The Christmas Martian

If you're thinking this is Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, you're wrong. The Crest is running "Conquers" this year, but this 70s French Canadian disasterpiece is far, far, far worse!

Let's try for a synopsis: A very creepy alien (not actually from Mars, despite the title) with a fishnet over his face crashes his spaceship in Quebec. Two kids find him while they're out getting their Christmas Tree. They try to help him fix his ship. "Hilarity" ensues. And there's an overly-long and utterly stupid chase near the end. Want more details? OK, but there's not much here to work with synopsis-wise… Apparently the "martian" can disguise himself as a lama. He can fly like Mary Poppins with a magic wand. He steals junk food that he greedily pours down his throat with almost orgasmic abandon. He literally showers kids with space candy. This is worth repeating: he's SERIOUSLY creepy - as in "ordered by the court to not go near schools" kind of creepy. He learns how to speak French (dubbed into English) by drinking. And his name is Poo Flower! You're likely to spend most of the film begging the kids to just get away from this disturbing "martian." This extremely low-budget film is blurry and blown-out most of the time. There's lingering shots of the sun. There's nearly no plot. There is, however, multiple sleigh rides, hockey, skiing, snowmobiling and snowshoeing. And there's actually not a lot of references to Christmas except at the beginning and the end. Just like The Magic Christmas Tree, it's really, really bad. This was made for kids? Yep, it was. "The Christmas Martian has a bizarreness that makes for compulsive watching in an awful way. The nonsensical runnings around the town play like Keystone Kops capers filtered through an hallucinogenic haze." - The Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Review

"By any regular standards, this movie is atrocious; in fact, it's probably the worst Christmas movie I've seen... It's got no plot; it's just a set of comic setpieces, mostly with the alien (who looks for all the world like a homeless person in a bizarre mask) either flabbergasting adults or playing with children." - scififilm.org