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RiffTrax Live: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Rifftrax // Unrated // December 15, 2015
List Price: $12.95 [Buy now and save at Rifftrax]
The Movie:
The Rifftrax group has been poking fun at bad movies for a while now, and for the past several years they've presented live events, broadcasting real-time riffing to theaters across the country in association with Fathom Events. This holiday season they've released two of their previous live shows on DVD, and they're both worth picking up: the Mexican movie Santa Claus, and this film, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
For those not in the know, the Rifftrax crew is a trio of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni: Michael J. Nelson (head writer and host), Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot). They joined together to create a great series of downloadable audio tracks that could be played along with a film on DVD and featured the crew's signature barbed jokes and obscure pop references. Every one that I've heard is very funny and harkens back to the best days of MST3K.
Before the feature they presented a wonderfully wacky short, Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen. This low-budget American-made film seemed to make up Santa lore as it went. It was presented by Snoopy, no, not Charlie Brown's dog, but one of Santa's helpers... not an elf, but a Brownie. While Santa was sleeping one Christmas Eve, the Fairy Snow Queen enters his workshop and brings all of the toys to life. They march around and act as obnoxious as they can, but when Santa wakes up the fairy can't turn them back into inanimate objects.
This was a great short to start things off with and the riffing made it hilarious. Snoopy was peppy, androgynous and seemed to be channeling Mr. B Natural and they had a lot of fun cracking jokes at her expense. The Fairy Snow Queen was accurately described as "a 3rd string ballerina on pain killers" as she tried to dance around the set. The guys had a lot of fun pointing out how silly the whole thing was and the short really set the tone for the feature.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far more stoned." Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a wacky, silly film, and it perfectly lends itself to the Rifftrax style of humor. The plot is simple; a group of Martians kidnap Santa Claus along with two young children and bring them back to their home planet. There, Santa shows the dour Martians how to have fun. The jokes are generally solid, though there were a few more duds than usual. Still, the standout lines were well worth waiting for. When the children are served their Martian dinner, small tablets, Mike chimes "pills for dinner? Courtney Love would just love that!" I also laughed at their description of retrorockets; "[they] talk about how everything sounded better on vinyl." And my favorite gag of the evening was when the children attacked some renegade Martians: "Have a holly, jolly ass whoopin'."
Audio:
The stereo audio track is fine. The levels are mixed well so you can hear the riffers as well as the movie and neither one overwhelms the other.
Video:
The image quality is fine. While the film itself shows some wear, the shots of the riffers and the audience are clean and clear. Overall the picture looks good - no complaints.
Extras:
They also include the slides that were shown before the movie during the live event. These include"Rejected Stocking Stuffers," fake movie quotes, and made-up trivia. These weren't as good as the ones presented at other live shows, but I'm glad they were included.
Final Thoughts:
While this wasn't the very best Rifftrax has done, there are definitely enough laughs to warrant a purchase even if you've seen the MST3K version of this film. The jokes are all new and there are more hits than misses. A high Recommendation.
The Rifftrax group has been poking fun at bad movies for a while now, and for the past several years they've presented live events, broadcasting real-time riffing to theaters across the country in association with Fathom Events. This holiday season they've released two of their previous live shows on DVD, and they're both worth picking up: the Mexican movie Santa Claus, and this film, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
For those not in the know, the Rifftrax crew is a trio of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni: Michael J. Nelson (head writer and host), Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot). They joined together to create a great series of downloadable audio tracks that could be played along with a film on DVD and featured the crew's signature barbed jokes and obscure pop references. Every one that I've heard is very funny and harkens back to the best days of MST3K.
Before the feature they presented a wonderfully wacky short, Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen. This low-budget American-made film seemed to make up Santa lore as it went. It was presented by Snoopy, no, not Charlie Brown's dog, but one of Santa's helpers... not an elf, but a Brownie. While Santa was sleeping one Christmas Eve, the Fairy Snow Queen enters his workshop and brings all of the toys to life. They march around and act as obnoxious as they can, but when Santa wakes up the fairy can't turn them back into inanimate objects.
This was a great short to start things off with and the riffing made it hilarious. Snoopy was peppy, androgynous and seemed to be channeling Mr. B Natural and they had a lot of fun cracking jokes at her expense. The Fairy Snow Queen was accurately described as "a 3rd string ballerina on pain killers" as she tried to dance around the set. The guys had a lot of fun pointing out how silly the whole thing was and the short really set the tone for the feature.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far more stoned." Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a wacky, silly film, and it perfectly lends itself to the Rifftrax style of humor. The plot is simple; a group of Martians kidnap Santa Claus along with two young children and bring them back to their home planet. There, Santa shows the dour Martians how to have fun. The jokes are generally solid, though there were a few more duds than usual. Still, the standout lines were well worth waiting for. When the children are served their Martian dinner, small tablets, Mike chimes "pills for dinner? Courtney Love would just love that!" I also laughed at their description of retrorockets; "[they] talk about how everything sounded better on vinyl." And my favorite gag of the evening was when the children attacked some renegade Martians: "Have a holly, jolly ass whoopin'."
The DVD:
Audio:
The stereo audio track is fine. The levels are mixed well so you can hear the riffers as well as the movie and neither one overwhelms the other.
Video:
The image quality is fine. While the film itself shows some wear, the shots of the riffers and the audience are clean and clear. Overall the picture looks good - no complaints.
Extras:
They also include the slides that were shown before the movie during the live event. These include"Rejected Stocking Stuffers," fake movie quotes, and made-up trivia. These weren't as good as the ones presented at other live shows, but I'm glad they were included.
While this wasn't the very best Rifftrax has done, there are definitely enough laughs to warrant a purchase even if you've seen the MST3K version of this film. The jokes are all new and there are more hits than misses. A high Recommendation.
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