A surreal Santa Claus from outer space fights the forces of Satan on Christmas Eve in this camp classic from Mexico. It’s meant to warm your heart, but it mostly makes you scratch your head. It’s not well-made—director Rene Cardona was a B-movie journeyman of the Mexican film industry and turned out multiple full-length films a year—but it’s bizarre and imaginative enough to be a low budget companion to other colorful children’s film oddballs such as The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. No cinematic vision of Santa Claus has ever been more weird. Here, Santa lives in a castle on a cloud in the middle of 
the cosmos, employs a nearly senile Merlin the Magician to make magic dust and potions, has a telescope with a live eyeball instead of a lens, and is surrounded by a crew of seemingly parentless children from all over planet Earth who work as his constantly singing helpers. Favorite surreal image: a man calls the police to report a fire which causes flames to ignite from the mouthpiece of the police station telephone.