Screening: The Magic Christmas Tree - Crappy Christmas at Movies on a Big Screen!

December 11, 2011
7:30 PM
Admission: $5.00
Movies on a Big Screen at The Guild
2828 35th St, Sacramento, CA

It's the first weekend of Crappy Christmas, and we'll also be showing 2 Crappy Christmas short films before the so-called "feature"!!

The Magic Christmas Tree

See the Magic Christmas Tree Talk! See the Discussion About Bologna Sandwiches! See The Black Magic Witch? See the Creepy Giant?? See The Runaway Lawnmower?!?!? See the Grass Eating Turtle! See Mom Talk on the Phone! Oh yes - all of these wondrous holiday "surprises" await you in this obscure Christmas "film" from 1964.

What's it about? Well, what little sense of it that exists kind of goes like this: Three boys talk about their lunches. They walk home and one of the boys, Mark, visits a creepy old woman who gets Mark to rescue Lucifer, her cat, out of a tree. Mark hits his head and the woman is transformed into a witch. She seduces Mark into the "dark arts" by giving him a ring with a magic seed to grow a magic talking (possessed?) tree so long as the correct (occult) ritual is followed, and the tree will also grant three wishes. Mark plants the seed causing the demonic tree to grow, and abuses two of the wishes, one of which involves having Santa glued to a chair so Mark can demand toys from him. Then Mark is in the woods with a creepy giant (we don't really know why and don't really care, either). Mark uses his final wish to undo the other wishes. Mark gets cookies. The end. Yeah - that's pretty much it. Oh - there's also the runaway lawnmower and the turtle, but you'll just have to see it for yourself. In an uncommon show of mercy, nearly everyone associated with this "film" never worked in movies again.

"The Magic Christmas Tree was obviously made by amateur filmmakers working with whatever they had at hand...The most important element in that situation is talent, and the filmmakers here simply had none. The story doesn't make sense, the comedy style was out of date 20 years before the movie was made, and the acting is bad even when it's dubbed." - stomptokyo.com

"A low budget fever dream of a movie, this film uses all the usual Christmas tropes: evil witches, talking trees that grant wishes and a semi-bondage scene with Santa Claus tied to a chair."" - badassdigest.com

"My wife and I both had headaches while watching this film. This Satanic Christmas diddy should be shown in film schools as an example of how not to make a movie…this film fails on all cylinders. My wife commented that she wished everyone in this movie would die except the turtle. It's easy to understand her feelings." - imdb.com reviewer