? I'm 22, almost 23.
We should start a club. I'm so glad to discover I'm not the only one who considers this the scariest movie of my childhood. I need to try to get a hold of it again and see what all the fuss was about. I know I didn't finish it when I was a kid because I was freaked out. I just remember my parents telling me that it wasn't a scary movie, but it sure was to me.
Reviews http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/journal_view.php?journalid=195926&view=public
'Twas years ago, but I used to have to have my parents escort me to the bathroom at night because I would see the signor's face when I looked out the window.
sharei slightly remember the scary house at the end
i thought the whole movie was a dream until i met someone else who had seen it
i think the freakiest part was when he walked into his own kitchen and the old lady
was there
and he needed to gather all the supplies to grow his hair back
like the flies
this movie terrified me for a long time
wow
i really want to see it again
All I can say is that I totally crapped my pants watching this as a kid, although I don't exactly remember why, and I feel like my family rented it all the time.
I bet if I watched it now I would def think it was the stupidest movie, but I would still be scared of it, hah.
Wow, this truly is a support group. I've never felt so connected to so many peoples' psyches before.
I too saw this movie as a kid and it FREAKED me out. I think the memory of it is actually freakier than actually watching it as a kid. Like spectres of the mind or something. The funny thing is, I don't remember it that strongly, just certain images and lots of horrific feelings.
I only skimmed all of the postings because I have yet to see this movie as an adult and I don't want to ruin any "suprises". I'll probably laugh at it now, but it was serious *beep* as a kid. I also remember that Alice Through the Looking Glass film that someone else mentioned and it freaked me out. Keep in mind that I was raised on cable and saw everything imaginable. Gore, sex, etc. But it's certain things that really get to you, you know? A lot of the Poltergeist films freaked me out as a kid too - that old skeletal man in black - yick. (Carol Ann, stay away from the light!)
Monkey Shines and Jacob's Ladder are others I can think of. There weren't too many others, but I'd love to hear some more from other traumatized souls.
Thanks for sharing, everyone!
By the way, I am 26.
;)
Add another one to the list...
This movie literally traumatized me when I was four or five. I watched it at my best friend's house after school one afternoon in his basement with the lights out, and the whole experience was like a horrific, nightmarish blur. The one scene I recall clearly is when the main character is on the soccer field and some kid pulls his hairpiece off, witb the "peanut butter solution" visible in disgusting strings with bizarro music. I remember being absolutely HORRIFIED! Evidently that was the straw that broke the camel's back, because I had an anxiety attack -- my first -- and rushed home and immediately vomited, violently, shaking. The image was burned into my brain for weeks afterward. I had serious nightmares about it for a long time. It hurt my psyche like nothing before or since.
There is something very wrong about THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION.
Just to jump on the bandwagon, but this movie scared the hell out of me as a kid too. This film and Watcher In the Woods, were possibly the two films which had the greatest effect on me as a child, I was terrified!!
shareOh..my....god...................i remember watching this as a kid and my god it scared the *beep* out of me!!! I dont know why i kept watching it! I dont remember much because i havent seen it for years, but i know if i watched it again it would still creep me out....I just remember this thing about the kid going down a slide or something. SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
shareI've watched lots of hardcore movies such as Ichi the Killer, Hostel, stuff like that, and without flinching.
But that freaking movie still scares the sh*t out of me. Just thinking about it makes me shiver. I have no idea why... I remember that it gave me nightmares, and lots of them when I was around 4-5.
I had gotten to the point where I thought my memories of this movie were just a vivid nightmare I had as a child. Thank god I'm not the only one to remember this movie. If I remember correctly, didn't the family cat claw all of his hair out. It must have been the freakiest movie I've ever seen, and it has left such an impression on me, I have to see it again!
shareThis is incredible... i would never believed that so many people had the same reaction to this movie that i had.
I mean is very weird that a movie supposedly for childs traumatized so many kids that saw it. I think someone should send a tape to a psicholgyst to find about why is this so.
I hardly remember any plot-related things with the movie, but i sure remember that when i saw it, i suppose i was around 5 years old then, it totally freaked me out and i had nightmares for months. And today, like 15 years after, i still had recorded in my brain the vague memory of a movie of "a kid whose hair can´t stop from growing and someone made paint brushes out of it". It really was a child hood trauma.
I guess i´ll see it again now.
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http://horaciofunes.blogspot.com/
I think it's because Celine Dion did the music.
shareI was a kid who grew up on horror movies practically since the day I was born. Everything from "A Nightmare on Elm Street" to "Halloween", I seen'em all and loved'em all. Then I saw the Peanut Butter Solution and this movie traumatized me like no other. I spent my teen years having forgotten about it mostly plagued by random images from the film and a steady flow of nightmares with images that I only recently found out were from this very film. And once I pin pointed it and forced myself to remember the title I had to watch this movie again now being 22. I got it off of ebay and sat down with some close friends to watch it with me that wouldn't laugh at me if I got scared and ran out of the room, by the way, I'm a guy.
I watched the film uneasy most of the way and then struck by a wave of a kind of euphoric nostalgia I guess is the best way to describe it. I watched the movie to the end without freaking out and surprisingly enough actually finding the film quite enjoyable and intriguing. But heres the freaky part...
As a child I didn't understand things such as "theme" and "plot". I just watched movies and liked them or didn't. The theme to The Peanut Butter solution is summed up in the very end. Michael gets terrified of what is called "The Fright" in the film and loses his hair. At the end when he enters the Signor's painting and enters the building where he got scared he faces "The fright" and realizes that it is nothing more than those 2 ghosts that tried to scare him. And before the closing credits Michael (the main character) says to his father, "The biggest part of the fright is in your head". So this film is about being so terrified of something that you built up mostly in your head and then when you face it better equipt you see that it isn't that scary at all. Now if this was what the writer/director intended to convey to us at 6 or 7 and not realize the message till much older I guess that either makes him an absolute genius or a sadist...probably a little bit of both.
YES!! I watched all of the 80's horror films, as well- Don't get me wrong, they scared me with a vengeance. But, there was something about this movie that had a creepy factor like no other. I think that the very fact that "The Peanut Butter Solution" was (and still is) a rather obscure movie made it eerie in comparison to the more mainstream films. For example, I had friends who could relate to the fear brought on by Freddy Krueger, but nobody could relate to "The Peanut Butter Solution", since I didn't know anyone else who had seen it....That is, until all of you!
shareThe trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Cm4Cy3rxs
I both thank you and curse you for posting that link. I really enjoyed the trailer, yet it beckoned to an era of nightmares brought on by the film.
share"by the way, I'm a guy."
Yeah.. And?