Bad Movie Club: Santa Claus

1959 Mexican Christmas nightmare

Rating*: 5 creepy reindeer (Fred: 5 graven images or 5 false prophets or 5 pagan trees; Libby: 5 [just 5]; Josh: 4 fat Santas with tiny parasols; Johnny: 4; Mark: just a tease--didn't actually participate)

Plot: Santa Claus and his associates--the creepiest reindeer you'll ever see, a Mexican kid, Merlin, and a blacksmith with weird chest hair--battle Satan, apparently for control of the world. 

This is my go-to Christmas movie along with Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas which I can't enjoy anymore because my family has ruined it for me. Sure, you might name Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as the paragon of good-bad Christmas entertainment, but does that movie have any demons? No? Didn't think so. 

How about an extended scene where Merlin, an absentminded fellow in this one, makes magic flowers for our hero? Or about twenty minutes devoted to the stereotyping of various nationalities? Or a scene where Santa's stuck in a tree while a mean-looking dog barks at him? Or Santa coasting to earth with the help of a tiny parasol? Or Santa's home, filled with gadgets that would make Pee Wee Herman cream himself if he happened to catch this one in a theater?

What movie has explained the idea that the titular jolly old elf knows when we've been sleeping better than this one? I just love those lips (Fred commented that he's adding them to his "spank-bank"), and I love the satellite dish with a human ear in the middle of it, too. Say what you want about this thing's bad storytelling, poor pacing, general incoherence, hyper-sentimentality, bad effects, or awful acting. Whoever was responsible--Mexicans--did approach this tired traditional character and holiday with some creative gusto. This movie's never really boring, except for all the scenes that are boring, of course. But those are just boring because they don't really know when to end them. 

I never made the connection until right now, but director Rene Cardona is the same director of several Santo movies and also did an Aztec Mummy movie. I think that alone is a contribution to humanity worthy of some kind of posthumous Nobel Prize. 

Anyway, I already wrote about this movie right here. I reread that just now, and it seems that I've already written about this movie in a post that is also worthy of a posthumous Nobel Prize. Of course, that's not going to happen until 1) I die and 2) people notice that I have a blog and find that entry. 

If the rating system looks different, that's because it is! We've unveiled a new rating system specific for Bad Movie Club. It's a 5-point system instead of the normal (and completely perfect) 20-point system. In this case, a "5" means that it's classic good-bad movie fun. A "1" would be, on the other hand, a movie that was probably really bad but not much fun at all. So there you go.