The Christmas Martian
"The Christmas Martian" is a 1971 French Canadian kid's movie that aired on CBC every Christmas in the 70s and 80s. It's delightfully creepy by today's standards, and dubbed into English, which is always a plus. It has no official DVD release, but you can find it on Youtube. It only clocks in at an hour, which would make it perfect to combine with some Christmas shorts for a live performance, or VOD release.
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error pokemongo commented
Just sufficiently bizarre. Oddly copyrighted by Xerox in the version I've seen. Martian name of Poo Flower translates from French.
I guess that is a Martian name - Crap Weed
Or Turd Tree.Weird, whited out and badly dubbed it should be a double feature.
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Anonymous commented
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Matthew commented
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE3DE9QYNxw. There are two versions, I think this one is best, having the most mental music and editing, I must say.
- The dialogue is dubbed into English in extremely awkward ways to match the French dialogue pace. The best moment is at about 36:54 in the youtube video, where the Martian (whose name translates to "Poo Flower" in English, after having the kids speak into a universal translator of sorts) is talking to Frankie into the camera... and it's just... indescribable.
- The editing is exquisitely bad. A shot of the cop car leaving Frankie's uncle's shop is used multiple times. Conversations are cut off and cut to another scene entirely. But it's not so terrible that it loses you. It's that perfect balance of valiant effort and awkward failure.
- The special effects are lovably bad. The big unexplained matchstick which allows the holder of it to fly with a big light to obscure the crane and rope. The rope/antenna on the spaceship that keeps getting longer. The Martian's green spray paint jump-cut footsteps in the snow. The self-propelled-stomach-skating at the hockey game.
- The writing and acting and everything like the costume of the Martian, the villagers and cops, it all adds up to a really nicely strange vibe that's somehow endearing, but entirely mental. The sheriff guy breaks the fourth wall during a bad joke. The kids somehow steal the Christmas turkey and take it to the spaceship. They somehow steal a snowmobile and large snow plow tractor which underage Frankie then operates. So much great stuff.I saw this for the first time in England and it changed my life. I watch it every year. This would be perfect for riffing! I really hope you guys consider this!
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Flopsy T. Hamster commented
It's is a short movie, but that would make it easier to combine with some Christmas shorts. I love the Christmas VODs where Mike, Kevin and Bill appear on camera.
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Manzele commented
Wow, Looks promising. Could it become my replacement for Santa Conquers the Martians??
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Flopsy T. Hamster commented
Here's the link to it on YouTube.