Nightmare Fuel / The Santa Clause

• Despite the fact that it's a family movie, the entire premise of The Santa Clause is about an ordinary man who is forced to give up everything he's ever worked for just to become a childhood icon, though he fiercely objects. And he ends up changing both physically and mentally just to fill that role. Though it's somewhat made up by the third film revealing that there's an escape clause that he can use to go back to his old life if he really does not want to be Santa.
  • That being said, the Escape Clause itself is either a plot hole or a retcon when you consider that, in the first film, Scott had no interest in being Santa, yet everything about him changed, and not just his rapid-growing hair - his appetite increased, his personality changed, his entire belief structure at work turned upside-down, he even attains a level of clairvoyance (knowing who's naughty and nice no matter where they are, even if he's never met them)...for a contract with a way out, it sure does everything in its power to get you to stay.
    • And as evidenced by his ex-wife and her new husband's reactions, everyone watching this transformation happen from the outside looking in thought he was losing his grip on reality and somewhat understandably started avoiding him because of it. It very nearly destroyed his family life and landed him in prison. Kind of double-edged nightmare fuel both from his own perspective and that of the mother of his child, who has to share custody of her son with a guy who appears to be going insane.
  • What happens when Santa is no longer able to fulfill his function? As shown when the "original" Santa Claus slips and falls off the roof, the guy eerily disappears nearly without a trace (excluding clothes), and we are never given the slightest explanation of where they go, if they return to their life before they became Santa Claus, or anything. The death of Scott's immediate predecessor is not confirmed but is certainly implied. What makes it even more eerie is the elves and reindeer themselves show little to no concern for the person prior, making very little mention, and showing barely any reaction to the incident, acting as if it's simply a contract and nothing more. They don't show any sign of emoting from the time they've spent with the "original" Santa, or even acknowledge that he existed. One would wonder if this be the same reaction for Scott Calvin himself if he too ended falling off a roof or any other way Santa might be incapacitated. Even lampshaded when Scott asked the elves several times about it and they eerily ignore or sidestep the question. It also leaves to question how many more people have been forced to take up the role as Santa prior and just how many times has someone fallen off a roof or any similar incident, and has The Santa Clause dealt with this regularly.
• The entire Tyrant Takes the Helm portion in the second movie. So much here, let's take it point by point:
  • Toy Santa is dressed like a Nazi and announces out of left field that there will be no more toys made, stirring up a panic.
  • The giant toy soldiers: dense creatures much larger than all of the elves made of hard metal; nothing makes a dent in them. Plus, since they are essentially possessed toys they have dull lifeless eyes and what appear in context to be Slasher Smiles. As they come in Bernard tells the other elves to stay where they are and not be afraid—what adults tell children when they are in very real danger.
  • Toy Santa apparently built them on a whim and is gleeful that the giant toy soldiers are incapable of human emotion.
  • Then there's the fact that Bernard, the biggest and most experienced elf, reveals their boss has been replaced by an imposter and is then overpowered by the soldiers. To put it in perspective, imagine being a nerdy freshman seeing the varsity quarterback get beaten into submission by a team of impenetrable soulless vessels at the hands of a Nazi impersonating your beloved teacher. If that's what they can do to him imagine what they could do to you. And to make matters worse, toy Santa doesn't even treat this as a major event at all.
    • Consider, too, that Bernard's actor David Krumholtz is an Orthodox Jew, and that Toy Santa is dressed like Hitler, and the allusion is creepified up to eleven.
  • This is immediately followed by the fast-produced lumps of coal falling down the conveyor belt over the elves' hard work, just to show how thoroughly the toy Santa has taken over.
  • All of the above happens rapid-fire in a scene that lasts under 2 and a half minutes.
  • By the time Scott and Curtis get back to the North Pole it looks like all of the elves have been rounded up and locked away.
• In the third film, Jack Frost freezes Lucy's parents right in front of her!
  • Then he threatens to do the same to ''her''!

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