Director: Antti Haikala and Mark Mertens
Voice Cast: Kyle E. Christensen, Joe Cary, David Dreisen

All of my long time readers will know that around this year, I dig deep into the realm of unknown movies to dig out and review one that is Christmas-themed. By now I have seen a number of Christmas holiday movies to know what makes a bad Christmas movie and also what can make a Christmas movie a classic that will be appreciated in the years to come. So what does make a Christmas movie a classic? Well, one of the ingredients that seems to make a Christmas holiday classic is one of the colors associated with Christmas, and that is red. Not just any old shade of red, but the shade of what's running through your veins at this very moment. I am, of course, talking about blood and the various amounts of mayhem done to make it show. You have doubts? Well, let me give you a few examples. There was the 1984 slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night, which although deemed too special to last too long in theaters when first released, has become an iconic holiday movie because it offers a lot of mayhem from decapitations to impalements. For that matter, the sequel that came out three years later not only became a holiday classic, but a camp classic as well. Then there was Jack Frost, which took the idea of a killer snowman to bloody extremes while tickling our funny bone. Later, there was Santa's Slay, which was also an effective mix of bloody killings and dark comedy. On the other hand, there was also the Christmas slasher To All A Good Night, which was I admit very poorly done, which forces me to admit that just adding bloody mayhem to a movie doesn't guarantee that the end results will be worthwhile.

Of course, I was being kind of tongue in cheek when writing the first paragraph of this review. Though I did enjoy those four Christmas horror movies I mentioned, I know that most people associate and brand as possible classics Christmas movies that are aimed at all age groups and backgrounds. Looking at these classic family-friendly Christmas movies, there are certain attributes that are found in many (or all) of them. The first is with the depiction of the main protagonist. He or she usually starts off having a repressed and/or unsatisfied spirit, and the protagonist then has to get through a big problem or crisis, such as with George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, Ebenezer Scrooge in the many filmed versions of A Christmas Carol, or Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story. Usually the quest has many setbacks and additional problems along the way, and the pacing during this quest is more often than not at a low speed; you don't see many Christmas movies (classic or not) that are extremely fast paced. But despite the sedate yet complicated pacing for the main character, there is usually some low-key humor along the way to prevent things from becoming too bleak. And at some point, during the route to reaching the goal, the protagonist often finds some sort of heart or even magic along the way. Ralphie Parker got his Red Ryder BB out of the blue from his normally stern and cantankerous father, Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by various spirits who wanted him to realize he should change his ways, and George Bailey's prayers for help were eventually answered by an angel coming out of the heavens to give him the assistance he needed.

There is another common factor found in Christmas movies that are considered classics, that being that they all seem to be efforts from some time ago instead of coming out in this more modern age of ours. When a Christmas movie comes out nowadays, more often than not it seems to move at a hyperkinetic speed, has some toilet humor thrown in, and the characters are depicted as being so flawed that they don't come across as sympathetically imperfect people, instead coming across as brash and annoying. It's truly sad to think about, especially since it also seems to apply to television productions (Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, anyone?) But I should point out that these Christmas movies and television shows where I've noticed a decline in quality are almost all Hollywood productions. My exposure to foreign Christmas movies and television shows is very limited. When I came across a DVD copy of Santa's Magic Crystal in a dollar store, the biggest reason why I bought it was that it was not a Hollywood Christmas movie. Instead, it was because it was a co-production between Finland and Belgium; I had some hope that maybe Hollywood's crass Christmas influence might not be present, maybe even enough to make this an unknown holiday classic. The main protagonist in this Christmas family movie is a young boy named Yotan, an orphan who despite being overworked by his guardian, is a kind and well-behaved boy. Yotan is hopeful that his goodness will assure him a pleasant surprise from Santa this Christmas. However, Yotan doesn't know that there is a power-struggle concerning Santa brewing. Santa has in his possession a magic crystal that enables him to make multiple doubles of himself on Christmas Eve, which makes it possible for him to deliver presents to millions of children in just one night. But Santa has an evil twin brother named Basil who resents Santa's high position. Basil plans to rob Santa of his magic crystal, and then use it in order to get every child on Earth under his control and discipline. And Basil plans to use Yotan to make his plan successful!

As I think I have said before on this website, I would rather watch a poorly animated movie with a good script than a well animated movie that had a poor script. But yeah, sometimes the frosting on a Christmas cake can add some good and welcome flavor. It didn't take long for me into Santa's Magic Crystal to form most of the following opinions in my mind about its animation. To put it succinctly, it's not all that hot. No doubt due to the low budget, despite two countries collaborating, what's on display here is far from the quality Pixar and Disney films have spoiled us with. The characters show some poor design that makes them look awkward, from Basil's extremely thin arms to the abnormally sized ears of the talking squirrel that joins Yotan on his quest. Their unnatural design probably explains why the animators apparently couldn't make them move around in a natural manner or some other manner that would fit in the frequent chaos generated in the story; they are sometimes as graceful as a brick trying to be rolled on the ground. While care was taken to give these characters some details (they cast shadows, for example), they all the same look dull, lacking sharpness and more detail. Detail is also missing in other aspects of the animation. The backdrops behind the characters are often boring, being simply designed, such as just having one basic color to them. Another problem with the animation is that often even in scenes taking place outdoors, there is a very confined feeling to the environments. With the characters bunched together with not that much room to move about, there is no sweeping feeling, no feeling we are without bounds and can experience some of the magic that is supposedly going on either with the story or location.

I think that is a major reason why Santa's Magic Crystal fails, that it lacks a sense of magic, holiday-related or not. A clue as to why there is no magic, and possibly also explain many of the other problems in the movie, can be seen in the credits. There are not only two people credited with the movie's direction, but a whopping seven people are credited with writing the movie's script, with an additional person credited with the "concept". There's definitely a strong feeling that all this created talent did not fully agree on many details, or for that matter provide enough details with certain aspects. One example of the movie contradicting itself is when it's mentioned that only a child with a pure heart can touch the crystal, yet near the end of the movie we see someone very unlike that handling the crystal. Near the end of the movie, two character in peril both state that only one of them can be rescued, but then both of them immediately get rescued. The lack of information in the movie includes how Basil was able to build your standard Bond villain-like lair under the nose of Santa, and also that the movie neglects to tell us why the crystal is so important to Santa until there are only about five more minutes of the movie before the closing credits are put on display. For that matter, there are some script details that the late film critic Roger Ebert would have labelled as being signs of an "idiot plot", the most notable being that Yotan is given what looks like a magic shuriken that can essentially grant wishes. Why not wish for the crystal to be instantly saved? Or wish for more magic shurikens? Or wish for... you get the idea. The wretched writing of the script additionally drains any chance of magic by not really having anything that could be labelled "Christmas spirit". Jesus certainly is not mentioned, and nothing really of substance when it comes to expressing things like brotherhood, love, or helping your fellow man. It's almost all about trying to make sure Santa can do his job, and not that much else.

Yes, I realize that the creative "talent" behind Santa's Magic Crystal were aiming the movie at kids - and kids for the most part are more into Santa and toys than the savior of mankind or good deeds. So while I think they would enjoy the movie more than their parents, I don't think the gap between the generations would be all that significant. Besides what I have up to this point criticized, I think kids also won't be all that excited about the movie's characters. Yotan is a pretty boring character, with almost no effort to give him a past or personality. Santa comes across as a doofus with pretty much just his job in mind. The villain Basil isn't much better, revealing his motivations without really going into all that detail about them, and lacking any dimension that might make his character fun or interesting to watch. And Yotan's sidekick squirrel Jiffy is just plain obnoxious. Speaking of Jiffy, before the credits roll and confirm her name, various characters pronounce her name differently at times, such as "Dete" or "Jipe". And this is not the only character's name in the movie to be mangled by the English language dubbing players, who otherwise voice the characters with seemingly their teeth gritted, maybe because sometimes the background noise is so loud, we can't clearly hear what they are saying. During those ear-splitting moments, I couldn't help but be hammered home by Santa's Magic Crystal's lack of anything that might inch it even a little bit towards holiday classic status that movies like Miracle On 34th Street and A Christmas Story managed to do in the past. It's very telling that it was released directly to DVD, as other failed holiday movies such as Alone For Christmas and A Christmas Story 2 were.

(Posted November 24, 2025)