Midnight Cinephile

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians – Sadly….no Tripods.

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians
1964 
Directed by Nicholas Webster
Starring John Call, Leonard Hicks, Vincent Beck, Victor Stiles & Pia Zadora


Tag Lines
Blast off for Mars… with Santa and a pair of Earth kids! Science-Fun-Fiction at its height!

Santa Claus saves Christmas for the Children of the World!
Santa Kidnapped by the Martians! Out-of-this-world fun ‘n’ action…as two Earth Kids are whisked away with him to Mars!
SEE: The Martians Kidnap Santa! Santa’s North Pole Workshop! The Fantastic Martian Toy Factory! Earth Kids Meeting with Martian Kids! Space-ship Journey from Earth to Mars! Santa Turn Mars-Robot Into a Mechanical Toy!
Santa Brings Christmas Fun to Mars!

Alternate Titles

Santa Claus Defeats The Aliens – USA
Joulupukki valloittaa Marsin (Santa Claus Conquers Mars) – Finland
Jultomten fixar allt! (Santa Does It All!) – Sweden
Le père Noël contre les martiens (Santa Claus Against The Martians) – France
Ο αρης εναντιον της γης (Mars Against The Earth) – Greece
Santa Claus contra los marcianos (Santa Clause Against The Martians) – Venezuela
Swiety Mikolaj wyrusza na podboj Marsa (Santa Claus Goes On To Conquer Mars) – Poland

Voldar is such a dick!
Theater 3000.  I had seen quite a few episodes of MST3K back in the day, but nothing had prepared me for the brain melting lunacy of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.  Over the next few years, I waited for a repeat of the episode so I could tape it.  Yes, that’s right, I said tape it.  This was in the days of VCR’s.  There were no DVRs…..no Tivo.  No Netflix and no You Tube, Amazon, iTunes or other streaming media formats.  I had to scour the TV guide looking for the episode and then manually hit the record button when it aired at 3 o’clock early one Sunday morning.  Supposedly my VCR could be programmed to record at a certain time, but it never worked.
Momar, Kimar, Girmar and Bomar!

The plot is the stuff of bad movie legend.  The children of Mars are in trouble because they do not have their own individuality and they’re not having enough fun.  So the Martian leader Kimar decides to kidnap Santa Claus to bring joy to the children of Mars.  Unfortunately, Kimar can’t tell the difference between the fake Santas and the real Santa, so first they kidnap two Earth children to help them locate the real Kris Kringle.

Santa and the kids set up shop on Mars and make a toy factory, which gets sabotaged by the jack ass martian Voldar, who tries repeatedly to kill Santa.  What a douche bag.  Of course being a children’s movie, all ends well, with the help of the goofy Dropo, who is so enamored with Santa when he arrives that he starts to dress like him and act like him.

Of course Mars gets into the Holiday spirit and Christmas is saved once again.

Oh yeah and there’s a wicked cheesy robot called Torg!

Midnight Cinephile Totals:

Body Count:  Not here, friends.  This is a kid friendly Christmas flick!

Boob Count:  Once again, nadda.  Zip.  Zilch.

Monster Count:  Well, there are Martians galore!  They’re basically green skinned people with silly clothes and stupid headgear, but hey, we take what we can get, right!  There is also Torg, the cardboard robot that makes Robot Monster look imposing!  Seriously!

Final Thoughts:
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians has become a staple in my annual Christmas movie/viewing rotation.  You can’t help but love the wonky sets and horrible acting…..oh and of course the horribly catch song “Hurray for Santy Claus!”

Final Score:
Three out of Five Pizza Rolls



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