I used to think that the weirdest Christmas movie of all-time was the no-budget 1964 suburban nightmare The Magic Christmas Tree.
Then I got my brain melted by Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny and now I think differently about that and a lot of other things.
In previous movies, Santa Claus has conquered Martians and fought Satan and now maybe he’s tired because his enemy here is roughly one inch of Florida beach sand where his sleigh is marooned mere days before Christmas. All of his reindeer have fucked off back to the North Pole leaving Santa alone to whine again and again (and again and again) under the blazing sun. The good news: Every 7-year-old kid in the neighborhood wants to help him! The bad news: All of their ideas suck elf balls. Who’s the only one who can save Christmas? The motherfuckin’ Ice Cream Bunny, waltzing in like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction except in a creepy rabbit suit and without saying a word.
This is the perfect example of a children’s film that trips on its own low budget and lands in a very psychedelic space. It’s Bad Movie Gold that deserves an audience. Even the padding of the run-time is entertaining. Depending on which version you see (there are two), there’s a midpoint film-within-a-film in which the plot grinds to a halt so Santa can stop to tell the kids the story of either “Thumbelina” or “Jack and the Beanstalk” (or “Jack in the Beanstalk”, so say the credits) that’s some of the best work of B-movie stalwart Barry Mahon, his new takes on the fairy tales shoehorned in with terrible songs and casts full of hippies.
Meanwhile, the director of the whole affair is a mysterious character named R. Winer, which is a blatant pseudonym. In all the writing on the film since 1972 (which totals about two-and-a-half pages), no one seems to have uncovered the real identity of the director.
I say we spread a rumor that it’s Martin Scorsese.