December 18, 2010

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) Part 1.




It's a Christmas miracle! A B-Movie review on the B-Movie Blitzkrieg! Alright, Alright...but don't go getting use to it. See this is a special occasion. It's Christmas! And what better way to celebrate the season with possibly the best bad movie about it. 1964's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Now this movie is kinda famous. Most notably for being featured in a season three of Mystery Science Theater. After that this movie got a real strong cult following and I've seen it shown the last couple Christmas as a late night movie. In fact this movie has been running on TCM this year. I, however, own the movie. Both the MST3K version and regular, so I don't have to wait till Christmas Eve to see it.



Conquers is used very loosely here.

The movie starts out with the super catchy Santa Claus Conquers the Martians theme song: "Hooray for Santa Claus". I'll even go out on a limb and say that this is actually more catchy then the theme from Zorro. But I'll just let you be the judge:






Santa plays it up for the mass media

The movie opens on two Martian children, you know they are Martians because they are green, watching Earth TV. It's good to see that even on Mars they use the TV as a babysitter for their children. And what program are they watching? Why the news of course, because all kids love the news. Although kids might like this news more since we are about to see a exclusive interview with none other then Santa Claus himself. That's a pretty good scope right there. I bet Babara Walter was as jealous as a pig in...well you know the rest.

After a flurry of jokes from our firmly in the closet field reporter Andy about how cold it is, we actually get to the main event; an interview with the big man himself, Santa Claus. Although Santa Claus seems to have got into the wacky weed before he went on camera. He can't even remember the names of his own Reindeer. Even going so far as to call one of them "Nixon". This little exchange is interrupted by Mrs. Claus, who is riding Santa's ass about getting stuff done for Christmas. That is until she finds out she is on TV. Then she gets so excited that I think she may have climaxed, and runs off to change her underwear. Santa then shows Andy all the toys they are making, including a doll of a Martian.



This is Dropo...he's retarded.

We now turn back to Mars where we find Kimar, king of the Martians. He's got a cape...that's how you know he is the king. Kimar is looking for someone named Dropo, and he finds him sleeping under the table. So of course he does the only sensible and logical thing and wakes him up with a "tickle ray" that he just happens to have laying around. No doubt to use on Momar (his wife) after the kids go to bed. Dropo seems to be some kind of live-in slave or something, but not a very good one. As Kimar notes, he is "The Laziest Man on Mars."

Anyway this whole scene is just set up to ask Dropo where Momar is. Turns out she is out buying food pills. See you know they are more advanced then us because they eat their food in pill form and that's always the sign of highly evolved life. Actually, I wouldn't mind eating food in pill form. It'd be a lot easier to eat healthy if I didn't have to worry about how it tastes.

Anyway, turns out the kids haven't been eating. Kimar of course blames the Earth programs rather then his poor ass parenting skills. Yep, that's called transference. And when he demands to see his kids, he finds out they are watching Earth Programs right now. He stomps into to find his to children, the girl Gomar, and the boy Bomar, sitting like little zombies trying to figure out complex issues of life. Like "What is a doll?" or "Tender Loving Care." Course Kimar handles their clear cut ignorance and depression in the best way possible...by berating them, and forcing them to go to bed at like 4 in the afternoon. And when they don't instantly fall asleep he uses a sleep spray on them, which is conveniently controlled from his belt.

I don't know. The purpose of all this seems to be to show how bad Mars is, but whole meals in pill form, tickle rays, and a spray that makes bratty kids instantly go to sleep. Sounds pretty awesome to me. I may just have to move to Mars and conquer them myself. If Santa left anyone alive after his blood thirsty conquest that is.

While all this is going on, Momar returns with many new food pills from the store. She got hamburger, buttered asparagus, mashed potatoes, chocolate layer cake, and Vicadan. Now that's a meal! Kimar doesn't give two craps about Momar's day. Instead he is still mad and wants to complain about the kids. Seems kids all over Mars aren't acting like good little robots anymore and this is problem. Momar suggests that he go see Chochem, apparently a wise old dude. Kimar gathers his council chiefs and heads off to find Chochem.



Suck it in...and ACTION!

When we get to a place called Chochem's Chair, which I guess it where Chochem lives or at least his chair, we see that the council is already there. Voldar, the guy in the middle in the pic above, quickly singles himself out as a total douche, by generally just being a total dick to everyone. Kimar arrives and calls on Chochem to appear, and he does so in a puff of smoke just like a ninja.



Here it comes thunder bucket!

Chochem seems to be like a green, senile, Merlin with no cool powers. Despite this, Kimar puts the question of the children of Mar's condition to him. Chochem knows what is wrong with the children, they aren't being allowed to be children. He goes into a huge rant here on his soap box here. I'm sure was some kind of manifesto against modern society, but I'll be honest I didn't hear any of it. I was too busy looking at Chochem's lazy eye. Anyway, the solution is clear. They need a Santa Claus on Mars!

There is only one problem. There is only one Santa Claus and he is on Earth. Voldar is happy about that, he doesn't want any silly Santa Claus on Mars anyway. But Kimar has other ideas, he is going to kidnap Santa Claus! Dun, Dun, Duuuuuuuuuun!!!!!!

So the Martians blast off for Earth. When they reach Earth's orbit, they been to scan for signs of Santa. Soon they find many Santa Claus' on earth. One on each street corner, ringing bells. Surely if Earth has this many Santas, they can spare just one. So they prepare to land and do their dirty deed.

Meanwhile, the Earth's military (IE: Only the US of A. WOOOOO USA!!!!) have started to track the Martins in Earth orbit. Back on board the space craft, the Martians detect the Earth's radar and go to turn on the Radar Shield to prevent this. There is a problem though, the shield doesn't work! A quick check of the Radar Box, determines the problem. And the problem has a name and it is D-R-O-P-O. Dropo has stowed away inside the box, because he has never seen earth before. After pulling Dropo's sorry ass out of the box, the radar shield is working again, and they make their descent towards Earth.



Earth Children are easy.

Meanwhile, two small children are lost in the middle of the snow covered woods and are about to starve to death or be eaten by a wolf or something. Well no, not really. But Young Billy and Betty are just sort of hanging out in the woods without any parents around. Betty is listening to the news reports about the Martian craft spotted in orbit, which is now clearly a meteor or swap gas, or the planet Venus, but Billy just wants to sleep. I don't think it's wise for Billy to go to sleep in the middle of the woods in freezing temperatures. I think that might be the first sign of hypothermia. Lucky for Billy, Betty isn't giving up on this whole Martian thing. Anyway, she pesters Billy enough that he asks her what she'd do if she actually saw a Martian, and right on cue three Martians arrive and Betty screams like a little girl. I mean she is a little girl, but still...it's kinda a wuss thing to do.

The kids adjust to the shock of making first contact with an Alien race pretty quickly though and begin to ask questions about the Martian's antenna. After Kimar answers their question, and Voldar calls them stupid, they get down to business and demand to know where Santa Claus is. Billy and Betty then commit high treason, by telling the Martians that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. There will be a firing squad waiting for Billy and Betty when they get home.

Kimar, having used his masterful integration tactic of simply asking where Santa Claus is, plans to let the children go now that he knows where the fat man whereabouts. Voldar, earning his douche status, has other plans. He wants to bring the children with them not only to the North Pole, but to Mars it's self. His argument is that they will tell the authorities that Santa Claus was kidnapped by Martians. Because if two children stumbled into Police station with a tale of Aliens kidnapping Santa Claus, I'm sure they'd be taken completely seriously. So they grab the kids and head for the North Pole to kidnap Santa.

That ends part one, be sure to check in next time for part two where we will see see giant robots, man eating polar bears, and Voldar makes his move.

Till then, see you next time on the frontline.

-Matt

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