René Cardona's Santa Claus is very reminiscent of the era of movies that were made very cheaply and quickly in the 50s and 60s, with some well-known names like Roger Corman, representing the B-movie industry and the cheap film market with a target audience of lower and lower-middle classes, where they wanted to use cinema as a cheap escape from reality.

The peculiarity of this film is that it is a festive film, from an important time for Mexican society, Christmas. Normally B-movies are based on genres like horror and action, but this one has Christmas as its setting despite its story being the classic duel and confrontation of good versus evil. The film did not have a long-form distribution in North America and only decades later it became popular thanks to the internet and the talk it has had among lovers of bad films.

Speaking of the story, [spoiler] Santa lives in space and with the help of children from all over the world he prepares Christmas but is confronted by Price (even though he is The Devil in the credits) sent by the devil. Price wants to ruin Santa Claus and his children. Santa confronts Price to save Christmas and succeeds in defeating him. [/spoiler] It is a simple story but in the portrayal of the actors and the message that is conveyed on the screen, it is sometimes complicated and very confusing to understand the continuity of the story.

For the budget of the film, there are some pretty impressive sets and props but, in the whole, it is strange from beginning to end and ends up generating more nightmares than Christmas joy for children who see this film on Christmas morning. The actors also play their role according to the theme and the absurdity of the film and the story.

I actually don't hate this film. It is too strange, incoherent, structurally unbalanced and simplistic. Anyway, it is obvious that this movie is clearly aimed at children, not adults. But it is a tough and scary movie that any viewer over the age of six cannot stand.