The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode for this film became the Trope Namer for Nightmare Fuel. Let's see why...
- The Robot Reindeer. Especially the one that won't stop laughing. *shudder* It's bound to remind one of Evil Dead 2.Servo: This isn't charming at all, it's creepy.
- The very creepy animatronic Santa in a store window was responsible for the Trope Namer. The actual Santa isn't much better...Crow: Now this is good old-fashioned Nightmare Fuel!
- The monitor with lips on it. Why does Santa need a machine with lips on it? Is that where wax lips came from?
- The other machines in Santa's workshop aren't much better, especially the Magic Eye and Magic Ear which let Santa peep and eavesdrop on anyone on Earth.
- Pitch getting the three boys to fight amongst each other. It's the only time he actually seems evil, with appropriate music (for a change) - a menacing slow bass piano riff.Pitch: Go ahead, beat your brains out! At least I got them fighting — Lucifer will be so pleased.
- What Pitch does later, takes the cake; he wakes up an entire family in a big mansion with all sorts of mental suggestions involving a big fire and... a prowler who wants to kill a man's wife and children! All this is done to strand Santa in a tree with a guard dog after him, thus making Santa stuck on Earth when the sun rises... which could kill him.
- Hell. Yes, there are demons dancing around in Hell, in a Christmas movie. What were they thinking?
- The full, unedited version is even more nightmare-ish, believe it or not, with a long line of Satanic cult-like priests in white robes and hoods marching through the deserts of Hell before joining Pitch and the other devils. They are briefly seen in the MST3K version when Satan makes them all disappear so that he can talk to Pitch alone.
- Even worse, they're likely supposed to be the souls of the damned and not Satanic priests.
- The full, unedited version is even more nightmare-ish, believe it or not, with a long line of Satanic cult-like priests in white robes and hoods marching through the deserts of Hell before joining Pitch and the other devils. They are briefly seen in the MST3K version when Satan makes them all disappear so that he can talk to Pitch alone.
- Lupita's nightmare where giant two-faced dolls taunt her for her poverty and refusal to steal while dancing around in a surreal ballet. "A young Tim Burton watches this and says, 'I know what I want to do with my life!'" Or, to quote German TV-show Die schlechtesten Filme aller Zeiten: "Now, it looks more like one of David Cronenberg's dreams." Yet another quote from SchleFaZ: "How many of this child's tears were necessary to film it, how many therapy sessions to overcome it?"
- The puppet show Lupita watches. Say goodbye to sleep. Schlefaz described it as "gay puppet show by Otto Dix."
