Alien invaders kidnap everyone's favorite right jolly old elf in this low-budget mixture of children's comedy and sci-fi adventure. Christmas is not far away, and countless children are glued to their family's TV sets, watching reports about Santa Claus (John Call). However, this is happening on Mars, and leaders of the Red Planet aren't sure what to do for their kids who are pining away for a visit from the gift-bearing earthling. Martian leader Kimar (Leonard Hicks) dispatches two of his emissaries, the chronically grumpy Voldar (Vincent Beck) and the moronically cheerful Dropo (Bill McCutcheon), to Earth to bring Santa back for a visit. After arriving on Earth, Voldar and Dropo abduct two children, Betty (Donna Conforti) and Billy (Victor Stiles), and order the kids to show them the way to Santa's workshop, from which all three are taken to Mars against their will. As Santa, Betty, and Billy try to find a way back to Earth, Voldar becomes enraged with the Earth kids, while the children bond more comfortably with the intellectually-challenged Dropo. Shot on a shoestring budget on Long Island, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has developed a rabid cult following over the years, and yes, it's true, Kimar's daughter Girmar really is played by a ten-year-old Pia Zadora. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Actors

Pia Zadora - Girmar

Editorial Review of DVD

This is a lot of sci-fi to bite off in one gulp (and not all of it is actually sci-fi), but the prospect of 50 movies in one budget-priced 12-CD package that's smaller than a cigar box isn't easy to pass up. Needless to say, quality control is not a long-suit with a package like this -- the 12 discs were all present, but there were additional copies of two of the discs (which leads one to suspect that somewhere out there is a copy missing those two discs) Also, some of the annotation on the thin individual sleeves is comically wrong, most notably the 1961 horror-sci-fi chiller The Atomic Brain being listed with Bradford Dillman as its star -- in point of fact, one of its producers was Dean Dillman. That said, the presentations of the movies are not bad or, at least, not terrible; they're about on par with what Alpha Video delivers at five- to eight-dollars a title. The prints are intact and clean, the '60s vintage color movies are washed out to varying degrees (Hercules and the Captive Women, which is actually sort of Greco-Roman sci-fi, is not much more pale than it looked on local TV in 1964 or on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in the '90s; Battle of the Worlds looks bleached quite a bit and tinted toward green in some shots but just fine in other places). The framing is off on some of the older films such as Unknown World, that were certainly shot 1.33:1, indicating that at some point in mastering their images were blown up slightly -- the latter is also one of the relative handful of films here in which the sound is a bit muddy and the image whited out, as though too much light was being pumped through it; and even on recent movies such as The Astral Factor (sort of Scanners meets Manhunter done way too early), with Robert Foxworth and Stefanie Powers, has minor blemishes in its source print. Some of the movies are just bad, such as Galaxy Invader, and others have a camp value that makes them enjoyable on that level, and several few are interesting and entertaining; others, such as Planet Outlaws, are recut episodes of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Each disc opens with the same simple menu offering the films and a chapter selection for each (and every movie gets four chapters). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide