SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964)

[The Burgomaster]

I bought this DVD awhile ago and just got around to watching it.  I probably hadn't seen this movie in at least 15 years, so I had forgotten how bad it is.  And to make it worse, the DVD is missing a few seconds of the opening credits (and the beginning of the stirring theme song, "Hooray for Santa Claus"),  Plus, the color is a bit washed out and has a pink tinge to it.

Anyway, if you can stand the sight of grown men and women walking around in ridiculous green costumes and green face make-up (after all, we all know that Martians are green, right?) and the sight of sets and props that look like they were left over from a grammar school play, you might be entertained by this grade Z fiasco.  At a minimum, it's worth watching just to see Pia Zadora as an 8 year old Martian girl.  (I wonder if that's in Martian years or Earth years?)

My favorite part involves a polar bear.  The bear is an actor in a cheap, white bear costume crawling around on his hands and knees.  The costume wouldn't even fool a very young child.

This would make a great double feature with SANTA CLAUS (1959), a Mexican film that is even funnier than SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS.  You could even throw in THE CHRISTMAS THAT ALMOST WASN'T and make it a holiday cheapo-sleazo triple feature!

[Dropo]

 I love it! One of my favorite bad movies! I, of course, love Dropo. He's such an idiot. It was a great MST 3000 episode too

[nobody]

I caught this on MST3K, back when it was aired on Comedy Central I believe. It was a god awful film- and definitely worth mentioning on this board. :)

[Andrew]

I had finally replaced my VHS with a DVD of it from Amazon just before leaving.  The funny thing was that I looked at the package and realized that most (all but 2, I think) of the images were taken from my review.  It is the exact same frame and cropping and the one from the video clip even shows the lower resolution.

Still, just a terrible movie.  Fun to watch though.

[Brian Ringler]

Which dvd company's release of it are you referring to the delta one or the catcom one or one that I am not aware of yet?  The catcom one has been on my list of dvd's to get for quite awhile since they always have the old commercials and stuff like that on their releases.

[The Burgomaster]

Brian:

I have the Delta version (on the "Laserlight" label).  The picture quality is about a 4 on a scale of 10 (mostly because the color is distorted . . . it is very pink), but I think I only paid about 6 bucks for it.

[Yaddo42]

My (least) favorite low-rent local independent TV station has gradually switched to almost all informercials (22 hours per day) over the years. But come Christmas time they have two X-Mas movies they still play, usually on the 25th when no one wants to work: the annoyingly wretched Johnny Whitaker/Fred Gwynne shot-on-video special "The Littlest Angel" from 1969 and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians".  Do these guys know quality Yuletide entertainment or what.

My favorite thing to do if SCCTM on before I go visit family is to watch the end, and change the channel as that awful theme song starts, then change the channel back about every 30 seconds or so and see how much I can stand before I have to change the channel again. Since as we know the "Santy Claus' song is almost endless, this self-torture goes on for quite some time. It's like licking a mouth ulcer, it hurts like hell, and you know it's no good for you, but you can't stop.

[nobody]

Did anyone see this news from the official MST3K website?:


Satellite News is happy to bring its readers an EXCLUSIVE special offer from Rhino Home Video.

If you order through http://mst3000dvd.com, or by calling 800-645-2400, you can get Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Essentials--featuring episode 424- "MANOS"-THE HANDS OF FATE and episode 321- SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS--PLUS a SPECIAL BONUS DISK--Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Shorts, Vol. 3!

This collection, never before on DVD, includes: Speech--Using Your Voice (from episode 313- EARTH VS. THE SPIDER), Aquatic Wizards (from episode 315- TEENAGE CAVEMAN), Is This Love? (from episode 514- TEENAGE STRANGLER), Design for Dreaming (from episode 524- 12 TO THE MOON), The Selling Wizard (from episode 603- THE DEAD TALK BACK), Out of this World (from episode 618- HIGH SCHOOL BIGSHOT) and Once Upon A Honeymoon (from episode 701- NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST).

The price is $24.95 plus $4.95 shipping and handling.

[BoyScoutKevin]

A classic example of "bad" being good. And a film I enjoyed watching. Perhaps best known as Pia Zadora's motion picture debut.