1/10
Cheap, boring and frequently inept family "entertainment" – doctors could recommend this movie as a cure for insomnia!
13 June 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Oh dear! As misguided family movies go, they don't come much more misguided than Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. A meagre budget does not necessarily spell doom for a film (check out some of Mario Bava's films, for instance, which had little money behind them but still emerged pretty good on the whole), but in this case the lack of funding is evident in almost every frame. The whole film is a desperately sad attempt to make a movie for kids and adults to enjoy together – kids are likely to be hugely unimpressed by the lame comedy and boring story, while adults will be depressed by the woeful acting, production values and plot. One critic wrote: "frankly, I am ashamed to be from the same species as the people who made this movie". Which sums it up. Perfectly.

On Mars, the Martian children are acting strangely. They seem lethargic and depressed; Martian leader Kimar (Leonard Hicks) notices that his own kids are especially gloomy, and wonders if their obsession with tuning into Earth TV programmes is affecting them. The Martian leadership council summon a wise old elder to ask what he thinks is wrong with the kids. The elder (Carl Don) says that the Martian kids are not allowed to play, to have fun, to be young-at-heart, etc, and this, coupled with the fact that it is almost Christmas time on Earth, is making them unhappy. By watching so many Earth shows, they are learning all about Santa Claus and festive spirit, and feel like they're missing out. Kimar decides to take a unit of men to Earth to kidnap Santa (John Call) and bring him back to Mars to cheer up the children. They accidentally end up capturing Billy (Victor Stiles) and Betty (Donna Conforti), a couple of Earth children, as well as old Saint Nick himself. Trouble beckons when Martian subordinate Voldar (Vincent Beck), who has been vociferously opposed to the plan from the word go, tries to sabotage the mission by doing harm to Santa and the two Earth children.

The sets wobble and bounce, the outfits look ultra-cheap and unintentionally funny, the make-up is pitiful (towards the end the green Martian make-up must have almost run out as the Martians look nearly white… unless there's a whole racist subtext at work?), and the performances are roundly terrible. Don as the elder is so awful, adopting a croaky drawl which makes him sound like a constipated cockerel, that the audience is reduced to guffaws during his scene. The others fare little better (Stiles and Conforti are wooden as the Earth kids; Call chuckles away inanely as Santa; and Bill McCutheon as comic relief character Dropo is so irritating one wishes one could strangle him and quietly dispose of him in the space garbage!) At least Hicks and Beck try to give interesting performances as bickering Martians, although the dumb dialogue defeats their efforts. Worst of all is the utter deadly dullness of the film. I literally cannot watch this movie in a horizontal position – I attempted to view it twice in bed, and was sound asleep both times within mere minutes. In the end I stood up and watched the movie whilst ironing to make sure I stayed awake. That bad, you ask? You bet ya!
3 out of 7 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed