A Christmas Tale of Total Terror: THE SANTA CLAUSE

Imagine if you accidentally startled a home invader and the man fell to his death and vaporized.  Your emotionally-manipulative son begs you to try on the dead man's clothes, and because it's late and your kid is annoying, you decide to humor him.  But it turns out that this dead man's suit has a magic spell upon them, and by putting it on just once, your entire previous life and identity is forfeit.  You are now damned to eternal servitude (or at least until a violent death) to Christmas spirit and the children of the world.  This is the terrifying tale of how one man became... Santa Claus.

THE SANTA CLAUSE  (FAMILY-COMEDY/FANTASY, 1994) 

Directed by John Pasquin
Starring: Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, David Krumholtz, Larry Brandenburg, Mary Gross, Paige Tamada, Peter Boyle, Judith Scott, Jayne Eastwood
Rated PG for a few crude moments.
97 minutes
Disney's 1994 fantasy-family-comedy THE SANTA CLAUSE is a horror movie that thinks it's a comedy.  Think David Cronenberg's THE FLY with a super sappy Christmas twist, then given a TV comedy-style treatment.
Comedian Tim Allen, who was at the height of his fame in 1994 with his highly-popular sitcom Home Improvement in its fourth season on ABC, stars as Scott Calvin, a successful toy advertising executive spending Christmas Eve with his insatiable son Charlie (Eric Lloyd), who can do nothing but complain and talk about how great his new stepfather Neal (Judge Reinhold) is.  That night, upon hearing clattering sounds up on the roof, Scott runs outside to see what's going on and startles Santa Claus, who then falls off the roof and possibly dies.  We don't know, because once Scott isn't looking, the body disappears and leaves the suit, along with a card advising: "If something should happen to me, put on my suit; the reindeer will know what to do."  Scott wants to do the sensible thing and not jump into a sleigh hauled by eight strange reindeer, but try explaining that to the emotionally-manipulative Charlie.  ["How come everything I want to do is stupid," Charlie asks, pouting.  I don't know about "everything" Charlie, but what you want to do right now is really stupid, and I hate you and don't want you to be happy.]  Skeptically and reluctantly, Scott plays along, going down the chimneys of the world and depositing presents beneath Christmas trees, and once all the presents are delivered, Scott and Charlie are taken to the North Pole.  The head elf, Bernard (David Krumholtz), informs Scott that by putting on the suit, he has forfeited his previous identity and become Santa Claus (how's that for some fine print?).  That is why you have to be so, so careful what you let your kids manipulate you into doing, because you could be pressed into indentured servitude to the Christmas spirit.
Scott continues to think that last Christmas Eve was a dream, or at least he hopes it was, while Charlie, in utter disregard for his dad's reputation, goes around telling everybody about it.  As if it isn't bad enough that Charlie's big mouth is getting him in trouble with his ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson) and Neal (who also happens to be a psychiatrist, and the frequently ridiculed voice of reason and rational thinking in the movie), Scott is being subjected to some real body horror.  He's getting fatter, like, way fatter.  You know, forty-five pounds per week.  Despite being a healthy middle-aged man, his hair has turned to a shock of white, and his facial hair is growing at an increasingly fast rate.  Even after shaving his face clean and dying his hair, his efforts are entirely reversed in a matter of seconds.  By cruel fate, one act of appeasement to his bratty son has completely robbed Scott of his identity and sense of self, and it's only so long before the holidays start again and the elves come to collect him.

This would have made far more sense approached as a horror film, but while Tim Allen has shown he's fine with "horrible," he doesn't really do "horror".  What a shame.  In fact, in true horror fashion, the film ends on the disconcerting note of Charlie smiling creepily as his dad flies the sleigh off into the night sky and says he plans to go into the "family business."  Did they think we forgot how Scott got the Santa gig?  Charlie's a sick bastard.

You better watch out...

Although there are a few inspired moments, THE SANTA CLAUSE isn't especially funny, and yet, none of the humor is nearly as dated as the special effects.  This came out a year after JURASSIC PARK, but the CGI warping and morphing effects in it wouldn't be out of place in late-1980s fantasy film.  Even while it's barely middle-of-the-road family fare up until then, it isn't until a little ways into the second half that THE SANTA CLAUSE just falls apart like a bunch of broccoli.  It's like anyone making a family film starring Santa Claus is obligated to show St. Nick apprehended by law enforcement and thrown in the slammer, ever since A MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET.  Granted, it's probably what we'd do in real life; we don't like to talk about it, but Santa is a little problematic, what with the watching everyone's children while they're sleeping and coaxing them to sit on his lap.  It's just the world we made for ourselves, I guess.  I'm fine with the trope of booking Santa, but what is with all the revamped Santa tech?  So many Christmas movies and TV specials turn Santa into a James Bond-style covert operation with elaborate gadgets (that rarely glitch, mind you), because Christmas magic will only get you so far, and then you have to bring in a fat elf with a British accent to play Q.  Gross.
The excellent NBC sitcom 30 Rock lampooned this kind of movie (and other formulaic holiday-themed movies) perfectly in the episode "Leap Day", with scenes from a movie within the show called "Leap Dave Williams", in which Jim Carrey plays Dave Williams, an uptight lawyer who starts transforming into the Leap Day mascot "Leap Day Williams" (he lives in the Mariana Trench and trades candy for children's tears) after a fishing trip incident.

If you are going to watch THE SANTA CLAUSE, the television airings and all format releases after the 1995 VHS and Laserdisc editions are a tad edited.  With the exception of a few off-color lines of dialogue and one mild swear word, it's pretty squeaky clean; one of those off-color lines cost some parents big phone bills though.  When his ex-wife gives Scott the phone number to her new husband's mother's house where she and Neal will be staying, Scott quips, "1-800-SPANK-ME?  I know that number!"  Sometimes little kids call the phone numbers that they hear in movies, and sometimes those phone numbers turn out to be real and cost money.  Sometimes kids rack up phone sex bills as high as $400.  Then Disney decides to play it safe from now on and take out phone sex numbers from DVD, Blu-ray and TV versions, so I just watch the VHS and feel edgy.

THE BEST PARTS:
Santa is a dick: On his first night as Santa, Scott Calvin accidentally wakes up a little girl-
Little Girl: "Santa?"
Scott: "Scott Calvin."
Little Girl: "How come your clothes are so baggy?
Scott: "Because Santa is watching his saturated fats."
Little Girl: "How come you don't have a beard?"
Scott: [exasperated] "Because I shaved!  You want this doll?  Go back to sleep."

On his way out, Scott grabs the cookies on the plate left out.
Little Girl: "You're supposed to drink the milk."
Scott: "Look, I'm lactose intolerant!  [getting right up in her face] And I am about this close to taking all of those presents back up the chimney!"
On his way back to the chimney, Scott whispers mockingly, "You're supposed to drink the milk."

Punch & Judy see Santa's underwear: Changing into pajamas at the North Pole, Scott starts taking off the Santa pants, and the Punch and Judy puppets nearby having a nonsensical conversation suddenly turn and scream, "AAAAH!" prompting Scott to immediately pull his pants back up and the puppets return to their conversation.  No word on how those puppets felt in the sequel when Santa brought back a Mrs. Claus.  I bet those perverts liked it.

Neil's sweaters: Following an argument in which Scott ridicules Neil, saying "The only thing you've got to worry about is where you're going to buy your sweaters when the circus pulls out of town," Neil breaks the awkward silence turning to his wife, telling her,
"You were right about the sweater thing."  Heaven knows what that's supposed to mean, and I have no justification for why I find it so funny.

THE WORST PARTS:
"Elves with attitude": "We're your worst nigthmare: elves with attitude," the snot-nosed little team leader of the E.L.F.S. (no justification for that acronym, but it's probably something like "Extremely Lame Fart Sniffers") tells to a police officer just before terrorizing him and breaking Santa out of hoosegow.  You can just tell by the way he delivers each of his lines that this kid was just the sh**iest kind of kid, and when his parents tried to ground him, he'd shout back, "You can't do this to me!  Do realize who I am?  I'm "E.L.F.S. Leader" from the holiday family favorite, THE SANTA CLAUSE!  You can't do this to me!"


Charlie:  Charlie just sucks.  Screw you, Charlie.

Fat British 'Q' Elf: Santa is supposed to be about Christmas magic, not Christmas gadgets.  It made

Gah, he's the worst.

a lot more sense in Rene Cardona's 1959 bad movie classic SANTA CLAUS (the one where he outwits Satan's demons to bring Christmas to the children of the world) when Santa's sidekick was Merlin (that Merlin), but here we're assaulted with the Christmas version of 007's tech guy.  He's the only elf in the entire North Pole with a British accent (or a non-American accent for that matter), and he's so self satisfied and probably sneaks cookies from Mrs. Claus' oven, because he's fat and stupid.