I started my TIFF experience this year with a title that will be featured at this year’s Midnight Madness, the popular venue that explores unique genre titles.

Riddle of Fire definitely falls into that category, in conversations with other critics I ended up describing this film in the following manner: it was as if someone took a NES RPG and then filmed it with a 70s/80s European feel.

There are moments when this film works like gangbusters, but the success and the fault lay in the fact that children aren’t always the best actors, and putting them at the center of a story, you really have to be able to get performances out of them. And that doesn’t always work in this film but through it all, they do remain charming.

Still, it’s surprisingly fun. A trio of young friends, Alice (Phoebe Farro) and brothers Hazel (Charlie Stover) and Jodie (Skyler Peters) have stolen a new game system from a local warehouse, and are settling in to waste the next two days of their summer holiday gaming on the couch.

Unfortunately, Hazel and Jodie’s mother has put a password lock on the television, and the only way they can get it from her is if they complete a quest for their tired and sick mother (Danielle Hoetmer). She wants a blueberry pie.

The local bakery is all out, The Reptile Gang, as they call themselves, decide to make one themselves and they head off to ‘borrow’ things from the local supermarket, but John Redrye (Charles Halford) gets the last of the eggs. Instead of seeking out other options, the trio is determined to steal the eggs from Redrye and follow them.

What follows is an adventure, a quest, that gets them muddled up with The Enchanted Blade Gang which is intent on poaching on the local mountainside. Their leader may be a witch. Anna-Freya (Lio Tipton) seems to have some magical abilities, abilities her young daughter, Petal (Lorelei Olivia Mote) seems to share, and Petal has found some new friends in The Reptile Gang.

As they work to get the eggs back, just one egg will do, they will have to deal with a variety of problems. One thing complicates another, and things get increasingly troublesome and dangerous for the group.

Through it all the story and the dialogue portray the children as children. They aren’t smarter than the adults, they respond as kids would, they have their catchphrases, and words they love, and delight in being who they are.

It’s a fun, retro-feeling escape that delights, and embraces the wonder and excitement of being a child on an adventure.

Riddle of Fire screens at Midnight Madness on Saturday the 16th at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, and then on Sunday the 17th at the Lightbox. Explore ticket options and other festival titles here.