Santa Claus

Santa Claus is not as bad a film as its reputation suggests, in fact I quite enjoyed it despite the obvious flaws. Is it a good movie? Not really. Is it entertaining? I think so. And I think it is better than Santa Claus Conquers the Martians which was hysterically bad but somewhat a must-see just to revel in its awfulness.

To say that Santa Claus is strange is an understatement. The story is pretty much a shambles, with incoherent and disconnected scenes, and the writing is awful but makes me laugh, one of the few times when writing as bad as it is brings a smile to my face. The Devil himself looks very, very fake, while they do bastardise Santa Claus a bit. There are also some very night-marish images, as a child I got night-mares from the reindeer alone, as an adult I am not so scared any more but I do get the shivers even looking at them.

That said, it is better paced than Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, it has better effects I think(they're not great but they aren't appalling either) and sets and colours wise it is quite lavish. The film is a good length, it starts off quite well with some interesting songs, the climax is thrilling and while they are not great by any stretch of the imagination the actors look as though they are having a ball.

All in all, this is a very creepy and strange movie, but I was entertained. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Put this on the VCR on Christmas day, and let people gather round the boob tube. Have them gawk at the crazy, silly wonder at this Mexican produced version of St. Nick, and fun will seep in like vodka spiced egg-nog!

Santa lives in space with little kids and a senile magician (Mrs. Claus probably filed for divorce decades ago!) He uses listening devices (made up of applainces and human organs. I am not kidding!!!) to spy on children on earth. he also pauses to watch a frightening puppet show, a Mexican glamour gal go shopping, etc. etc. Then we meet Santa's enemy- Pitch. Pitch is a prissy devil who dances alot, complains of stomach cramps, and uses wild hand gestures when he talks. Pitch has to destroy Christmas or Satan will make his ulcer worse!

The plot gets crazier when Santa moonlights as a bartender, children have dreams that look like cheaply rendered LSD trips (with nagging dolls, parents that arrive in coffin-like boxes) I am not making any

of this up. This is possibly the strangest Christmas movie ever made. Box up that CD of old Chrsitmas caroles. This Christmas, this loopy wonder should be on your TV.

How to explain the unusual 1959 feature from Mexico, wherein the Merriest Man on the Planet teams up with Merlin the Magician to defend the magic of Christmas against Ol' Sparky, a/k/a the Devil --- or, to be more accurate, his agent Pitch?

Well, for some reason, this film has its share of defenders. Recently, the website www.kgordonmurray.com was developed just for them, paying tribute as it does to the Miami-based entrepreneur who somehow acquired the U.S. rights to this strangely bizarre Santa Claus film from its Mexican-based producers. One would surmise that the all-Mexican cast and crew wanted to stress all the tenets associated with Mexico's perceptions of good versus evil; God (personified here by Santa) versus Satan (or, as the English-language version calls him, Lucifer, King of Hades), again in the person of Pitch --- Well, really, the whole thing was put together by people who simply had no clue as to Santa's primary concepts!

Adding Merlin the Magician (direct from King Arthur's Court) and giving him a special place in Santa's heavenly castle might have worked wonders for the screenwriters, but purists of Camelot and its ilk will certainly ask what in thunder Merlin's doing in a movie about Santa Claus. And what is all this business with magical flowers, and even magic cocktails anyway? The idea of getting drunk to be with the ones you love sounds a bit twisted in my book --- but, as they say, to each his own.

Then we turn to Lupita, the little girl who seems obsessed with being good. OK, it's good to want to be good, but even behaving positively can at times be taken to extremes, as we obviously see here. Pitch makes every effort to seduce her into doing bad things, but at this point it becomes clear that she will not be moved. One has to wonder why. Lucifer has, after all, threatened Pitch that if he fails in his mission against St. Nick, he'll be fed chocolate ice cream (which is fun, but it doesn't exactly classify as a so-called 'punishment'.

Look, the bottom lime here is that this silly film is a laugh riot. How we giggle and guffaw at this film each time we view it is beyond analysis. Just enjoy the darn movie, and laugh yourself a merry (albeit bizarre) little Christmas. Now.

Some might say something like "Baby Geniuses" with its giant robot infants or "Dumbo" with its psychedelic drug-addled nightmare sequence would win the award for the most disturbing movie ever made for children. You might say that too, but you'd be wrong. Lo and behold, for I bring to you: Santa Claus, the most helplessly messed up family film since ... well, ever.

From the opening scenes showing children from different parts of the world singing their insipid theme songs (seriously, this segment is nearly 20 freakin' minutes long and has nothing to do with the plot!) to the thrilling conclusion in which Merlin pops up from outta nowhere and saves the day (don't mind him, he's from Barcelona), this is childhood trauma at its finest. And no matter how hard I try, no matter how many different therapists I visit, I just... can't... get... those... reindeer's...laughter...out... of... my ... head!

Avoid this mind-bending piece of trash like you'd avoid a sex-starved whale during mating season. Still, if flaming gay demons with a serious case of the overacting flu are something for you, I guess you should give it a try. But really, this movie isn't worth your time and mental health.

Every once and again, a producer takes a simple, appealing little idea and runs amok with it. The middle-1970s were largely the official stumbling block for "childrens movies" designed to offer gentle, non-hip entertainment. Now, even Disney-produced films can have touches of low humor and things that parents of the 1950s would take exception to.

However, in 1959, there was still time for an unsophisticated storyline. The best years of Rankin-Bass lay ahead, and -- down in Mexico -- work was being completed on a slightly outre' Christmas film.

SANTA CLAUS emerges in the 1990s as a "party film," simply on the merits of some of the more bizarre elements, which include the fabled Jolly Old Elf spying on unaware children with a sophisticated, wiggly telescope eye, a minor demon tormenting Santa with a toy missile launcher, and far more elfin magic than is good for you.

In his castle (literally) in the clouds, Santa and a gaggle of "typical" children (a Mexican boy, a somewhat Germanic girl and an all-American cowboy Norte Americano) are busily getting the good on the unwary children of the world. In spite of a minor flaw with his mobile spy eye, Santo deftly homes in on a little girl who has no means to get that doll she's been wanting.

You realize, of course, that she'll get it...

In the meantime, down in suburban Heck, the devil sends wicked, somewhat able Pitch to Earth to stonewall Santa's Christmas dealings. Pitch is essentially warned that he'd better not screw this job up. At this point, I think we all see where all this is heading.

Santo arrives on Earth in a vaguely sci-fi sleigh. He bedevils a couple of nasty boys who heckle the waif, and we see her tormented with guilt as Pitch tries to engineer her stealing of a doll.

Of course, she instinctively does the right thing, which leaves Pitch at loose ends. Having been a wee bit short of the task of corrupting a 5 year-old child, he turns on Santa. There follow a few extremely humiliating scenes of the demon trying to do something significant.

Santa wins, Pitch loses.

How do you analyze a film like this? It plays exclusively on a "feel good" emotional level, with no sophistication in plot or execution. For the very young, it will probably play well (a public domain video version was market in the U.S. some years ago). For the older viewers, I'd suggest the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, which mercilessly homes in on each and every bizarre or particularly weak point.