The Top Five Movie Trees

To celebrate the UK release of Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning “The Tree of Life,” in cinemas July 8, I have decided to compile a list of the most awesome trees ever to feature in a film. Why trees? Because the word “tree” is in the title of the movie, silly. That makes sense, yes? Yes. And I’m sure there are trees featured in the film at some point. I think. Anyway, here is my selection of the top five trees from the world of cinema. And no, you may not piss on these trees, drunken kebab-chewer; some of them are a little homicidal.

5. Treebeard from “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (2002)

First up is a walking, talking, Orc-crushing tree with a big bushy beard growing from his craggy wooden face (hence the incredibly inventive name). Treebeard is the elderly and noble leader of the Ents, a species of tree that are very much alive and can stomp about in Middle-earth like it’s nobody’s business. We first meet the towering plant when yellow-bellied hobbits Merry and Pippin stumble upon his roots while outrunning a murderous Orc in Fangorn forest. Soon enough, Treebeard gets into battle mode, violently stampeding along with his splinter-inflicting buddies against the vicious soldiers of Isengard, a fortress which they all flood together. With his voice provided by John Rhys-Davies, Treebeard immediately gives the impression that he is not one to joke around with, especially if you’re a small ugly Orc chasing a couple of hobbits in the woods.

4. The Whomping Willow from the “Harry Potter” franchise (2001-2011)

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry really is a dangerous place for school kids, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve got massive spiders trying to eat people in the woods, a giant snake slithering through the pipes, a sport in which kids fly about unsupported at a hundred miles an hour on a broomstick, and soul-sucking monsters roaming around, acting as a happiness vacuum. And to top it all off you’ve got a tree which fucking kills anyone who ventures anywhere near it just standing out in the open, no barriers or anything around it for reasonable protection. This is the Whomping Willow, a man-slaughtering tree which we first meet in “Chamber of Secrets,” in which Ron and Harry crash the flying Weasley family car into the branches of the tree. Almost immediately, the two young wizards are very nearly crushed to death, as the tree forgets all about its anger management classes and thumps its thick branches against the vehicle while Harry and Ron are still sitting inside. If a dog were to ever try to take a piss on this thing it’d get a quick neutering, free of charge. Well, aside from its penis.

3. The Rapist Trees from “The Evil Dead” (1981)

Now, I’m sure trees that violently swing their branches at you might seem like a scary prospect, but how about trees that sexually assault you? Yep, in Sam Raimi’s low-budget splatter-horror flick “The Evil Dead,” there are trees that have a tendency to casually rape passers-by. I’m not kidding. After a bunch of college kids accidentally unleash a horde of evil demons in the woods, some plants in the forest are seemingly possessed and as a result get a little wood (ha!). And it’s poor frail Cheryl who is the victim of this infamous scene from this fabulously gory video nasty when she ventures out into the forest after hearing a voice. The trees wraps their twigs around her arms and legs, pull her down onto the grass below, tear off her clothes and ram a single branch into that spot between her legs. She promptly escapes their grip, but I’m wondering if the tree actually finished its, ahem, business. I also wonder what their children would look like. Keira Knightley, maybe? Geddit? ‘Cause she’s a wooden actress? Tee hee, I’m so funny.

2. The Child-Eating Tree from “Poltergeist” (1982)

Another evil tree here, but this one thankfully is not a vicious sex pest. Instead, this one gobbles up little children for a midnight snack. Actually, is that worse? I don’t know. Anyhoo, it’s the large tree that stands in the backyard of the newly purchased suburban home of the Freeling family in Tobe Hooper‘s horror “Poltergeist.” While at first innocent-looking (ie, not moving or showing any signs of being, y’know, alive), the tree suddenly springs to life one stormy night, its branches bursting through the children’s bedroom window and yanking little Robbie from the comfort of his bed. The tree is then revealed to have a mouth, out of which the upper half of Robbie is soon dangling, his little feet kicking away at the tree’s wooden tonsils. His father quickly rescues him, and the tree is sucked up into a tornado. And it soon turns out the tree was just acting as a distraction from the daughter being taken into another realm by the spirits haunting the house. Oh that tricky tree…

1. The Apple Trees from “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)

And planted right in the number one spot are the douche bag apple trees from Victor Fleming’s musical classic “The Wizard of Oz.” Why are they douche bags? Well, when sweet and innocent Dorothy Gale approaches their still bodies and plucks a juicy red apple from one of their branches, the tree from which she pinched the fruit wakes up and reacts in a not particularly friendly fashion. The grouchy plant slaps her hand, asks her what she thinks she’s doing, is mocked by the scarecrow and proceeds to hurl its own apples at the both of them, which I guess is the tree equivalent of throwing your poop at someone. I love these trees because of how mean they are, how they just start furiously throwing apples at two virginal bystanders, completely defeating the purpose of not having their apples taken away from them. And I’m sure many kids will have been terrified at the thought of going anywhere near apple trees ever since they set eyes on this scene, lest they are violently attacked and beaten to death with a handful of apples. It could happen!