I briefly considered watching the 1959 movie Santa Claus as originally intended for the Christmas Scum Marathon but the shoddy transfer and awful dubbing turned me off within about four minutes. I was fortunate enough to see that the geniuses at MST3k saw fit to bring their special blend of absurdity and humor to this horrible, Mexican-produced, nightmare-inducing tale of Santa as he battles the Devil. Needless to say, I watched the MST3k version.
While there are several notable episodes that I haven’t seen, I don’t think I’ve laughed so much at an MST3k episode before. Featuring the creepiest Old St. Nick I’ve seen yet, Santa Claus begins with a tour of the jolly old fattie’s celestial castle featuring cliques of children from random ethnicities and 1950s high-tech gadgetry to spy on little boys and girls. As Santa is about to set off on his all night journey to apparently only three houses in Mexico, the Devil is called upon by Lucifer (umm, what?) to rise up and turn all the children on Earth into evil minions of the dark side. Santa is well equipped though with a large satchel of unwrapped, generic gifts, fairy dust to induce sleep, and creepy mechanical reindeer to deliver the presents and restore goodwill in the world.
There are movies that are bad enough to be entertaining of their own right but Santa Claus is special as one of the most baffling movies I have seen (yes, even counting the previously derided Elf Bowling). This is one of those movies like Exorcist II that I cannot fathom how anyone in their right mind thought it was conceived as a good idea. José Elías Moreno plays Santa as you would expect an escaped psychiatric ward patient would with his maniacal laughter and creepy facial expressions. It’s a good thing that the Devil, also called Pitch here, is pretty inept and rather flamboyant for the guardian of the underworld. There is also a giant telescope with a detached eye. And a large pair of lips embedded in Santa’s control panel. Just saying …
The story is pretty disjointed as well as it cautions little kids against behaving badly, scolds parents for abandoning their children, and throws in rather random references to Jesus for good measure I suppose. The commentary of the unwilling human and robots participants is capable of transforming this crazy, piece of trash movie into a hysterical ninety minutes. Even the normally uneven host segments between the Mads and Mike and Co. are brilliant with the dig/in-joke at Joel’s departure, the musical segments, and meeting the Nelsons.
It is hard to fathom that such a god-awful movie could produce one of the greatest MST3k episodes ever. And you might be saying that reviewing a movie spoofed on MST3k doesn’t belong on a movie website like this. If that is the case, go to hell and start your own Christmas Scum Marathon!
While there are several notable episodes that I haven’t seen, I don’t think I’ve laughed so much at an MST3k episode before. Featuring the creepiest Old St. Nick I’ve seen yet, Santa Claus begins with a tour of the jolly old fattie’s celestial castle featuring cliques of children from random ethnicities and 1950s high-tech gadgetry to spy on little boys and girls. As Santa is about to set off on his all night journey to apparently only three houses in Mexico, the Devil is called upon by Lucifer (umm, what?) to rise up and turn all the children on Earth into evil minions of the dark side. Santa is well equipped though with a large satchel of unwrapped, generic gifts, fairy dust to induce sleep, and creepy mechanical reindeer to deliver the presents and restore goodwill in the world.
There are movies that are bad enough to be entertaining of their own right but Santa Claus is special as one of the most baffling movies I have seen (yes, even counting the previously derided Elf Bowling). This is one of those movies like Exorcist II that I cannot fathom how anyone in their right mind thought it was conceived as a good idea. José Elías Moreno plays Santa as you would expect an escaped psychiatric ward patient would with his maniacal laughter and creepy facial expressions. It’s a good thing that the Devil, also called Pitch here, is pretty inept and rather flamboyant for the guardian of the underworld. There is also a giant telescope with a detached eye. And a large pair of lips embedded in Santa’s control panel. Just saying …
The story is pretty disjointed as well as it cautions little kids against behaving badly, scolds parents for abandoning their children, and throws in rather random references to Jesus for good measure I suppose. The commentary of the unwilling human and robots participants is capable of transforming this crazy, piece of trash movie into a hysterical ninety minutes. Even the normally uneven host segments between the Mads and Mike and Co. are brilliant with the dig/in-joke at Joel’s departure, the musical segments, and meeting the Nelsons.
It is hard to fathom that such a god-awful movie could produce one of the greatest MST3k episodes ever. And you might be saying that reviewing a movie spoofed on MST3k doesn’t belong on a movie website like this. If that is the case, go to hell and start your own Christmas Scum Marathon!
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