It’s the middle of summer, it’s
blooming hot and there are many things I do not want to do. Go to work, do
anything physical and watch a movie set on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately our
list had other ideas and our next movie is the rather out of place, Santa
Claus, (vs. The Devil)!
Meanwhile
in Hell, Lucifer has instructed one of his best demons, Pitch, (Jose Luis
Aguirre ‘Trotsky’), to go to earth and make all of the children hate Santa. I
did not realise Santa and Lucifer were natural enemies, but it turns out
Lucifer did not get the PS4 he wanted last year and received a Wii U instead.
In
Mexico City Pitch finds potential children whom he can turn against Santa.
There’s
a little girl called Lupita, (Lupita Quezadas), who desperately wants a doll
for Christmas, but her family are very poor and can’t afford it. And there are
also 3 mischievous brothers.
After
failing to convince Lupita to steal a doll from a shop, Pitch manages to
convince the brothers to smash a shop window. Pitch has found the children he
knows he can turn against Santa and hatches a plan to use the 3 brothers to
steal Santa’s sleigh and toys....
Santa’s
helpers alert Santa as to what is going back on Earth. Santa decides to spy on
the children and when he finds the 3 brothers writing a letter lying about how
good they have been, he booms at them that he can see everything and that they
are getting sweet FA.
With
the brother’s firmly told, Santa finalises his plans to leave for earth to
deliver the presents. He visits best friend and magician, Paul Daniels, Merlin, who gives
him a sleep powder which knocks children out and a flower which can make him
invisible, (erm, is anyone else feeling this is getting just a little bit
creepy now?). He also gets a magic key from Vulcan, (not Mr. Spock
unfortunately), which can open any door on earth.
Santa’s
helpers have finished loading up the sleigh with presents. Santa then winds up
his reindeer, (literally with a key wind, not by telling them they are all shit
and a trained elk could do all of their jobs), and sets of for earth.
After
several failed attempt by Pitch to foil Santa’s deliveries, which includes
blowing a knob until it is red hot, (A door knob, that is, honestly you lot
have mucky minds), Santa’s makes his way to the 3 brothers.
The
brothers are lying in wait to capture Santa and all the presents, but, when a
large firework thing descends from the sky, they get a bit scared and rush back
to their bedrooms. They then discover that Santa has already been, (the old
firework distraction switcheroo trick, how many more times will people be
fooled by this), and that they have been given lumps of coal for being so bad
this year.
Pitch
seeks revenge and slashes the bottom of Santa’s bag causing the sleeping powder
and flower to fall out.
Santa
encounter’s a large dog at his next stop and realises both powder and flower
are missing and so has to climb a tree rather quickly. Trapped by the dog,
Pitch starts waking the neighbours and calls the fire brigade so that they all
find Santa in this embarrassing situation and thereby humiliating him.
All
looks bad for Santa, but he finally manages to summon Merlin, who manages to
magic Santa out of the tree. The fire brigade turn up and hose Pitch with
water. This causes him to smoke, (literally, he doesn’t light up a fag), and
run off.
Victorious,
Santa leaves a doll for Lupita and heads for home. Ho ho ho, everyone, Merry
Christmas!
If I
has to sum up this movie in one word it would be 'creepy'. It really is the
scariest, weirdest and most unsettling story of Santa I have ever seen.
For
starters there's Santa's special spying equipment, (and the fact that Santa is
spying on children is creepy enough), which includes a telescope with an eye
which comes out on stalks, a computer with huge lips which moves as the
children speak and a colander with a severed ear stapled to it which Santa uses
to eavesdrop.
I
appreciate that in some more modern kids TV shows, such as Teletubbies, there
has been a touch or surrealism mixed with some unsettling images, (the severed
babies head in the sun haunts me to this day), but some of the imagery used in
this movie must have sent children into a shaking mess.
There's
one paricular scene in which Lupita is dreaming of life size dolls and these
dolls are the most sinister things I have ever seen. They perform some sort of
dance around Lupita and it looks like they have her surrounded and are about to
feed them to their goat god. It's really disturbing and makes the final scenes
in The Wicker Man look like a cotton wool hutch of baby bunnies.
Santa's
reindeer are also scary and look like zombie reindeer. In fact they could
even be vampire reindeer as one of Santa's helpers informs us that they turn
to ash if they are in direct sunlight! Although this is very confusing as we
learn quite soon afterwards that they are in fact clockwork reindeer. Indeed,
confusion is one common theme throughout this movie.
For
starters, why is Santa living in Heaven? Again, this is just creepy to me as it
would suggest that Santa has shuffled off this mortal coil and his ghost is
coming back to earth once a year to break into your house, eat your food and drink
your drink. Whilst this sounds a lot
cooler that the more traditional views, it's a bit weird to say the least.
And why
is his natural enemy Lucifer? I've seen what Christmas does to most rational
human beings and it turns them into greedy, rude and arrogant idiots once they
hit the mall. Suicide rates are at their highest, people are depressed and
office workers, who don't drink all year, photocopy their arses and act like
complete cretins down their local after downing half a pint of lager shandy.
All this misery and selfish indulgence must make this Lucifers most successful
time of the year and he really should be buying Santa some aftershave and socks
as a massive thank you.
There's
other things which confuse me like 'since when was Santa's best mate Merlin'?
'Why does he do his weight loss program the day before Christmas Eve when he
has had the rest of the year to do it' and 'why on earth does he keep going
down the chimneys, when Vulcan gave him a magic key which can open any door on
earth'? It is a mystery, although one of the biggest mysteries is how on earth
this is a 94 minutes movie.
There
really is very little to no story here. Quite simply, some kids are tempted
into being bad by Pitch, Pitch fails, Santa delivers presents and wins the day,
The End. A lot of the movie is just padded out with unnecessarily long scenes.
One
such scene is the dancing lifesize dolls I have briefly mentioned, this scene
goes on for ages which just cranks up the creep factor. Another scene sees
Lupitas mum go on and on and on about how poor they are, how they could pray
and how she really hopes Santa will bring Lupita the doll. It goes on for so
long you feel like buying a doll, building a time machine and giving it to them
in person just to stop the whinging.
But the
biggest filler of the movie occurs at the beginning of the movie. This is when Santa is sat playing his
organ, (ooer again) and each group of children who represent each nation
appears on screen one by boring one. It
seems like we are introduced to all 196 countries in the world, each singing a
song in their own language. This
pads the first scene out to around 10 minutes and is really unnecessary and
tedious.
What
makes this scene even worse is that each nation is dressed in outrageously
racial stereotypical outfits and each group of children looks miserable and as
if they have been forced to wear these outdated costumes. It just adds to the sense of
creepiness and this should have ended up on the cutting room floor along with
around 70% of the movie.
In summary, the problem with this movie is; it’s not festive, it’s disturbing. Santa is creepy and every child in every scene looks like they are
about to burst into tears. The
story is dull and no amount of padding can hide the fact there is no substance
to this movie. The only
thing that reminds me that this is the Christmas movie is Santa and the
continuous playing of Silent Night and Jingle Bells in the background, (sped up
or slowed down to reflect the mood of the scene. Not only is this lazy, but just adds
to the creepiness).
My
overall view of this movie is one of confusion. For a movie which is supposed to be
about Christmas, there is a lot of darkness, depression and very little or no joy…….
Actually, now I come to think of it, it’s a lot like Christmas! In that case well done Santa Claus vs
The Devil!.
No comments:
Post a Comment