Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Wonderful Movie

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

At Christmas time my uncle brought this movie over and made me and my best friend watch. SInce we don't believe in Santa we did not want to see this. My Uncle however was insistent and so we watched this on Christmas Day and I am glad we did. At first I thought that was a SNL sketch. It was so weird. After 10 minutes I got into it. Its weird but crazy fun. The plot is that the Martian kidnap Santa. Mars doesn't have a Santa or every herd of him. So after the "Martian King" tells them about Santa its off the earth to kidnap our beloved Christmas Icon. Stupid movie but so much fun to watch!

There's not a thing that the filmmakers behind Santa Claus Conquers the Martians gets right, but right from the beginning their premise is so preposterous I'm not sure it could have even if it had been helmed by Richard Fleischer on a good day. This is about how martians - who we know are martians because of their awful, vomit-green paint on their faces and helmets that were bought at 1964's equivalent of Party City, despite them not coming from a red planet (for the brief seconds we see Mars it looks more like some green orb with some varying shades of things, I can't describe it at all for the life of me) - see that their martian children are too obsessed with the TV and a news reporter interview with Santa up at the North Pole. This leads them to come to Earth, they end up kidnapping two hapless kids first, and then use a robot (which doesn't do much) to kidnap Santa Claus so they can... do WHAT, exactly? Maybe the filmmakers thought they were going to make a sweet and dopey little children's movie, but what they got instead is alternatingly obnoxious and kind of insane in how the editing goes, not to mention the casting of John Call as a Claus who may just be TOO close to how kids picture Santa so that he becomes nightmare fuel instead. There's one particular martian named Dropo (Bill McCutcheon) who seems to be the biological father of Rob Schneider as far as being the kind of comic relief one wants to punch repeatedly to make him shut his face. There's also a couple of nefarious martians - one of which a Bryan Cranston stand-in and another who has a mustache halfway to Connery's hairy appendage in Zardoz and Daniel Plainview - who are so uptight that their performances can't help but be laughable.I think it's advisable to go the MST3K and/or Rifftrax route for this one, but I would be curious to some day watch it without the addition of the commentary. It's so bad that it's mesmerizing at certain times, from the stultifying acting and extremely cheap sets (at one point, and this is when they're still on the ship I think, the martians put a couple of the kids in what looks like a broom closet, no mock-up done to it at all), and how it's all done with a completely straight face. It's almost excusable how one note the child actors are (if they even are actors, I think a couple of parents lost their children at the bus stop and they were plugged in to this for a week or two), but what undoes any even shred of good-will is that its Santa does the same "conquering" in scene after scene: he will make the martians LAUGH until they're uh still green in the face.This all leads up to a climax where one of the martians is defeated by, you guessed it(?) Santa using his dark arts to use the toys to attack him with their cuteness and toy-ish ways. The way the editing, in a montage style that I'm sure (no, I'm not) was lifted from the Eisenstein cookbook, cuts back to a laughing Santa Claus during this makes it look like he could be a serial killer instead of jolly ol' St. Nick. From the consistently terrible dialog, an occasional appearance by a newsman that looks like a marionette, and the first screen appearance by, uh, Pia Zadora(!) this is a complete mess, but a lot of fun.(PS: In full disclosure I did watch this with Rifftrax Live, and it made for a spectacular experience)

I still very much appreciate its spirit, both in terms of no-budget filmmaking and sense of fun. I wish that the films of today could have even a fraction of its good-natured mischievous approach. Certainly film studios could learn a thing or two, in this ridiculous era of quarter-of-a-billion-dollar blockbusters. I for one don't need the equivalent of 'having my eyes masturbated', as one cinema critic so lovingly stated.I would prefer watching this in a second over any of the ham-fisted, cash-soaked holiday atrocities made in the past three decades (I believe 'A Christmas Story', and perhaps 'Elf' and 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation' to be the last decently-made Yuletide films).But don't take MY word for it...see it for yourself (without the stupid and condescending MST3K commentary) and make your OWN conclusion.

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (stop to breathe) hahahahahahahahahaha! Blimey... what a movie! I recorded this off of the TV over Christmas all because the description on the TV guide said "Cult classic, widely known for being one of the worst films ever made". As soon as i read that, i knew I had to see it. J They are not wrong... it was terrible! The story is about the aliens on Mars. Their kids are unhappy, but the Martian parents don't know why. But they have been watching "Human TV" and they think that Santa Claus will cheer them up. So they jump in their rocket ship and travel to Earth to kidnap Santa to cheer up their children. To find Santa they ask a couple of kids where he lives, so they kidnap the children too. Santa now has to try and escape Mars and get back to Earth with the 2 kidnapped children. The acting was so bad that they might as well have been reading off of cards. The only actor that seemed to make an effort was the guy playing Santa... The effects were really really bad... the rocket ships that were flying through space looked like toilet rolls painted and put up on strings. I felt like I was watching Button Moon. There were some entertaining bits in the movie, but only because they were so bad that they made me laugh. The costumes were bad... the Martians clearly were just fellas dressed in tight green Lycra with a tube stuck to their heads. There was a couple of fight scenes in the film too, it seems they didn't even try to hit each other. The fists were heading towards their opponents face and then you saw them just push them away with the fist! I am seeing why this would be one of the worst films made, but i will be honest... it was that bad that it did entertain me. I will give it a generous 3 out of 10. Yet, it is still not the worst film I have ever seen!