The Peanut Butter Solution — The Peanut Butter Solution(Blu Ray)
Made in 1985 The Peanut Butter Solution (aka Tales For All #2) was directed by Australian-relocated-to-Canada Michael Rubbo- who seemingly split his focus between family films & fairly unusual sounding documentaries- in all between the mid 1960’s and 2009 he helmed thirty-six productions which took in both shorts, docs & feature lengths. On the whole The Peanut Butter Solution is well enough filmed for a family film, though it’s very unpredictable both with it’s plotting & at times bizarre editing.
The film focuses in on a fairy quirky Canadian family- we have the two children- mischievous Micheal & Suzie who looks like mumsy forty-year-old women put into a pre-teen girl. Then there’s the pair father who spends his days painting his family playing badminton & humanoid birds in pun heavy pictures. One day Michael and Conard- his Asian boyfriend who wears a black trilby hat- decide to break into a fire damage nursing home. Michael falls & knocks himself out, and when he comes round all of his hair has fallen out- this, as you can imagine, creates all manner of mocking/ bullying at school. And talking of school- that’s a weird place too- one of the boys' main teachers-Singor, gets his student to paint his dog in his art class & rumbles on in his highly accented way.
Anyway one night Michael gets visited by two ghosts of the old folks who died in the home fire- they give him a recipe for a bizarre potion, which among a host of weird ingredients features Peanut butter- he’s only meant to use one spoonful, but as it won't stick to his head he adds in another four spoonful- come the next morning his hair starts growing at a rapid manner- so his friends have to keep cutting it. One day, once again fed up with his predicament, he falls asleep & gets kidnapped by Singor who has been fired from the school. We find out that he has kidnapped over twenty children- and these he has working in a factory cutting & processing Michael constantly growing hair- into paintbrushes that create paintings you can jump into, various clothes, and even curtains. Yep, this is completely bonkers plotting- added to this we have the often very inappropriate for a family film touches- like Conard putting the potion ‘down-there’ so as a result he has long black public hair growing out of his trouser legs, the troubling loss of Micheal hair & the way it’s liberally mocked by everyone, the rather creepy elderly ghosts who come & steal food from Micheal house at night, and of course the hair farming creepy ex-teacher-come-kidnapper. It's amazing, this oddity was ever made, and then, of course, focused at a family market- so understandably it caused a fairly bit of fear & trauma for those who saw this as children.
On the whole, if you like WTH kids films you’ve got to see The Peanut Butter Solution- as it stands as one of oddest family pictures you’ll have ever seen. Sure like a lot of family films from this period the pacing is a little mixed & plodding at times, and the acting is very mixed & at times fairly bizarre- but these are fairly minor quibbles as the whole thing is just so bizarre, inappropriate, and at times downright weird- making one feel like they are watching a family film from an alternative universe.
Moving onto this new region free Blu Ray- and first, off we get a nice new sparking scan of the film- really bringing it’s 80’s palette to life, and making the nightmarish/ trippy parts even more so. You also get an extended US theatrical version of the film. On the extras side, we get a new commentary track- this features the films producer Rock Demers, and lead actor Actor Matthew MacKay- with the whole thing been Moderated by Canadian filmmaker Ara Ball. It’s an expectingly chatty track- with the trio talking about everything from the production/ writing processes, Demmer's other films, quirky on set memories including discussing the various wigs on the film, and that Mackay had to have his head shaved each day. They go onto discussing casting, the impact the film had on many children & hows it become a bizarre cult classic, and much more. All in all a most worthy track.
Next, we get two on-camera interviews- first is with Rock Demers, and this runs twenty minutes plus. The other interview is with Siluck Saysanasy who played Conard- this runs around seven minutes. Next, we get Tales for All- this finds Canadain film expect Paul Corupe talking about the family films of Rock Demers, and Canadian kids film in general- it runs around twelve minutes & is most fascinating, and gives you a good overview- and of course a list of films to hunt down. The disc is topped off with three different trailers for the film- the US original, Canadian trailer, and the alienate trailer- so a good selection of stuff.
So The Peanut Butter Solution is a great opening release from this new Severin sub-label, and as I say if you dig bizarre family films you’ve got to pick this up!... I very much look forward to seeing what Severin Kids have got lined up for release next, as there are so many strange & inappropriate family films released over the years.