cinehunch
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Also directed by Michael Rubbo, this has the same sincere child’s-eye perspective, playful Canadian eccentricity, and an everyday object transformed into a portal for adventure.
02
Why this pick
It shares the suburban childhood viewpoint and memorable practical-effects strangeness, but turns the uncanny discovery and young heroes’ resourcefulness toward more openly spooky territory.
03
Why this pick
Its claymation style is different, yet its appeal lies in the same 1980s blend of kid-friendly invention, eerie imagery, and bizarre dream sequences that linger.
04
Why this pick
This compact fantasy has the era’s colorful practical whimsy and a child’s direct encounter with a peculiar magical realm, with just enough artificial unreality to feel uncanny.
05
Why this pick
Another child-led, practical-effects fantasy where a familiar home environment conceals an anarchic, grotesque secret world; it is broader and more comic, but has comparable oddball energy.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
Michael Baskin is an average 11-year-old boy. His father, Billy Baskin, is a struggling artist and temporary sole caregiver of the children while his wife attends to the needs of her recently deceased father in Australia. Upon hearing the news that an abandoned mansion has recently burned down, Michael and his friend Connie decide to explore the remains. Outside the mansion, Connie dares Michael to take a look inside, leading to a frightening encounter with the ghosts of its squatters who had died in the fire. Michael does not know this yet, but his fearsome run in with the ghosts has given him a mysterious illness simply known as "The Fright". Michael wakes up the next morning to find out that "The Fright" has made him lose all of his hair. After a failed attempt with a wig (his wig was pulled off by an older boy during a fight in a soccer game), the ghosts visit Michael in his sleep and give him the recipe of a magical formula for hair growth, the main ingredient of which is peanut butter. Michael's first attempt to make the formula is thwarted when his father and sister think he is making something to ingest (rather than use topically) and dispose of it.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
Michael
Mary
Billy
Dr Epstein
