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Santa Claus (1959)


Cast:

Jose Elias Moreno is Santa
Cesreo Quezadas 'Pulgarcito' is Pedro
Jose Luis Aguirre is Pitch
Armando Arriola is Merlín


What the box says:

Pitch, the mean-spirited devil, is trying to ruin Christmas. Santa Claus teams up with Merlin the Magician and the children of the world in order to save the day.


Plot:

A narrator tells us that Santa lives in a castle on a cloud over the North Pole. The ripe jolly old elf is setting up a Nativity scene on his mantel.

Santa goes over and plays with his organ. Not that organ you, perverts. An actual pipe organ called Toyland. It has a video screen which shows various groups of Children working for Santa. All the elves are probably went over to Willy Wonka’s factory when the Oompa Loompas went on strike. The only joy these kids have is there ability to spontaneously perform musical numbers.

We go through a twisted version of Disney’s “It’s a Small World.” I hope you enjoy this. We get to see numbers from Africa, Spain, China, England, Japan, Orient (India), Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Caribbean, South America, Central America, USA, and Mexico.


Si, we have no bananas....

Santa is chuckling at each group and seems to be playing that organ like Jerry Lewis. One of the children brings Santa a prototype of a devil doll.

That segues ways into Hell. Various devils are frolicking around the kiddie pool of sulfur and brimstone. Lucifer wants Pitch to defeat Santa or suffer for his failure. Pitch enjoys a diet of burning hot coals. If he fails, Pitch will get nothing but chocolate ice cream. Maybe he should try to get some of the food pills from Dropo.

At a mall display, a robot Santa is laughing maniacally almost like the fat Red Cheese himself. Our narrator introduces Billy, the good little rich boy. Then we meet the poor little girl, Lucita, who just wants a doll.

Pitch finds 3 little terrors.


Jimmy, the guy on my right is dressed awfully funny even for a John Tesh concert....
These little monsters don’t need much convincing. They get some rocks and break the store’s window and hit the fake Santa.

In his castle, Santa somehow feels the pain of the attack. He knows Pitch is behind it. Santa can only go to Earth on Christmas Eve.

Santa’s slave labor know that Pitch was talking to Lucita and the punk kids. Santa’s has an observatory to spy on everyone on Earth.

Lucita is watching a puppet show and dreaming of her doll. In the outdoor market, she grabs a doll from a vendor. Pitch is trying to convince her to keep it. However, Lucita gets it back. Pitch is still tempting her.

Santa cheers that Lucita did the right thing. Then, the search to look for the other kid begins in earnest. EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW… The boy is asleep. Santa uses his dreamscope with its very long and tentacle like periscope.


Ahhhhhh, Santa's into tentacle hentai!!!!!!

Billy wants his parents to be with him on Christmas Eve.

Next, the fat red cheese spies on Lupita’s dream. Unfortunately, Pitch gets in her dream. She dreams of having a doll and is surrounded by a flock of giant two-faced dolls that break down into dance numbers. They tell Lupita to steal. She will only get a doll if she is evil…Lupita keeps repeating that stealing is bad before waking up.

Santa checks out the terrible three. They want to steal. They have an excellent plan to write a letter to Santa saying they’re good. Unfortunately, Santa yells at them he is wise to their shenanigans.

Billy writes a letter to Santa asking for his parents to stay with him on Christmas Eve and for a younger brother about his age?

Various kids are writing letters to Santa. The devious 3 continue their terrible plot. Massive mailings ensue. The post master drops the letters in the incinerator. The letters fly to Santa’s castle. Santa rolls around in the letters like Demi Moore does in money.

Santa starts reading the letters. The evil 3’s letter is dropped in the ignore box. Billy’s letter is sent to the stork.

At the workshop, Santa tells his helpers to work harder and faster.

Apparently, Merlin is Santa’s assistant.


I'm Gandalf's little brother, Gregory...
Merlin is in his lab. Santa has come for the sleeping potion. Merlin mixes up a fresh batch and gives Santa the disappearing flower, too.

Santa visits the shirtless blacksmith and key maker. This key will open every door on Earth. Santa tests out the magic key of gold which works perfectly.

Santa has to get into shape to fit into the chimneys. The vibrating strap around your stomach will reduce inches off your waistline.

The kids are inspecting the reindeer when a song breaks out. Santa arrives. He discusses with a Russian kid why he’ll keep his reindeer instead of Sputnik rockets. Santa has to get back before dawn. Sunlight will melt the albino reindeer obviously a design flaw. Santa couldn’t survive on Earth food.

Another song breaks out as the kids fill Santa’s bag, his bag full of toys.

The mechanical reindeer are wound up and ready for action. Psychotic reindeer laughter ensues. The fat red cheese is off. On his way to earth, he almost hits the moon.

Pitch is hard at sleeping.

Billy’s parents leave for the night. What kind of parent leaves their kid alone on Christmas Eve? They probably have some kind of kinky swinging party to go to attend.

The rude 3 plan their attack on Santa to take all the toys. Then, they will enslave Santa and make him do whatever they want.

Lupita is about to go to bed when Mom explains about Santa. She’s obviously distraught about Christmas. They pray to Santa for a doll.

Santa is on his way.

Pitch is waiting for the fat red cheese.

Santa approaches Mexico City.

Pitch pushes a chimney out of place. Santa gets on the roof. He misses the huge gaping hole beside the chimney. Santa realizes Pitch is behind it when he can’t slide down the chimney. He uses his magic parasol to float gently to the ground and uses the key to go through the front door.

A couple of kids hear Santa enter. He uses his magic sleep powder on them.

Pitch pushes the chimney back in place. Santa blows ashes in his face. Komedy….

Pitch is at another house dancing around. He almost sets Santa’s pants on fire.

His next prank involves superheating the door knob to keep Santa’s key from working and to burn his hand. However, our wise old elf sneaks in through a window. He skulks about placing the presents while Pitch is waiting at the front door. Santa shoots a dart from a cannon smack dab in the middle of devil ass.

Billy goes downstairs. He really misses his parents. Sitting by the tree, Billy falls asleep when Santa arrives. He places the presents around the tree. Santa has a special gift for Billy. He uses the dream powder to allow Billy to actually see Santa. Billy hugs his boots and wants the fat red cheese to love him. This boy’s got issues. Santa explains that his parents truly love him.

At a Christmas party, Billy’s parents are mingling. They are given a special drink by a waiter we don’t see only hear. It is Santa. This drink allows them to remember who they truly love. Billy’s parents head home to Billy. Touching reunion ensues.

Apparently, the 3 twerps are the only kids on Earth who will listen to Pitch. They plan the attack on Firebase Santa. They will trip him with a rope. A loud flute starts playing when a meteor passes in the sky. The kids suddenly get scared and chicken out. They head inside to see what Santa left them. Each got a lump of coal. Pitch plays each kid off each other until they are fighting.

Santa goes down another chimney. Pitch climbs aboard the sleigh. The reindeer won’t obey him. Pitch gets a pair of scissors. Santa climbs back on. Pitch cuts open the bag of sleep powder and the disappearing flower.

Santa arrives at his next stop unaware of his missing tools. Pitch sics a pit bull on Santa who realizes he can’t put the dog down. Santa climbs a tree. Pitch is going to wake the neighborhood to see Santa up a tree.

Santa cries out for Merlin.

Pitch awakens a couple to think a prowler is outside. He wakes the rest of the family in the house.

Pitch torments Lupita about not stealing. Lupita’s mom is still torn up about Christmas.

Santa is still up a tree. Pedro is in the observatory and hears his cries.


Why do I think this inspired Gene Simmons?

The entire family is up and looking for the prowler.

Pedro tells Merlin of Santa’s plight.

Pitch plays each family member against each other to be the bravest to find Santa.

Swarms of fire trucks and police are approaching the house.

Pitch will rule the world after getting rid of Santa.

Merlin contacts Santa. With only a few minutes before dawn, Santa explains about being up a tree.

Merlin wants Santa to use a toy cat to distract the dog. He hears the approaching sirens while the family slowly heads outside to search.

Santa uses the cat which the dog chases. Santa escapes before the police and paramedics find him.

Pitch gets hosed down by the firemen.

The disappearing flower falls beside Lupita’s house. Lupita and her Mom are asleep when the unemployed father returns. He was looking for work at 4:00 AM on Christmas Day, that’s determination.

Lupita awakens and talks of Santa and his reindeer. She mentions a doll was left outside for her. She rushes to get it. Mom realizes there is actually a Santa and has a look of absolute shock on her face.

Lupita blathers on about Santa’s castle while carrying her doll.

Santa returns to his castle….


What I say:

I’m sure some of my ten of fans are wondering why I would go over another Santa movie so soon. The current roundtable Cheese From Spacesnuck up on me. I didn’t have anything that fit. A few weeks ago, I spotted Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and it seemed truly appropriate for the season. I wasn’t able to find Santa Claus at the same time. A couple of weeks later, I had a friend of mine looking around for me. And fate smiled on me with this movie.

I can't really understand drug abuse. Why do you need white powder to escape reality when a movie has Santa fighting the devil and various ethnic music numbers that should offend millions? This movie somehow makes Santa Claus Conquers the Martians seem coherent. What makes this movie so fun is its complete insanity. The Mexican Santa Claus is on par with any of the pieced together ninja movies from the 80s.

How many movies have Santa and Merlin fighting the Devil? That is less logical than the old stories where Spiderman and Conan battle some monster. Well, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter has Jesus and Santo battling vampires. Few movies have such strange cast combinations.

Has there ever been a movie Santa without a frightening or psychotic laugh? I can’t think of a single sane B-movie Santa. Sane isn’t the right word. How about non-frightening?

To be fair, maybe the movie made more sense in Spanish without the narrator and endless exposition. K. Gordon Murray bought the rights to numerous movies from Mexico. He would re-edit them and had plenty of moves to distribute to movie theaters. In fact, he came up with the idea of kiddie matinee on weekends. He was able to release a number of movies as this idea caught on across the country.

How do you try to explain an insane movie with a modicum of coherency? I’m looking down an abyss, a whirlpool of confusion and madness. I prepare to dive into the deep end without a lifeline. Let my rantings leave a trail for me to return by….

Santa lives in a Golden Palace on a cloud over the North Pole. His diet consists of ice cream and pastries made of soft clouds. He doesn’t have elves but a large number of children from all over the world to work for him. Santa’s main assistant is Merlin the magician. Vulcan is the master blacksmith of the gods and Santa? The reindeer are clockwork and need to be wound up before flight.

We have people praying to Santa. It is hard to figure out how Santa ties into Christianity in this movie. We see Santa set up a nativity scene on his mantel. Don’t a large number of the peoples represented by the kids that work for Santa come from non-Christian backgrounds? I didn’t know that Christmas was awfully big in China, India, Japan, and Africa.

Hell isn’t a nice place according to a South Park song. It isn’t Hell but Hades. Satan is called Lucifer. However, a place of fire with creepy guys with horns dancing around together seems even less nice. In fact, Pitch is threatened by pain of eating chocolate ice cream instead of hot coals. The Devil seems to be more worried about Santa than Jesus.

The Santa mythology has just kept getting more and more complicated over the years. First, it was a kindly old guy who left presents for good children. The poem, Night Before Christmas had Santa enter through the chimney and ride around a sleigh with flying reindeer. I’m sure you can think of some more things like that. This movie gives Santa sleep powder and a disappearing flower, too.

In fact, Merlin comes across like Q to James Bond. This a guy in the pointed wizard’s hat with the stars and moon robe. He is slow and hard of hearing. I’m not sure how he can make him any more the stereotypical senile elderly wizard.

The battles between Santa and Pitch seem to be not quite epic confrontations as things from Home Alone. The heated door knob was stolen and used against Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. I’m saying Santa Claus better be getting some royalties for what Home Alone stole.

How does every child on Earth be replaced by the poor little rich boy, the good poor girl, and the rude 3? Pitch is only working on 5 kids in Mexico City. How does that affect every other child on the planet? Even if he succeeds with any of them, how would it make more kids do evil? Was the plan to capture Santa to prevent him from delivering toys so every good kid thought Santa didn’t care? That wouldn’t have been a hard line to leave in the movie.

The movie was so bizarre it needed the omniscient narrator to explain what was happening. Too bad, his name wasn’t Uatu, the Watcher. Was the narrator supposed to be God? This was a narrator that didn’t want children to be steal or do evil.

I have glanced over the children singing. The American kids are dressed like cowboys and have mangled “Mary, Had a Little Lamb” like Type O Negative would have done to it. The songs from the non-English speaking countries are even better. These kids sound sort of hepped up on some type of goofballs. The numbers keep coming. 12 country songs. 2 songs while preparing the sleigh. And 2 dance numbers, too…

What really hurts the movie is when it gets away from the insane parts and goes to the uplifting parts. I wasn’t too touched by Billy’s parents coming back to see him. I was more curious what are these parents doing abandoning their only child to get their freak on at some wife-swapping party. It was clearly implied.

Lupita is continually told to steal by the devil. She has the creepy dream with the giant dolls that hate good girls. You do get the feeling her mother is truly distressed by not being able to get her a doll for Christmas. However, aren’t toys cheap to buy in Mexico? Couldn’t her parents scrimp the money to get her a doll?

The troublesome 3 are plotting and scheming to steal all the toys from Santa. Imagine the 3 Stooges wanting to rob Fort Knox, wouldn’t that be about the same as these kids stealing Santa’s bag.

Santa and the reindeer laughing is awfully creepy. This movie just is awfully dark. The part with Billy hugging Santa’s leg is supposed to make you feel sorry for him. However, it just sort of makes Santa even seem that much creepier. This is a strange fat man who breaks into your house and leaves things. A strange man lives in a castle who wants to make children happy. Doesn’t that sound a bit like Michael Jackson?



3 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"If you don't succeed in making all the children of Earth do evil, you will be punished."
"One thing's for certain, the devil has turned them against Santa Claus."
"It's bad to steal."
"You must be evil if you want a doll!"
"They eat most of the animals, the plants, the flowers, the roots, birds, even smoke and alcohol!"


Morals of the Story

Santa controls children through playing with his organ.
Kids love to perform song and dance numbers at a moment's notice.
Santa has a telepathic link with every Santa display in the world.
Santa's bag is like Dr Who's Tardis, bigger on the inside than the outside.
Demons love to frolick.
Santa is an excellent bartender.
Flames can be transmitted through telephone lines.