- Giant
The youth of today is bombarded with lame 3D effects and big budget films of corpse properties. When it comes to children, it is easy money. While there is some much deserved disdain towards recent products, the children films during the 1950's and 60's are far more deserving to be judged for war crimes against humanity. Theaters often featured children matinees, an easy babysitting tool for desperate mothers and an anarchy of sugary thrills. These matinee screenings, sometimes with double or triple bills, were a kid's first experience with Russian Roulette; You might be greeted with a goofy Corman film or Magic Christmas Tree.
Magic Christmas Tree, there is no "The" in its credits, is one of the absolute worst films ever made. I'm not joking nor am I using the statement like a snarky user on a forum; Magic Christmas Tree is simply an abysmal dreck of American arts and culture. Even with the unbelievable running time of less than a hour, this film seemingly incorporates every single frame of footage shot, pureed into a confusing and irritating slop, and dubbed later by a bored sound director and his amateur-league actors.
This great merry Christmas film starts off on Halloween and is shot in black and white. A shrilly fat boy named Mark jump cuts his way through a conversation with his token friends. The hellion dares the two to walk near the house of the "old witch" in their neighborhood. When there, the witch grabs the little butterball and somehow gets him to go up a tree to get her cat, Lucifer. The boy plummets hard to the ground and dies. The end.
Oh wait, the film continues and now in low-grade color. We enter a clearly stated dream world as the boy talks with the "witch" who now is a real witch. She gives him a hideous Santa ring and a magic seed. Next comes the strangest magic concoction ever: With the seed and a wishbone from a Thanksgiving turkey, the chubby boy buries both in the yard, spins the ring around his finger three times, says a goofy phrase and boom it gives him a tree. An indestructible but pathetically skinny tree voiced by a drunk Charles Nelson Reilly impersonator and decorated with one-dollar decorations.
The film then becomes diesel-style nightmare fuel. The tree grants him three wishes: A "Hour of Power" where he becomes the Lathe of Heaven, the ability to hold Santa Claus hostage by having him permanently sitting down in a chair, and the obvious wish-it-all-away. Throughout this entirety, you experience some of the lowest depravity put to film. During the "Hour of Power", the viewer has to sit through a terribly choreographed chase scene with no rhythm or reason, all done in long shots. The Santa Claus is practically a robot, barely moving or even speaking out his silent lines. Thankfully, the film ends quickly after an infamous sequence where the kid wanders around a forest with a gun for three minutes and then gets assaulted by a tunic-wearing dirty man who wants him as his slave.
Magic Christmas Tree is a terrible experience to watch, even though the enormous amount of unintentional humor is truly fascinating. A fantastic example is when the family celebrates Thanksgiving. The father gives Mark only the wishbone he so desires and then gives his sister and mother real food. And just to surprise us even further, Mark gets ready to plant the bone only after taking a turtle out of a closed cabinet. Later in the film, after the father is unable to buy a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve (?), he rushes towards the other family members with an axe in his hand. Then there's all of the bad acting, audio synching errors, continuous continuity errors, and repetitive sound effects.
Simply sitting through the trailer of this film is a great test of fortitude. I can't possibly think what actually happened when this screened in front of children back in 1964. I hope William Castle was supervising the theaters, as you would need a nursing station and a certified insurance policy for Magic Christmas Tree.
TOMORROW'S ENTRY: It gets far, far worst. Another children matinee where Santa meets up with the worst mythical creature ever.
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