Santa Claws Review: Christmas in July Blogathon 2017

Closing out the Christmas in July Blogathon today is Keith from Keith Loves Movies. Keith covers all kinds of movies, television shows, and trailers on his website. If you like any of that stuff, then you’ll like Keith. Go give his site a look if you don’t already follow him. Not all movies can be great and today, Keith brings with him a review of one such film: Santa Claws.  Let’s see how he really feels about this film.

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As long as there have been movies, there have been Christmas movies and as long as there have been Christmas movies, there have been people trying to save Christmas in them. From the title, you can probably tell that it’s some sort of animal movie and indeed it is with a trio of kittens named Patches (Jordan Bielsky), Mittens (Lauren Elizabeth Hood), and Hairball (Quinn Ljoka) being the heroes in question. While kittens haven’t saved Christmas before (as far as I can remember), it goes about as well as one would expect.

There’s no real point in explaining the plot in too much detail as it is full of clichés and logic gaps to the point of no longer caring. Tommy (Ezra James Colbert) wants to celebrate Christmas but is at odds with his mother Julia (Nicola Lambo) who believed that Santa wasn’t real. Tommy and Julia had a creepy, Christmas obsessed neighbor named Marcus (Evan Boymel). Santa Claus (John P. Fowler), who is allergic to cats and countless other things for whatever reason, gets incapacitated somehow leaving it up to Tommy and Julia’s kittens to save Christmas.

Now talking animal movies can go either way with most going in the wrong direction. This one was no different. Produced by the same low-budget studio behind the Sharknado series (The Asylum), this movie’s low budget shows. What sets this film apart from the Sharknado series is that at least it was aware of what it was. It felt like this one was still trying to be serious despite everything wrong going on. However, it still may work for some people but others will probably react differently.

While a talking kitten movie was never meant to be taken seriously, the inferior production values eventually became distracting. The special effects were spotty at best and every aspect of the voice acting was terrible, from the facial animations on the cats, to the horrible voice acting, and the incredibly cheesy dialogue. The terrible acting continued with the humans but just like with the voice acting, the horrible script played a part in both and produced many cringe-worthy moments. The characters were unlikable and over the top with Colbert as Tommy perhaps faring slightly better than the adult characters.

Overall, while hardcore Christmas movie fans may find some entertainment out of this, the terrible acting and production values don’t quite make it good enough to be part of the “so bad it’s good” category.

Score: 2.5/10

For more, please visit keithlovesmovies.com

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Not all movies can be winners, I guess. For Keith’s party guest, he is inviting comedian and all around great guy Tom Hanks.

Every party needs some lively entertainment. Great choice, Keith!

Tomorrow, Kelechi from Confessions From a Geek Mind starts the day with her review on another unorthodox Christmas film. You won’t want to miss it!

Until next time, cheers!