144) Santa Claus vs. the Devil (1959)

"Let's watch the little rich boy's dreams!" 

Director
Rene Cardona

Cast
José Elías Moreno - Santa Claus

José Luis Aguirre 'Trotsky' - Pitch
Lupita Quezadas - Lupita
Nora Veryán - Lupita's mother
Antonio Díaz Conde - Billy
Ken Smith - Narrator

If there's a Christmas movie that's, without a doubt, well suited for a modern remake, it's the 1959 Mexican fantasy film "Santa Claus" also known as "Santa Claus vs. the Devil." 

Honestly, I cannot think of a more unique and fantastic on-screen match than the patron saint of children, St. Nicholas, versus the adversary of God and mankind, the devil.

I was torn between reviewing this Christmas gem, or the1964 sci-fi flick "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians." I had heard from a completely unreliable source that "Santa Claus vs. the Devil" is the better film. Although, I can't say that's saying much for this movie. 

While I'm sure I'll get to "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" at some point, and post a review of it, I chose to watch this movie now because its title doesn't give away the ending. 

I'm really stretching the meaning of horror to include this particular movie. The horror genre often reflects a culture and what it fears at the time. In this case, I'm really simplifying the meaning of horror when it comes to movies as being a film meant to induce fear. 

"Santa Claus vs. the Devil" does technically attempt to induce fear of wrongdoing, the devil, the possibility of damnation, all in a "child-friendly" manner. The devil can be pretty damn scary. In this case, he's portrayed by some guy (José Luis Aguirre 'Trotsky') with the stereotypical red face, red tights, devil horns, black goatee and fake pointed plastic ears.
In this movie, Santa Claus (José Elías Moreno) doesn't live up in the North Pole. Santa actually lives in a magical castle out in space. He has an observatory in his castle where he checks in on the children of Earth through a large telescope with an eyeball at the end of it. He also has a machine which lets him see what children are dreaming while they're asleep. And he has a device that lets him hear their conversations, along with a large computer with huge lips that speaks. It's all creepy and unsettling though that's clearly not the intention. Regardless, those aspects certainly didn't age well. 

Santa is only allowed to visit Earth on Christmas Eve. 

Instead of Elves helping him build his toys, Santa has children from all around the world living with him in his castle and building all the toys. Again, another aspect that didn't age well. 

The movie starts with a narrator (Ken Smith) introducing the audience to every ethnic group of kids up in Santa's castle. And each group mentioned performs a song and dance native to their respective country as Santa plays an organ. That's not a euphemism, by the way.

As Santa prepares for his trip to Earth, down in Hell, Lucifer orders a demon named Pitch (José Luis Aguirre 'Trotsky') to head up to Earth in order to tempt and entice children to commit evil deeds and ultimately turn their backs on Santa. 

Lucifer warns Pitch that if he fails, he'll be forced to eat chocolate ice cream for the rest of eternity. Keep in mind the movie is keeping things kid-friendly according to 1959 standards.

Knowing that Santa can't interfere much in his evil plans since he can only travel to Earth on Christmas Eve, Pitch starts in on a little girl in Mexico City, Mexico named Lupita (Lupita Quezadas). While she visits a marketplace with her mother, Pitch tries to temp Lupita to steal a doll, which the kid is certainly considering. But she resists the urge. Santa sees all this taking place. 

Santa is also keeping an eye on Billy (Antonio Díaz Conde), the son of wealthy but negligent parents. They often leave Billy alone in their large house while they go out for nights on the town. Santa can see Billy has a dream where he opens up two huge presents on Christmas morning, which turn out to be his parents.

It's certainly the most depressing part of the film. 

Pitch succeeds in tempting three young brothers to hurl rocks through a department store window, hitting a mechanical Santa on display. Their world just goes downhill from there. These brothers plot to sneak into Billy's house and steal his presents. These little punks then decide to write letters to Santa, full of big feckin' lies about how they've been good all year. But Santa isn't fooled and tells them in a looming disembodied voice from his castle observatory that he can see all the things they do. 

Santa checks in on Lupita while she's asleep with his machine that lets him to see children's dreams. She's still tormented by Pitch who wants her to steal the friggin' doll. So, he gives her nightmares in which she's surrounded by life-size versions of the doll which dance around her. Finally, one of the dolls talks to her in a creepy voice trying to get her to steal. 

But, Lupita, being the six-year old bastion of honor and moral righteousness, refuses claiming that stealing is wrong and that she wants to be a good girl. 

As Santa makes the last few preparations for his Christmas visit, he consults Merlin the Wizard (Armando Arriola) for some sleep-inducing powder to use on children trying to catch a glimpse of Santa. He also has Merlin make him a flower that turns him invisible each time he smells it. 

Santa's private blacksmith makes him a key that will unlock any door. 

Equipped with all these tools, Santa gets his reindeer ready to fly through space. The reindeer, by the way, are mechanical. So, Santa has to wind them up like a toy. And they must make the trip around the world before the sun rises in the morning, or they'll turn to dust. 

Santa begins in Mexico City where the three bothers plot of kidnap him and steal all the toys he's going to deliver. 

Also, Lupita and her mother say a prayer to the infant Jesus, asking that she'll get the doll she so desperately wants along with a second one which she'll give to Him as a present. 

Her mother, knowing how poor they are, is worried as they can't afford a doll. Her dad, by the way, can't find work. She doesn't want to break her daughter's spirits and hopes.

Santa turns his focus onto Billy's parents in the hopes that they realize what deadbeats they are, and go spend Christmas Eve with their damn son, for crying out loud. He does this by slipping them a "special drink" while they're at a nightclub on Christmas Eve, while Billy is again home alone. 

As Santa makes his rounds, Pitch does all he can to hinder the trip and force him to fail once and for all. 

The movie is more of a battle of wills than it is a fight. Pitch does more damage against Santa, while Santa does very little. What little Santa does are more gotcha moments, such as shooting Pitch in his ass with a toy canon or blowing soot up a chimney into Pitch's face. 

The "climax" sees Pitch trapping Santa in a tree with an angry guard dog barking at him. Pitch entices the family inside the house to call the police and fire department by whispering to them that there's an intruder outside their home, as well as a fire. Before this happens, Pitch cut a hole in Santa's sleep powder bag, which also leads to the flower of invisibility falling out into the streets of Mexico City along with the sleep powder. 

I can't necessarily recommend this movie. Nor do I feel justified in ridiculing or criticizing it. Sure, it's a really easy target. It's most certainly a product of its time. It's ambitious. And it certainly tries to lead young audiences in a moral and decent direction with the clear understanding that bad actions have bad consequences. Integrity counts for something. That's a fact which is certainly lost on too many of today's "adults." 

"Santa Claus vs. the Devil" even won the Golden Gate Award for "Best International Family Film" at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1959. 

With the narrator explaining every single scene, along with commentary - "Hurry, Santa, hurry!" or "the devil likes rude little boys" the entire movie feels more like an old school PSA, or teaching film. 

"Santa Claus vs. the Devil" was featured on episode 521 of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." And Pitch became a reoccurring character on the show as well. Again, it's an easy film to mock and laugh it. I certainly laughed while watching it. 

It's an oddity of a film which has the best of intentions. But, like so many other films of its time, it's a movie that can't stand under the weight of today's social climate. The sugary 1950s sentimentalism makes it impossible to take seriously. 

The narration (in the American version, which is the version I watched) is annoying as Ken Smith explains everything the audience is seeing. Granted, it's told in a story time/ teaching format clearly aimed at children. Maybe that's an unfair criticism. But it's still annoying. 

The movie is now public domain, popping up from time to time on lists of strange and unusual holiday films. 

Call it nostalgic kitsch, or banal Holiday sentimentality. Whatever. "Santa Claus vs. the Devil" is something to get a good laugh over on a cold winter's Friday night during Christmas. But, in the end, at least poor little Lupita got her doll without resorting to thievery. Well done, Lupita!

143) NEW HORROR RELEASES - Wednesday (2022)

"Wednesday's child is full of woe."

Directors

Tim Burton, Gandja Monteiro, and James Marshall

Cast

Jenna Ortega - Wednesday Addams, Goody Addams

Gwendoline Christie - Larissa Weems

Emma Myers - Enid Sinclair

Percy Hynes White - Xavier Thorpe

Riki Lindhome - Dr. Valerie Kinbott

Hunter Doohan - Tyler Galpin
Jamie McShane - Sheriff Galpin

Christina Ricci - Marilyn Thornhill

Isaac Ordonez - Pugsley Addams

Luis Guzmán - Gomez Addams

Catherine Zeta-Jones - Morticia Addams

Fred Armisen - Fester Addams

George Burcea - Lurch

Victor Dorobantu - Thing

The new dark mystery series, "Wednesday," available on the streaming service Netflix, is more creepy, mysterious, and a bit spooky than it is ooky or cooky. Honestly, I don't know what "ooky" means, so if this series is actually that, I completely missed it. Still, I think it's safe to assume that the show is completely void of ookiness, which is fine with me. 

Directed by Tim Burton, the series, based on Charles Addams' cartoon "The Addams Family," premiered Nov. 23. 

The humor behind the Addams is the contrast between the strange and macabre family set against the rest of the relatively normal world, which the audience sees when they interact. The Addams think they're the normal ones, and the rest of the world is strange and unusual. 

"Wednesday" takes a more dramatic tone though maintains its comedic roots, unlike the T.V. sitcom "The Addams Family" that ran from 1964 to 1966. The sitcom is goofy and played for chuckles as is the nature of sitcoms. The same is somewhat true for the 1992 movie "The Addams Family" and its 1993 sequel, "Addams Family Values" both of which I enjoy. The movies have a darker, updated tone though still keep the same style of humor the cartoon is known for. 

As the title suggests, the new series centers around Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) - the eldest child of Gomez (Luis Guzmán) and Morticia Addams (Catherine-Zeta Jones). Although, for anyone who follows the canon of the sitcom, Wednesday is the youngest Addams child.
The series starts with Wednesday getting expelled from Nancy Reagan High School. After she finds her brother, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) stuffed in his locker, Wednesday has a psychic vision of the bullies who did this to him. So, she retaliates against Pugsley's bullies by letting piranhas loose in the school swimming pool while they're in the middle of water polo practice.

Gomez and Morticia decide to enroll Wednesday into a school where they think she'll fit in - Nevermore Academy.

The Academy, located in Jericho, Vt., has a student body of unusual outcasts, some with unusual powers. It's also the school where her parents first met. 

Wednesday, who has a cold and emotionless demeanor as she intellectually carries herself above everyone else, is bitter at her parents for placing her in Nevermore and swears she'll escape. 

Her cynical and emotionless personality also puts her at odds with the school principal, Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie). 

The state has ordered that Wednesday see a counseler, which she does. She reluctantly visits a therapist in town named Dr. Valerie Kinbott (Riki Lindhome) who seems to know a lot about her, to Wednesday's surprise. Dr. Kimbott doesn't react to Wednesday's attempts to intimidate. 

Before heading back home, Gomez and Morticia leave their sentient pet hand, Thing (Victor Dorobantu), at the school to keep a tab on Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, murders have been taking place around Jericho. Wednesday uses her newly found psychic ability to try to solve these mysterious killings. Early in the series, she witnesses a monster attack one of the students whom she followed into the woods. 

As Wednesday's visions become more and more vivid, her drive to solve the murders and find the monster grows more and more acute. 

Luis Guzmán, Jenna Ortega, and Catherina Zeta-Jones star as the Addams in "Wednesday."

She also learns that her father was accused of murder while he was a student at Nevermore back in 1990. The local sheriff (Jamie McShane) thinks Gomez is guilty despite not being convicted. So, he holds a long-time grudge.

Though Gomez was not convicted of the charge, his past comes back to haunt him when the family visits Wednesday in the middle of the school year. Wednesday thinks her father's murder accusation may have something to do with the murders the town is currently dealing with.  

Netflix posted on the platform's Facebook page that "Wednesday" now holds the record for most viewed hours (341.2 million hours) in one week for an English language program on their streaming platform. Netflix claims "Wednesday" is number one in 83 countries, tying the record with the fourth season of their other series "Stranger Things." 

Rather than create a new Addams series contrasting the entire macabre family against a relatively normal society, and then let the hilarity ensue, "Wednesday" puts the oldest Addams child in a boarding school with other outcast students just as strange and unusual (to some degree or another) as she is and turn the premise into a murder mystery. It turns Wednesday into a more relatable character on top of maintaining her dark and death obsessed nature, and razor-sharp personality.

We see Wednesday develop through the series as those who consider her a friend are soon left with telling her what they think of her. For instance, her bubbly werewolf dormmate Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) tells her just what kind of person she is to her face after Wednesday puts her in a life-or-death situation without any remorse.

One of Wednesday's admirers, Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White), a student who has the ability to give his artwork life (literally), puts Wednesday in her place after he catches her in a shed he uses as a private art space. He caught her outside the shed before, after she asked him to a school dance called the Rav'n only to cover her tracks in her investigations. Once he catches on to how she used him, he gets irate and says, "You are unbelievable."

"It's nothing personal," she nonchalantly replies.

"No, it never is with you, is it," he shouts. "I mean, do you even care about anyone or anything at all, Wednesday?" 

She finds herself speechless as a glisten of a tear looks like it's welling up in her eye.

"Get out," he barks at her. 

Though she tries to hide it, Wednesday can't help feeling the sting of truth that she's observed and critiqued just as much as she observes and critiques others. In other words, Wednesday learns that being an ass is a terrible thing. For someone who revels in pain and turmoil, this kind of pain doesn't feel too great. 

While the show is a mystery series, the "creepy and cooky" Addams style chimes in from time to time. Episode five, "You Reap What You Woe" is where the true Addams form really comes out. This is the episode where Wednesday's family comes to visit Nevermore for the school's yearly "parent's weekend." 

In episode seven, "If You Don't Woe Me by Now," Wednesday's Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) shows up to visit his niece and brings with him the Addam's family style and feel. 

Of course, like most everything else coming out of Hollywood, the series goes out of its way to mark off all the current ideology checkmarks. 

Then again, such modern ideology fits in a show about someone as dark, strange and void of personality like Wednesday Addams.

In one scene, she accuses a male student of "mansplaining" which made me cringe. Watching Wednesday explain everything to everyone, only to criticize someone - a male student - for explaining something to her doesn't make much sense. And it's even funnier that Wednesday would subject herself to a nonsense word like "mansplain." 

But, for Hollywood, all that matters is stuffing in as many tenets of the modern political credo repeated over and over again like a religious mantra into as much content as possible is all that matters for Hollywood. By this point in time, it just induces eyeroll after eyeroll.  

Outside of that nitpick, the series nicely depicts two sides of Wednesday. There's the Wednesday who's driven. Then there's the familiar Wednesday who welcomes all things sinister and haunting. 

"If you hear me screaming bloody murder, there's a good chance I'm just enjoying myself," she says during one of her investigations. 
Instead of playing to the comically grim side of the character as seen in the comics, sitcom, and the movies, Wednesday is portrayed as a coming-of-age teenager taking a harsh grudge towards her parents, especially her mother, while learning how she's seen by others whether she likes it or not.
No matter how much she holds herself up above her peers and her parents, and no matter how strange and unusual she presents herself, her problems and inner struggles are just like others her own age.
Part of that experience is Wednesday seeing things through the eyes of her parents. Like most teenagers, even Wednesday goes through a rebellion, even towards her mother whom she looks up to in other Addams Family depictions. 
The 2021 animated film "The Addams Family 2" also focuses on Wednesday's (voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz) relationship with her family. In that movie, she tries to distance herself from them after discovering that she may not be their biological daughter despite being similar in personality. So, Wednesday focuses on the differences between herself and the rest of them while on a family road trip.

With this new series, we see a side of the character not necessarily depicted before - bitterness towards those close to her. After her parents drop her off at the Academy, Wednesday threatens to escape and never see her mother again.
"You're a brilliant girl, Wednesday, but sometimes you get in your own way," Morticia says before they leave their daughter at school.
She gives Wednesday a necklace with an obsidian emblem bearing a "W" on one side which turns to an "M" on the other side when flipped, as a symbol of their connection. But Wednesday mocks the gesture, calling the necklace a "toe-curling chotchkie."
"I'm not you, mother," she says. "I will never fall in love, or be a housewife, or have a family." This is the kind of turmoil even the Addams won't relish.

Ortega's performance is full of well-played detail, right down to long periods without blinking. Her furled gaze through her black eyebrows makes her the next best Wednesday since Christina Ricci, who plays the character in the 1992 movie and its sequel. By the way, Ricci has a supporting role as Botany Professor Marilyn Thornhill. 

Wednesday is bright for a dark child. Ortega's inflections and mannerisms are perfect in this role. 

Burton hand-picked the cast, and I can see why he saw Wednesday in Ortega. Her Wednesday puts her intelligence to good use, making her fit to be the detective she is. For the rest of the cast, they resemble the characters from the cartoon better than any other Addams Family movie or series.

Ortega is certainly no stranger to horror as the 20-year old actress previously starred in such movies as "Insidious: Chapter 2" (2013), "The Babysitter: Killer Queen" (2020), "Scream" (2022) "Studio 666" (2022), "X" (2022) and is scheduled to appear in the sixth installment of the "Scream" series.
The atmosphere at Nevermore Academy is certainly a Harry Potter-esque style with its paranormal nature, and odd student body mixed with Tim Burton's macabre gray tone protruding through. I wouldn't call it a stunning style. It's what's to be expected, especially regarding Burton's version of the macabre. 

It's heavier on the eerie and ghastly than on the surreal and nightmarish. I can see Burton's style in the look of the monster, referred to as a "hyde." It would easily fit within his 1988 movie "Beetlejuice." And the truck driver in the beginning of the first episode ever-so-slightly resembles "Large Marge" from his movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure."

There's a scene in which Wednesday plays her cello in the town square during an unveiling while the statue of the town's founder, Joseph Crackstone, is lit on fire and burns while ceremony attendees run around in a panic. It is truly a heavy scene that sums up Wednesday Addams perfectly.  

Each episode left me eager to watch the next. I appreciate the series doing something different with the Addams rather than just creating an updated live-action series with the humor and style we've already seen before. Using Wednesday's knowledge and brilliance to create a mystery series is enticing. Overall, I can see why this new series became successful so quickly.