User reviews

I saw this film numerous times in the late 60's/early 70's whenever it reared it's head like a reindeer with rabies every November-December as a Saturday matinée kiddie show.It was always stiff competition for THE CHRSTMAS THAT ALMOST WASN'T (oops-can I SAY "Christmas"?), perhaps the greatest,most iconic Christmas-season film of all time.But that's another review.

At the time,I marveled that the on-screen tint of SANTA CLAUS was almost "pink and white", so much had the color of the sprocket-torn prints changed color.

The film is kinda creepy! I thought so then--and still do, actually. I was highly entertained then, as I still am! It's amusing in a "retarted-elf" sort of way. By the way,the image quality looks much better on the DVD I have now than it did in the theater, circa 1969-74.

If you are expecting maybe "the lost RANKIN-BASS Christmas special-forget it! If you want FELLINI DOES Christmas--read on...

By nature, the dubbing on these foreign films (the original version here was in Spanish)always makes them seem "surreal". This adds to the films inherent oddness. It is also pretty scary in that a "mishevious demon" (as described in the original US trailer) spends the entire film trying to turn decent kids "evil". One particularly nightmarish scene has a young "latch-key" boy wishing he had parents for Christmas-suddenly the "port-a-family" emerges out of giant "Christmas presents-of-the-mind" until he realizes he's just daydreaming! See this,Christmas lovers--and if you're a stoner, save your stash--this film will make you think you're hallucinating...without drugs!

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.

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

All right I recently got a chance to rent this and watch Santa Claus conquers the martains. Although the children were much more sadistic in SCCTM, I would have to say that Santa Claus was a much worse movie. As a spanish assignment in Spanish 5 we all had to watch it. I'll tell you, usually when we watch a movie we are all just talking and eating food, but not for this movie. Everyone just kept there jaw open wondering what the evil Mr. Pitch was going to do next. Would Merlin help Santa Claus!?! or would his robot reindeer come and save the day? I would suggest renting it because it is the biggest piece of rubbish I have ever seen and I love it for that. :D

Why this harmless little trifle has incurred such odium is beyond me; it's vastly superior to 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' and even that's better than it's reputation.

Prettily staged in Eastmancolor, the high production values (Santa inhabits a truly vast Arabian Nights palace of gold & crystal up in the clouds - rather than on the North Pole - from which he spies on the world through a telescope that extends an eye resembling the Martian periscope in 'The War of the Worlds') which I suspect were standing sets from a much grander production.

Santa as depicted has a tendency to laugh maniacally and he spends the first ten minutes pounding on an organ as the master of ceremonies on some sort of Eurovision Song Contest for kiddies.

So far, so good, but when he starts his annual round on a sleigh pulled by mechanical reindeer in Mexico City it seriously bogs down when he encounters problems with an agent of Lucifer with horns and enormous ears who rubs his hands with glee as he goes about his nefarious business (at the rate Santa's going he wouldn't have completed his tasks that year).

The film would be much better had it devoted more time to charming little waif Lupita Quezandis, first seen staring wide-eyed at the window of a toy shop and later at the centre of a truly extraordinary dream sequence depicting life-size mechanical Russian dolls dancing in a cloud of dry ice to the accompaniment of saxophones.

This film is awful. Give me the dentist anytime! Can you believe that one of the main TV stations here in Arabia had this as their Christmas film! I can only assume they expected to entertain the crowds with Dudley Moore rather than this. The last time I looked at my hot water bottle it had more acting, better plot, more drama and a lot more interest than this waste of celluloid. Don't even watch it if you're drunk!

My mother took me to see this film as a child and I long to see it every year as I do all of my other Christmas favorites. What I remember most was the silly Devil and Santa looking through his telescope. I waited and looked through the T.V. Guide each year after that to see when it would be shown. I would usually find it playing on a Saturday afternoon. I only found the movie in English which took something special away from the film and have longed to find a copy of it in Spanish. I hold this film dear to my heart and have never suffered from nightmares as others might suggest. Yes, it is a different film about Santa Claus and that is what makes it special and unique. I can't wait to get a copy of this film and watch it with my children as I explain to them my favorite parts and memories!!

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.

Before I'd seen this, I had seen some pretty bad Christmas films. But once I saw this, "Jingle All the Way" looked better than "The Godfather". "Santa Claus" is a jolly film about Santa helping out some kids, but it almost feels demonic watching it. Santa's jolly ho-ho-ho is replaces by an evil, devilish laugh that I'm sure has turned many kids off of Christmas. The plot of this massacre is very strange, which fits along with all of the performances and dialog. Santa lives high above Earth in the North Pole where he, and kids from all around the world get ready for Christmas. But Santa has an enemy named Pitch, or Satan. Pitch tries to ruin Santa's Christmas by making three boys naughty, and by creating diversions, like moving the chimney and making the doorknob hot. When Pitch causes Santa to be attacked by a dog, it's up to Santa's helper Pedro and Merlin the wizard to get Santa out of this pickle.

Everything about this film, along with being downright bad, is so bizarre. Satan dances a lot and he actually seems much more merry than Santa. Santa talks about delivering presents to all the boys and girls, yet he seems to only deliver to 5 houses of kids in Mexico. The reindeer are wind up toys, and when the reindeer laughs, I'm amazed it doesn't bring tears to kid's eyes...it's frightening. Everything is terrible. The first 10 minutes are simply Santa playing the organ while kids sing to it. Probably one of the strangest scenes is Santa shooting Pitch in the butt with a mini-cannon and uproariously laughing about it while Pitch dances around in pain. I think parents are better off telling their little kids about where babies come from, than showing them this. The only positive is it will have you laughing hysterically if you can appreciate bad cinema.

My rating: BOMB/****. 85 mins.

When I was kid back in the 1970s a local theatre had Children's Matinees every Saturday and Sunday afternoon (anybody remember those?). They showed this thing one year around Christmas time. Me and some friends went to see it. We expected a cool Santa Claus movie. We stumbled out 90 minutes later totally numb and frightened to death! This is a terribly dubbed (you can tell) and truly creepy movie.

Something about Santa Claus and Merlin the Magician (don't ask me what those two are doing in the same movie) fighting Satan (some joker in a silly devil costume complete with horns!). The images had me cringing in my seat. I always found Santa spooky to begin with so that didn't help. The guy in the Satan suit was even worse. But what REALLY horrified me were the wooden reindeers that pulled Santa's sled. When he wound them up and the creepy sound they made and the movements--I remember having nightmares about those things! All these years later I still remember walking out of that theatre more than a little disturbed by what I saw. My friends were sort of frightened by it too. I just saw an ad for it on TV and ALL those nightmares came roaring back. This is a creepy, disturbing little Christmas film that will probably scare the pants off any little kid who sees it and put them in therapy for YEARS! This gets a 1.

UPDATE: I just saw the movie again tonight. It's stupid, poorly done, childish and just plain surreal! The creepy imagery is still there too! The parts that got me (aside from those nightmare-inducing reindeers) was Santa's observatory (don't ask) which has a telescope where a big EYE comes out of and moves around! Then there's a HUGE mouth in the wall that moves and speaks! The scenes with those things sparked something deep in me and I briefly felt afraid--but I can deal with it now. Again--do NOT let your children see this film--unless you REALLY want to punish them.

This movie is not all that bad if you compare it to Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. It has to be the most colourful movie to be shown on MST3K. The director wanted to make a fantasy movie and thats what he did but it is still a bad movie. A lot of the movies on the bottom 100 were just made for the money but this one was not. This film actually a very expensive to make seeing how it was made in colour. So how can a movie that is not that bad end up on lists of worst films ever? It still feels like a normal, run of the mill Christmas movie despite all it's bizarre moments. The strangest thing about this film is the inclusion of the devil and the fact that he wants to kill Santa and ruin Christmas. Its very much like The Grinch in that regard. Again if you think about it, it's not that bad of a movie.

I saw this at a Saturday morning kiddie matinee on the weekend after Christmas (a let down period anyway) when I was on the cusp of not believing and it probably helped push me over the edge. With Merlin the Magician and elves dressed as cowboys as some of the least of the peculiarities at the North Pole - or the clouds above it - this movie seemed ridiculous to me, even as a naïve 8-year-old in 1960.

It's the most unbelievably nonsensical movie I've ever seen. I have only watched this ripped apart by MST3K, so I can't talk about it 'clean' so to speak.

However, I get the impression it would be just as funny, and possibly even more disturbing. If this film doesn't put your kids off Santa, I don't know what will, as he appears to hold to slave labour and has spying equipment the CIA would kill for.

The entire film is a weird Christian centred movie, with a very creepy Santa (who thinks people on Earth eat smoke. Incidentally where the hell is he supposed to live, exactly?) fighting a devil called Pitch, who is the most unbelievably camp villain I think I've ever seen. After Santa makes some weird wishy-washy comment about Jesus (seriously, what the hell?) he takes off for earth after his child slaves load up the sleigh. The kids are, by the way, the most horrifically stereotyped examples from various countries and continents, including some which I'm sure aren't huge on the whole Christmas thing...

The rest of the film makes even less sense. There's some really disturbing giant dolls and a horrifically saccharine little girl who is really just....horrible. She's not cute, she's sugary vileness of the highest degree.

A truly disturbing film in many ways, but absolutely hilarious from start to finish.

When I was a little kid, I was in the habit of seeing every movie I could get my hands on. I don't remember how, but somehow I ended up with a VHS copy of this movie, and thought it the most bizarre thing I'd seen in all of my six years. Back then, I had no taste for strangeness, so I found it boring and put it aside and didn't think of it again for many years.

Flash forward twenty years. I'm a big fan of MST3K, and a lover of many so-called "bad movies". Cinematic weirdness is my way of life. So I decided to give this one a shot again. It's strange how I can see how I've evolved, in comparing my reactions during the two periods in which I was familiar with this film.

All of the highlights of the film involve the demon Pitch, sent to Earth to...seemingly do little more than frustrate Santa Claus slightly. Or at least that's what he's competent enough to do in the film. You'd think Satan would have more reliable deputies. He manages to turn three little boys against Santa, and plays some strange pranks on him, all while prancing around the sets to goofball music in a way that was probably meant to be mildly funny for children, but turns out to be unintentionally hilarious for adult bad movie buffs like me.

This is really only a "bad" movie if you choose to take it seriously. There is a strange ridiculousness to it that is unlike anything I've ever seen in a movie that will leave "normal" audiences in the 21st century befuddled, while leaving those of us with a taste for the bizarre in hysterics. So if you go into it looking for a typical, moralistic children's Christmas movie, you will likely be scratching your head and saying "huh?", but if you like your Christmas movies with a side order of weird, you won't be disappointed.

Only very young children no older than 6 or 7 can enjoy this matinee monstrosity. At least "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" & "Ernest Saves Christmas" are good for laughs but this 1959 Santa Claus dubbed into English is terrible leaving older viewers wondering why they wasted time and money at the theater. BTW the clue that it is a Spanish language film dubbed into English is when you see FELIZ NAVIDAD banner on the toy store window display.