Christmas Review – “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”

Hang up that mistletoe.
Soon you’ll hear “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
On Christmas Day
You’ll wake up and you’ll say

“Hooray for Santy Claus!”
S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S
Hooray for Santy Claus!
You spell it S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S
Hooray for Santy Claus!
Hooray for Santy Claus!

Cast, Crew, and Other Info

John Call as Santa Claus

Leonard Hicks as Kimar

Vincent Bech as Voldar

Bill McCutcheon as Dropo

Victor Stiles as Billy

Donna Conforti as Betty

Chris Month as Bomar

Pia Zadora as Girmar

Written by Paul L. Jacobson and Glenville Mareth

Directed by Nicholas Webster

Complete information is available from the IMDB.

There are a number of DVD releases of this title. I suggest the Mystery Science Theater 3000 edition, available from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Premise

Martians don’t have a Santa Claus, so they decide to steal Earth’s. It’s a lot worse than it sounds.

High Point

At one point, children who complained about the cold in New York City find themselves at the North Pole (which seems to be quite comfortable to them), where they must hide during an attack by a polar bear who is skinny, has fabric seams all over, and has opposible thumbs. That outfit was in no way convincing.

Low Point

The rocket sled rumour was just pointless, but not bad enough to laugh at (unlike the rest of the movie.)

The Scores

This is not original. They’ve got so many obvious hiding spots with near captures, gimmicks (including a terrible mistaken identity), and other cliche garbage that you can predict almost the entire movie. I give it 2 out of 6, just for being the only movie I know of that combines Santa with martians in any way.

The effects use things like a guy in the cheapest possible polar bear suit you can rent for an actual polar bear. There was also a huge amount of stock footage use. I do have to give them credit for one thing, though; I didn’t see any wires on their spacecraft. I give it 2 out of 6.

The story was a sad, uninspired, and downright lame excuse for a plot. If the martians didn’t know laughter until Santa taught them, why do they have a tickle ray? The randomly and pointlessly dying old man (who wasn’t even mourned) was lucky; he got out of the movie early. I give it 2 out of 6.

Acting? I didn’t notice any. 1 out of 6.

The emotional response was great. $DIETY, this is fun to watch. It’s a complete and utter train wreck of a movie. I give it 6 out of 6.

The production was terrible. Only the stock footage shows any sign of competence, and that was often dragged out far too long. The makeup was bad and inconsistent (with martians skin colour hitting several shades of green and pink, probably getting lighter as the production went on and they realized they didn’t have enough makeup.) The costumes were so terrible they had to write an explanation for them into the script, and even that was bad. Cheap sets, poor lighting, aweful editing, and even worse music permeate the film. I give it 1 out of 6.

Overall, this is one of the worst movies of all time. See it as soon as you can. I give it 1 out of 6.

In total, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians receives 15 out of 42.

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