The three immortal reptiles commence a journey to bake a blueberry pie for their mother in director Western Razooli’s Riddle of Fire. The scenic rural Wyoming is almost a fairyland when you see it through Razooli’s Kodak 16mm lens. This movie thrives on its sheer aesthetic, and at times it’s almost Wes Anderson-esque. The hardships the reptiles face to acquire their precious speckled egg are truly heartwarming.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the movie?
Hazel, Jodie, and Alice ride their motorbikes armed with paintball guns. They steal a game from the warehouse successfully, but they can’t play because their mum has set a password on the TV. With only a couple of days left for their summer vacation, Hazel and Jodie ask their sick mother Julie to tell them the password. After a long negotiation, Julie agrees to let the kids play the game for a couple of hours if they get her a blueberry pie from Celia’s bakery. The bakery is out of blueberry pies, and the kids find a sick Celia who’s not in any state to bake them a fresh pie. She does agree to give them the recipe if they could provide her with something colder than ice, and Jodie presents her with a “rather chilling and ghastly” doll he found at a dump yard. The three immortal reptiles get the recipe and collect the ingredients from the supermarket. The last ingredient is a speckled egg, but a cowboy takes the last crate of eggs and refuses to give them a single egg. The trio decides to take revenge on the man who took the last of the eggs and finds themselves in a much bigger problem in the pursuit of revenge.
How do the immortal reptiles end up on Faery Castle Mountain?
The kids follow the cowboy to his house and hide their bikes in the bushes to see if they can get their hands on the eggs. The residents of the house are known as “The Enchanted Blade Gang.” Anna Freya is the leader of the group, and she seems like a taxidermist. The house is filled with stuffed animals, and the gang includes Anna Freya’s sisters Kels and Suds, her brother Marty, and Johnny Redrye, the cowboy. Anna Freya seems to be controlling her sisters using a spell, and Johnny Redrye is highly disapproving of her methods. Johnny Redrye wants respect for what he does, and Anna Freya refuses to give him any. When the kids see that the duffel bag containing the eggs is kept in Johnny Redrye’s jeep, they sneak into the jeep to try and replace the eggs with crab legs as a joke. But soon the gang members come out of the house, and the kids hide in the back of the jeep. Their cry for help goes unheard, courtesy of the full-volume country music playing in the jeep. The kids make their way out of the jeep and discover they’re on the foothills of Faery Castle Mountain, and they follow the gang on their trail. During all this, Anna Freya’s mysterious daughter, Petal, also snuck into the Jeep. Petal is the heir of the Hollyhock family and the Princess of the enchanted blade. She is not happy with how her mother leaves her alone back home, and this time she managed to come along. She follows the kids to find out what they’re up to.
Why is Anna Freya looking for the Prince of the Mountain?
The kids find the gang setting up camp, and Anna Freya wants to catch the Prince of the Mountain. They carry guns and ammo, and it’s not hard to tell that the gang is talking about a large stag they’ve set their eyes on. Anna Freya controls her family with spells and makes them do the hard work for her. The kids keep a watch on them from afar and even shoot a paintball at Johnny Redrye’s hands when he boasts about catching a trout he originally didn’t. Petal appears before the reptiles and befriends them. She introduces herself as a fire fairy and offers to help them get the speckled egg.
How does Hazel get caught?
After Anna Freya leaves with the gang to hunt the stag, only Johnny Redrye is left behind in the camp, cooking dinner. Alice and Jodie hide in the woods and sing a song of mockery to lure Johnny Redrye out of the camp. Hazel finds the eggs, but his empty stomach stops him from leaving the delicious pan full of sausages and poached eggs. He eats the dinner Johnny’s been cooking and fries the rest of the eggs to make delicious omelettes for himself. Petal looks on helplessly from afar, watching Hazel eat like his life is on the line. Hazel goes on to drink from the bottle of alcohol Johnny was drinking from, and Johnny comes back to see a drunk kid stealing his food. Johnny takes Hazel hostage, and Marty and the sisters come back to see the little intruder tied up.
How do the reptiles and petals flee from the mountain?
Johnny Redrye asks the sisters and Marty to go help Anna Freya with the hunting while he comes up with an apt punishment for Hazel. Petal shows up and lures Johnny out of the camp again. Anna Freya won’t be happy if Johnny doesn’t fetch his daughter from the jungle. Jodie and Alice free Hazel, and Johnny ends up getting headshot by Alice. Alice then finds out that Hazel has eaten all of the eggs, and she gives him a hard slap. Petal puts her aunts under a spell, and they jumpstart a car for sale from the side of the road. They head back to Ribbon without the egg, but Petal knows a certain person who has a golden chicken who lays speckled eggs.
Can the reptiles find the speckled egg in the Hall of Fortune?
The kids reach a place named Hall of Fortune, run by Dana Troubadour, a friend of Anna Freya’s. Petal tells the kids that Dana Troubadour possesses a golden chicken, Valentina, who lays the best speckled eggs. The kids ask Dana for an egg, but Dana demands 30 dollars in exchange. When they can’t give him the money, he makes them do a little dance performance, which is actually swell. Even after they dance their hearts out, Dana refuses to give the egg and raises the price to 100 dollars. Alice is now furious, and they kick Dana in the private parts to run with the speckled egg. But Dana catches the kids and starts beating Hazel up. Anna Freya arrives with her gang and stops the nuisance.
How do the reptiles defeat “The Enchanted Blade Gang”?
Anna Freya catches the reptiles and dismisses Petal to punish them for her misfortune. Anna Freya failed to catch the stag, and she thinks they are the reason for her failure. She threatens to bite off their fingers, but the police arrive in the hall just in time. The cops pick them up for their earlier misadventure at the warehouse. Hazel pulls a smart one just before he was made to sit in the police car. He says sorry to Anna Freya that she didn’t get to shoot the elk in the mountains and wishes her better luck for next time. The cops get suspicious, and they run Johnny Redrye’s plates on the system, discovering their gang is listed as most wanted by the Bridgers County Sheriff’s Department. Their reputation for poaching endangered animals has grown quite far, and Hazel just ratted them out at the right moment. To make things sweeter, Petal shows up and opens the door to release them, and she has brought another speckled egg from Valentina. The kids finally reach home and bake the fresh blueberry pie with their divinely speckled egg. They’ve brought Petal with them to stay, and Julie gets up to the smell of the pie and coffee. The kids finally come full circle to give their mother the pie, and now they get to play Angel, the game they wanted to play to begin with.
Riddle of Fire smoothly blends the thin line between the supernatural and normal. The simple task of getting an egg is turned into a magnificent quest by the children. As Jodie once mentions in the closing moments of the movie, they should’ve just looked at another store. Their adventure turns the poachers in, and this movie is as delightful as a gummy worm.
