YMMV / The Christmas Tree

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The movie presents the Mayor as a kind and generally competent individual who just had the wool pulled over his eyes by Mrs. Mavilda, but it's very easy to see him in a considerably less positive light. From what the movie shows, he only makes the barest effort to ensure the children's well-being (simply looking at two children in nice clothes and deciding they're being looked after), and could probably have found out about the embezzlement and child abuse if he'd done more than just take a look at two children wearing nice clothes. Furthermore, when he figures out the truth, his first question is "what if the inspector were to come?", which makes it sound like his immediate concern is about whether the fiasco might affect him personally.
• Broken Aesop: Oh, so broken. The very bad and tacked-on "you always win when you are good" line is disproved by the movie's events themselves. From what we see of the orphans, they are well-behaved and nice to each other, yet are abused emotionally and physically by Mrs. Mavilda, so how can that aesop be accurate? Judy is also a good mother (well, when she's not saying selfish things like her out-of-character moment under It's All About Me), and yet she is forced into working for an evil woman, and her children are subject to the same abuse as the orphans. Plus, consider how Lily nearly dies during their search for Santa and she's just as good as the other kids.
• Cliché Storm: Even at the time this was made, there are still too many to count.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Mayor, at least among Phelous fans, due to the latter's portrayal of him as the scatterbrained cousin of fellow Darkhorse Old Man.
  • Santa Claus, mainly for providing one of the most memorable scenes from the film where he shows up out of nowhere at the end and blasts Mrs. Mavilda with lightning.
• Ham and Cheese: Helen Quirk, who did the voice of Mrs. Mavilda, was clearly having fun with her role.
• Love to Hate: Mavilda, for being the most emotional character in the film and delivering a hammy performance.
• Memetic Mutation: The scene where Santa magically gives the children new clothes being trimmed to make it look like he instead blew them up with a fireball. Markiplier gave this one a lot of traction, due to it showing up in one of his "Try Not to Laugh" videos and making him burst out laughing hysterically.
• Narm:
  • The orphan explaining how he likes to pretend the tree in the backyard is hugging him when he's sad. Judy's heavy-lidded oh-you've-got-to-be-kidding-me reaction is what really sells the bad laughs.
  • Judy apathetically exclaiming her husband's name: "....Raaaaaayyyy...."
  • What little legitimate emotion shown by Judy after being reunited with her [thought then to be dead] daughter is ruined by (to quote The Nostalgia Critic) "The creepy Coke ad Santa" showing up for a couple of seconds right in the middle of the scene. The way he stares unblinkingly at the 'camera' does not help in the slightest.
  • The way Pappy calls for his supposedly dead sister. "Lily."
  • A good 90% of Lily's lines are impossible to understand due to utterly baffling Baby Talk. You can tell that she's voiced by a little girl who only recently learned how to talk... and that's not a good thing. (The fact that said little girl is the real-life daughter of Judy's voice actress makes it pretty clear why she got the job.)
  • "Here goes the children's money again!"
  • The fact that one of the kids is named Pappy, which doesn't call to mind a kid as much as an old man (e.g. Poopdeck Pappy from the Popeye cartoons).
  • Judy's attempt to stop Mrs. Hopewell from being cut down would actually be pretty sad, as she explains that the children have been so starved for love and affection that their desperation caused them to believe a pine tree was their friend... except for the fact that she's more focused on saving a tree than on going out to find her lost and/or presumably dead son and daughter.
• So Bad, It's Good: Some people have referred to this as The Room of Christmas specials, what with everything being so badly done that it's hilarious.
• Special Effect Failure: The movie was released in 1991 by Family Home Entertainment, but considering how awful its production values are, it could easily pass as something made by Dingo Pictures. Especially with the abysmal animation quality.
• Squick: When the special shows how Mrs. Mavilda dresses the children up to "show" the Mayor she's taking care of them, only to take the clothes back, the camera lingers for a tad too long on a topless little girl. Barbie Doll Anatomy thankfully applies, but it's still uncomfortable.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Maybe not a particularly good character, but it's ironic that the premise of the film gives Mrs. Mavilda plenty of understandable reasons for being only passively neglectful towards the kids, such as a lack of substantial funding for the orphanage, a gambling addiction of some sort, lingering resentment over whatever caused the absence of her husband (she's Mrs. Mavilda but there's no hint of a Mister), or just not being that great with kids. Any of these could've allowed for a smoother redemption arc come the third act. Instead, she's just an Obviously Evil crone who knowingly neglects the children by intentionally gambling their money away and then bragging about it, and only gains "redemption" via Bolt of Divine Retribution.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Helen Quirk as Mrs. Mavilda. Despite having no previous acting experience and being over-the-top in her performance, Quirk was the only one who didn't seem completely riddled with Dull Surprise and actually made Mavilda an endearing character (if for all the wrong reasons).
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The movie spends its entire running time jumping into and out of the valley, especially with the blinking. Many of the movie's scenes show absolutely no movement when the characters are on screen, except for the rather unsettling blinking. On top of that are the eyes - they attempt to go for irises rather than just black dots, but they don't actually use any color for them. They're black corneas and gray irises, which are just unnerving. The scene where the orphans meet Judy's kids and give them the creepy smiles also falls into this.
  • The cover art shown on the main page. It's like a kid-friendly cover for Children of the Corn.

---