‘Riddle of Fire’: A Fairytale About Blueberry Pie and Paintball Guns

‘Riddle of Fire’ brings back the 1970s, fantasy-filled, Peanuts-gang-like summer vacations of bike-riding adventures with friends.
‘Riddle of Fire’: A Fairytale About Blueberry Pie and Paintball Guns
(L–R) Hazel (Charlie Stover), Alice (Phoebe Ferro), and Jodie (Skyler Peters) are scouting out the local warehouse, in "Riddle of Fire." Yellow Veil Pictures
Mark Jackson
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PG-13 | 1h 53m | Comedy, Adventure, Fantasy | March 22, 2024

Did you have idyllic, 1970s’ childhood summer vacations, with green-leafy days, mucky-pond swimming, and bike-riding with buddies? The lake, the beach, warm, glow-y sunsets, and fireflies? The day-soundtrack of which was the lawnmower and the ice cream truck, and katydids by night?

“Riddle of Fire”—reminiscent of “Stand By Me,” “Goonies,” “The Last Unicorn,” and much of the Wes Anderson canon—is a neo-fairytale that follows three latchkey kids, who are having a fabulous dirt-streaked summer in an idyllic rural town in the Wyoming mountains, as they embark on an odyssey to obtain a blueberry pie for their flu-ridden mom (Danielle Hoetmer) that she swears will make her feel all better.

Now, this pie is the fee that they must pay unto her, to obtain the TV password in order to play a brand new video game. Which new video game? The one they’ve just snatched after a successful military-spy-recon-commandeering mission, facilitated by mini-bikes and paintball guns, from the local warehouse, where they pull a fast one on the security guard, and abscond with the new Xbox or whatever it is.

(L–R) Hazel (Charlie Stover), Jodie (Skyler Peters), and Alice (Phoebe Ferro), wearing identity-obscuring balaclavas, approach their mission location, in "Riddle of Fire." (Yellow Veil Pictures)
(L–R) Hazel (Charlie Stover), Jodie (Skyler Peters), and Alice (Phoebe Ferro), wearing identity-obscuring balaclavas, approach their mission location, in "Riddle of Fire." Yellow Veil Pictures
And thusly kicks off an epic, whimsical quest to procure the right ingredients (there must especially be a speckled egg from a golden hen named Valentina), to get the recipe, to bake the pie, to please the mom, to get the password, to play the video games, that reside in the House That Jack Built. The quest lasts the whole movie! Mom knew what she was doing—no kids stayed indoors at any time whatsoever.

The Kid Crew

The kids are: older brother Hazel (Charlie Stover), kid brother Jodie (Skyler Peters), and girl-bestie Alice (Phoebe Ferro). If these were Peanuts characters, Alice would be in-charge Lucy, ginger-haired Hazel would be Charlie Brown at his most optimistically and enthusiastically baseball-crazed (actually, being the dirt-baggiest of the bunch, Hazel also has more than a little in common with Pigpen). And little Jodie steals the entire show as a latter-day Linus.
(L–R) Hazel (Charlie Stover), Alice (Phoebe Ferro) and Jodie (Skyler Peters) are scouting out the local warehouse, in "Riddle of Fire." (Yellow Veil Pictures)
(L–R) Hazel (Charlie Stover), Alice (Phoebe Ferro) and Jodie (Skyler Peters) are scouting out the local warehouse, in "Riddle of Fire." Yellow Veil Pictures

In fact, I need to describe Jodie more right now: He’s one of those brilliant, savant-ish kids who doesn’t actually have a speech impediment, but by some strange quirk of personality, affects a strange accent, like, from another planet, and is so unintelligible he needs his own subtitles. And when you see the translation, you discover he’s saying brilliant and absolutely hilarious things.

For example: The kids head out to the bakery to get the aforementioned blueberry pie, but learn the pie-maker is sick. They go visit her. She answers the door and tells them she’ll not be baking any pies today because she’s got a high fever. If they want her pie recipe, they need to go get her something that’s “colder than ice,” to cool her down first. She adds, “Haunt me no longer, sprites of the forest!”

The kiddies ponder on what could be colder than ice. They attack the padlocked dry-ice bin at the local 7-Eleven. Alice filches some peppermint gum, with the kid-logic that if you breathe in hard, after chewing it, it’s colder-than-cold. And then we hear some gibberish from Jodie, who’s gesturing at a yard sale across the street. The subtitle reveals: “What about the rather chilling, ghastly doll on the other side of the road over there? It’ll give her a chill down the spine.”

Alice (Phoebe Ferro, front, center) and her two friends, having stowed away in a poacher's truck, observe where the poachers are going, in "Riddle of Fire." (Yellow Veil Pictures)
Alice (Phoebe Ferro, front, center) and her two friends, having stowed away in a poacher's truck, observe where the poachers are going, in "Riddle of Fire." Yellow Veil Pictures
That’s a classic Linus-type musing, and therefore I felt that a baby-blue, lint-balled flannel blanket should have been added to Jodie’s costume accessories. The other hilarious thing about Jodie’s vocabulary is that it sounds like he’s been watching a lot of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Rat-Pack movies.

Other Stuff That Happens!

The woodland nymph, Petal Hollyhock (Lorelei Olivia Mote), in "Riddle of Fire." (Yellow Veil Pictures)
The woodland nymph, Petal Hollyhock (Lorelei Olivia Mote), in "Riddle of Fire." Yellow Veil Pictures

The team is kidnapped by poachers! They outwit a big, bearded, 9 mm Glock-packing huntsman named John Redrye (Charles Halford)! They befriend a golden-haired fairy (their age) named Petal Hollyhock (Lorelei Olivia Mote)! They battle with the wily witch Anna-Freya (Lio Tipton) who’s got unexplained mystical powers (who happens to be Petal’s mom, and who’s also a taxidermist by trade, poaching to get her raw materials). The kids bond together to become best friends forever!

“Riddle of Fire” is mostly set in the real, contemporary world, but director Weston Razooli uses the occasional dash of magical realism to submerge the film in a fairytale-ish realm, making it almost a perfect bedtime movie, as opposed to just another coming-of-age kid flick.

(L–R) Petal Hollyhock (Lorelei Olivia Mote), Jodie (Skyler Peters), Alice (Phoebe Ferro), and Hazel (Charlie Stover) bake a blueberry pie for their sick mom, in "Riddle of Fire." (Yellow Veil Pictures)
(L–R) Petal Hollyhock (Lorelei Olivia Mote), Jodie (Skyler Peters), Alice (Phoebe Ferro), and Hazel (Charlie Stover) bake a blueberry pie for their sick mom, in "Riddle of Fire." Yellow Veil Pictures

All in All

Using screen fonts that derive from “The Hobbit” and other high-fantasy tales, as well as having utilized analog technology and shot the movie with 16 mm to resemble the dreamy, hazy atmosphere of 1970s-era children’s adventure fantasy, Mr. Razooli succeeds in capturing that particular throwback nostalgia.

One reason I can’t highly recommend it as a bedtime movie, is that the kids occasionally curse like miniature sailors. Now, granted, the occasional f-bomb is used to excellent comedic affect, and it’s all pretty realistic in terms of how little kids talk today, but this publication is attempting to help nudge our dying, disastrously disintegrating, daily decaying, demon-infested culture back towards tradition.

Speaking of the world’s currently eroding traditions, “Riddle of Fire” has a fairly strong feminist undertone: the witch’s big, scary, doltish boyfriend is thoroughly emasculated by her, especially when she at one point fires a bullet a few inches past his head when he balks at carrying out an order. She controls him and her three kids with spoken spells (read, hypnotism). She’s played by Ana Leigh Tipton who’s lately become a they/them and turned into Lio Tipton. And in the kid crew, it’s the girls who make all the decisions.

Lastly, “Riddle Of Fire” meanders a fair amount, due to movies now being required to be, in my opinion, much too long, and so, while it sort of mimics a long walk in the woods, and is always pleasant, it also feels slightly repetitive in places, and any scenes involving adults are not quite as delightful.

But, possibly, these minor drawbacks are only noticeable to an adult. Kids won’t notice. But if you use it as a bedtime movie, don’t be surprised if you suddenly catch your 3-year old trying on an f-bomb for size.

Promotional poster for "Riddle of Fire." (Yellow Veil Pictures)
Promotional poster for "Riddle of Fire." Yellow Veil Pictures
‘Riddle of Fire’ Director: Weston Razooli Starring: Charlie Stover, Skyler Peters, Phoebe Ferro, Lorelei Olivia Mote, Lio Tipton, Charles Halford, Weston Razooli, Danielle Hoetmer MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes Release Date: March 22, 2024 (streaming) Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
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Mark Jackson
Mark Jackson
Film Critic
Mark Jackson is the chief film critic for The Epoch Times. In addition to the world’s number-one storytelling vehicle—film, he enjoys martial arts, weightlifting, motorcycles, vision questing, rock-climbing, qigong, oil painting, and human rights activism. Jackson earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Williams College, followed by a classical theater training, and has 20 years’ experience as a New York professional actor, working in theater, commercials, and television daytime dramas. He narrated The Epoch Times audiobook “How the Specter of Communism is Ruling Our World,” which is available on iTunes and Audible. Jackson is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic.