This absolutely wretched Mexican made Christmas children's matinee is one of the strangest holiday films ever to come out in any form. While there are some pretty impressive sets and props, it is bizarre from start to finish, and they end up actually providing more nightmares than holiday joy. I saw the dubbed English version, and after prologue which deals with Santa introducing his little helpers basically children from all over the world gather together in sets stolen from Dr. Seuss's Dr. T. Sends one of his devil demons up to worth to prevent the children from being good so they will not get presents from Santa. It's interesting that the anagram of Santa and Satan (aka Pitch) are tied together in this film, presenting them as foes, but they are both in red.
Satan's blood red skin tight outfit looks like it is oozing off the actor in the costume which makes it all the more demonic to look at. Really, there isn't any plot, and much of the time show Santa simply reading letters, slipping some into a reject pile, when requesting a baby into the stork pile, and accepted ones in another pile. It's presented in its dubbed version as a semi documentary where narration comes out of nowhere after part of the action has already taken place, and that makes it all the more ridiculous. There are a couple of ballet segments as well that are extremely bizarre, and one involving large Raggedy Ann dolls is very spooky to look at.
I'm glad that I did not see this one as a child, finding it as part of public domain Christmas movies in a box set, and seeing it for the first time as an adult. That way I was able to look at it objectively as a film reviewer rather than a child or from the memory of a children's experience in being disturbed by reliving the memory. Even where the devil gets his due, it is still quite eerie, and a poor choice in taste for being made for children at a more innocent time. I can see why this is listed on the worst Christmas films of all time list, and after seeing it with "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and "The Day Christmas Almost Wasn't", I refer to these three as "Dante's Holiday Inferno".
Satan's blood red skin tight outfit looks like it is oozing off the actor in the costume which makes it all the more demonic to look at. Really, there isn't any plot, and much of the time show Santa simply reading letters, slipping some into a reject pile, when requesting a baby into the stork pile, and accepted ones in another pile. It's presented in its dubbed version as a semi documentary where narration comes out of nowhere after part of the action has already taken place, and that makes it all the more ridiculous. There are a couple of ballet segments as well that are extremely bizarre, and one involving large Raggedy Ann dolls is very spooky to look at.
I'm glad that I did not see this one as a child, finding it as part of public domain Christmas movies in a box set, and seeing it for the first time as an adult. That way I was able to look at it objectively as a film reviewer rather than a child or from the memory of a children's experience in being disturbed by reliving the memory. Even where the devil gets his due, it is still quite eerie, and a poor choice in taste for being made for children at a more innocent time. I can see why this is listed on the worst Christmas films of all time list, and after seeing it with "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and "The Day Christmas Almost Wasn't", I refer to these three as "Dante's Holiday Inferno".