The Magic Christmas Tree

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: The Magic Christmas Tree

So long before The Nightmare before Christmas blurred the lines between Halloween and Christmas, we have The Magic Christmas Tree. A Christmas movie that takes place entirely during Halloween.

It will make sense later. Because it’s stupid.

So in the quaint greyscale town of. . . somewhere you still have to mow the lawn the day after Thanksgiving, we see Mark and his two friends eating lunch at school on Halloween. They are talking about their Halloween plans when Mark says they should go by the local crazy woman’s house because the children think she is a witch.

We cut to the old lady who is trying to convince her cat, Lucifer, to get out of the tree. And just before she is about to cast a magic spell to get the cat down when Mark shows up. The old lady grabs Mark and asks him to climb the tree and get the cat down.

Mark falls out of the tree, knocking himself unconscious, and the cat jumps out. We then do the wiggly transition from Wayne’s World and BAM, the world is in color! Oh and we changed locations and costumes.

The old lady is now dressed as a proper witch and to thank Mark for rescuing Lucifer, she gives him a magic ring, which contains a magic seed, and she teaches him the magic words. Apparently he needs to plant the seed under a Thanksgiving Turkey Wishbone and say obscure magic words while turning the ring three times. And he remembers this for almost a month.

We briefly observe Thanksgiving and meet Mark’s family. Mark demands the wishbone and his father says he’ll get what he gets. Because clearly that is the choice part of the bird. His wife convinces him to give mark the wishbone and Mark goes outside to plant the seed.

And we watch him plant the seed for 5 minutes. We see him dig up the dirt, place the seed and the wishbone, replace the dirt, say the magic words and then get scared and run away when a lightning bolt strikes. All as one continuous shot. Then we get a jumpcut of a full grown tree appearing. Mark goes back to his room and talks to his turtle, which he keeps in his bottom nightstand drawer.

Where the hell is PETA?

So the next morning, Mark’s father decides to mow the lawn. He takes the turtle out with him. We get a nice drawn out shot of Mark’s father trying to get the lawn mower started. After 4 unsuccessful attempts, it finally starts. Unfortunately they didn’t have a sound effect for “running lawn mower” so they went with “one man band rolling down a cliff.” Mark’s father is apparently barely able to control the lawnmower as it is dragging him all over the yard.

We keep going back and forth between Mark’s father mowing and the turtle eating some plants. It becomes unnerving when we cut from the turtle, to a head on shot of the mower coming at the camera and then cut to the wife hearing a crash.

OH GOD HE KILLED THE TURTLE WITH A LAWNMOWER!

Nope, he crashed into the magic tree which destroys his lawnmower. I guess this is the same tree from the night before, even though the yard we were watching for 5 minutes earlier is the not the same yard where the tree is now.

Mark’s father is shocked that there is a tree and blames the fact he didn’t know it was there for the crash. Because he apparently doesn’t look in front of him as he mows. Or notices when a tree magically appears in his lawn over night. He tries to chop the tree down, but it is apparently made of steel.

We then cut to Christmas Eve and Mark’s father decides to finally buy a Christmas tree. His wife is surprised he hasn’t bought a Christmas tree already. I think the first clue would have been that there wasn’t one in the house already. Mark’s family all leave to go Christmas shopping, and Mark finally decides to investigate the Tree he apparently ignored for almost a month.

Oh, and the tree talks. It has Mark say the magic words and teleports inside. Then he has Mark say the magic words again and BOOM, the Tree is decorated. The Tree tells Mark he has three wishes. Which he just wasted the first two on getting inside the house and decorated.

Or I guess those don’t count. So Mark is so impressed with the Tree’s power, he asks to have the Tree’s power for an hour. Mark uses his power to turn night into day, make a whole bunch of cars start running away from their owners, make a waitress hit her boss in the face with a pie, and cause general mayhem downtown. Everyone involved likely lost their jobs. You’re a dick, Mark.

For Mark’s second wish, he demands Santa Claus all to himself that Christmas. So no other children get presents.

I think Mark grew up to become Slick from the Elf Who Didn’t Believe. The Tree grants the wish and Santa becomes Mark’s slave. Santa can’t leave the living room and Santa gives Mark whatever he wants. As we do a crossfade from Mark giving his list of demands to Santa to Santa sitting alone with the tree, Santa wonders where Mark has gone off to.

We then cut to Mark walking around in the woods carrying around a Red Ryder BB gun apparently looking for something. At this point, I can only assume Mark had Santa set a few elves loose for Mark to hunt down like dogs!

Mark stops to drink from a small creek and then a giant man wearing a fur tunic grabs Mark!

OH GOD! YOU RUIN CHRISTMAS AND YOU BECOME A GIANT’S SEX SLAVE! The Grinch better be damn lucky he changed his mind at the last minute!

Mark, of course, repents after the Giant reveals how sad everyone is and Mark uses his third wish to undo his 2nd wish. The Giant then gives a warning to the viewer that they may become his slave if they become too Greedy.

So with everything restored the Magic Tree disappears and Mark cries himself to sleep. Before then waking up back in the world of black and white with the old lady back on Halloween. See, told ya it made sense! She thanks him for rescuing Lucifer with Milk and Cookies. Clearly he is not worthy of the magic seed ring just for falling out of a tree!

Then a different tree in a different voice tells him there is magic in every Christmas tree. Mark. . . I think you might have a concussion.

So yeah, this is a crappy stretched out nonsense tale. It falls just short of an hour and is mostly just long scenes stretched out to try and make it an hour. This could be heavily edited to a half hour or so. With commercials. Also the entire movie was redubbed, so most of the dialogue doesn’t quite sync up. Which results in some MAJOR overacting.

If you can get through the cheap 1960’s dialogue and story, it’s fun to riff, but kind of boring otherwise.

Tomorrow: While we are Stuck in the 1960’s lets continue with the theme of Christmas being almost ruined. Hope somebody warns the villains about the Sex Giants!