Santa With Muscles (1996)

The Wolf of Wall Street — in real life — was Jordan Belfort. Other than spending time in jail for fraud and related crimes in connection with stock-market manipulation and running a boiler room as part of a penny-stock scam, he also executive produced this Hulk Hogan vehicle.

Oh Hulk Hogan — the man who to this today claims that he was asked to take over for Cliff Burton in Metallica, who says that Elvis used to watch him wrestle in Memphis even though Hogan didn’t wrestle there until 1979 and Elvis died in 1977. Then there’s the time the makers of a grill called him first, he didn’t get the phone in time and they called George Foreman next. Then there’s the time he outdrank John Belushi after WrestleMania II, which took place in 1986. Nevermind that Belushi died in 1982.

Actually, there’s no one better to play Santa Claus, who is based on telling lies to children.

Blake Thorn (Hogan) is a millionaire who sells vitamins but doesn’t ask anyone to say their prayers. Really, he’s not a nice guy and the cops bust him one day as he’s playing paintball. This is perfectly normal, as is the amnesia he gets at the mall, which leads him to believe that he’s Santa.

Don Stark, who was Bubba Caldwell in Evilspeak, plays a mall manager who gets Blake into the costume. He’d also go on to play Bob Pinciotti on That 70’s Show alongside Mila Kunis, who is also in this movie. When she was asked about this movie by GQ, she said, ” “I was too young to fully understand the importance of working with Hulk Hogan. I just thought he was this huge man.” She had some rough early films, such as American Psycho 2 with William Shatner and the 1995 Piranha TV movie remake.

There’s also an evil scientist named Ebner Frost (Ed Begley, Jr.) who is taking over an orphanage run by Garrett Morris because he wants some magic crystals. He has an entire army of maniacs to help him — Dr. Blight, Dr. Vial, Mr. Flint and Ms. Watt (Diane Robin, who is one of the prostitutes that Clarence Boddicker snarls “Bitches, leave!” to in RoboCop).

Robin Curtis, who was Lt. Savvik in the Star Trek films, is in this. And speaking of Evilspeak, Clint Howard shows up. So does William Newman (Silver Bullet and The Craft), Brenda Song (from that Netflix stinkfest Secret Obsession) and Brutus “The Barber” (also known as Baron Beefcake, The Booty Man, Big Brother Booty, Brother Bruti, Brute Force, The Butcher, The Clipmaster, Dizzy Hogan, Dizzy Golden, The Disciple, Ed Boulder, Ed Golden, Eddie Hogan, The Mariner, The Man With No Name, The Man With No Name, Furface and The Zodiac).

Director John Murlowski also was behind Amityville: A New Generation (2020 spoiler: we’re doing an entire week of Amityville movies). It was written by three one and done writers, Jonathan Bond, Fred Mata and Dorrie Krum Raymond. However, Mata was a casting director and cast the Andrew “Dice” Clay movie Brain Smasher… A Love Story. Seriously, knowledge like that will get you nowhere in this life.

If you ever wanted to see Hulk Hogan as Santa Claus, well, here’s your chance, brother. You can watch this for free on Vudu or get the blu ray from Mill Creek Entertainment.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.