The Magic Christmas Tree (1964)

So, you’ve seen the Mexican Santa Claus movie from 1959 where Santa Claus lives in outer space and fights the devil. You’ve no doubt also seen Santa Claus Conquers the Martians from 1964. If you still have any brain cells left after those, you’re finally ready for this, the top wacked-out Christmas movie of them all. I’m talkin’ the most low-budget and out-to-lunch holiday spectacular to ever somehow get made. It stars one of the most unlikable kids in movie history, co-stars a talking Christmas tree and features a perverted Andre the Giant lookalike. Its idea of great comedy is a six-minute sequence where a guy tries to start a lawn mower and its idea of drama is when a kid struggles with the guilt of holding Santa Claus prisoner in his family’s living room over Christmas Eve. The plot, such as it is, is simple: A magic Christmas tree grants three wishes to some brat. The twist: This little creep then proceeds to make the DUMBEST wishes possible. I won’t give them away, but let’s just say that a house made of Nutter Butters would be more sensible. This is one of those mysterious little flicks about which there’s not much writing and most of the people who made it never made anything else. It looks just like an old Herschell Gorden Lewis film though, minus the blood and the naked people. If you ever want to watch Two Thousand Maniacs! and A Christmas Story in the same night, watch this in between them as a nice seque. It’s only an hour long.