For those readers wondering what the heck’s been going on with this week’s bloggy thing, I’m going all in on “naughty” this holiday season by writing about Christmas-themed horror movies. Starting on Monday, I’ve reviewed Slay Belles, Mrs. Claus, Christmas Blood and Two Front Teeth. It’s the most wonderful time of the year...if you like Krampus, serial killers, serial killers dressed like Santa Claus and vampiric elves.
For today’s cinematic Christmas cookie, we head to Finland and Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. The 2010 fantasy horror movie followed two earlier short films about a company that ships a very unusual product around the world. This full-length movie is the Rare Exports origin story.
Directed and written by Jalmari Helander, the film is rated “R” for some nudity and language. The version I watched had subtitles, so a viewer has to be able to read to see any bad language. As for the nudity, that’s something you’ll find out about in the “spoilers” section. Here’s the Internet Movie Database summary:
In the depths of the Korvatunturi mountains, 486 meters deep, lies the closest ever guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up. This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
A British research team is drilling deep into a mountain. They’re looking for the ancient figure that shaped modern versions of Santa Claus. This is not a jolly kind of Santa. It’s a Santa that would punish naughty children by torturing and killing them. The stuffy executive in charge of the team actually hands out safety rules to the drillers that include no profanity or smoking or drinking and so on. They scoff until someone uses salty language.
Two boys have cut through a fence to watch the proceedings. This is naughty. Even more so when, because of the opening in the fence, a pack of wolves slaughter the nearly 500 reindeer that their village had been counting on to get through the winter. The younger of the two boys has been researching the ancient Santa and is alarmed that he and his friends will be punished by him. What of the more surprising elements of this movie for me was how little gore there is. You see the dead reindeer, but it’s not until late in the movie that we get an actual onscreen death.
By this time, things have gotten scary. Our young hero’s father has discovered what he thinks is a dead man who looks like Santa in a wolf trap. But the creature isn’t dead and he’s not Santa. He’s an elf who looks like the traditional Santa, one of dozens and maybe even hundreds of similar creatures who have been unleashed on the desolate setting of the movie.
Except for our young hero Pietari, all of the other children have been taken and trussed up in sacks. The Santa elves have made off with every radiator in the village. They’re using the radiators to thaw out their kaiju-size boss man. The kidnapped kids are there because it’s been eons since “Santa” has eaten.
Pietari, his father and two other men from the village are all that stand between Santa’s murderous elves and mankind. Wonderfully, it is the timid Pietari who overcomes his fear and devises a plan to save the captive children and end this menace. He’s even willing to sacrifice himself to accomplish this. That’s one tough little guy.
Using the trussed-up kids and a helicopter, Pietari and one of the villagers lure the Santa elves into an electrified enclosure. Back at the village, Pietari’s dad and his friend blow the frozen Giant Santa to pieces. This stops the Santa elves just as they are about to slaughter Pietari. With their boss dead, they don’t know what to do. They just stand around in the enclosure.
Pietari’s dad and his friends go into the export business to make up for their losses from the reindeer. They hose down and clean up the Santa elves. They teach them how to be proper Santas. Then they ship them all over the world.
Warning. The nudity comes during the hosing down scene and several Santa-penises are shown. This might have been the inspiration for the Bat-penis (aka Batawang) in the flaccid Batman: Damned comics published by DC Comics under their Black Label imprint. I just made that up now, but feel to spread it online. Some comics demand to be ridiculed as often as possible.
For me, the only disappointing element in the film is that we never got to see a kaiju-sized Santa Claus or any subsequent kaiju-style rampaging. Hmm...maybe it’s time for a new take on Miracle on 34th Street.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
I enjoyed Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Without being obvious about its humorous aspects, it is a funny film. I loved how Pietari [Onni Tommila] finds his inner hero and the relationship between him and his father [Jorma Tommila]. The film builds suspense and then explodes into the scary stuff and the action stuff. It has a satisfying conclusion.
Rare Exports runs 84 minutes. The Norwegian backgrounds are quite spectacular and the movie has developed a cult following. It scored 84% on the Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” with an audience approval percentage of 71%. IMDb users gave it a 6.7 rating.
My final comment? This is a movie worth watching and one that you can probably enjoy every couple years or so.
I’ll be back tomorrow with another holiday horror movie. We’ve got three more days to go before Christmas and I’ll have a fearful film for each of those days. You’d best believe that murderous creatures are, indeed, stirring.
© 2018 Tony Isabella
For today’s cinematic Christmas cookie, we head to Finland and Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. The 2010 fantasy horror movie followed two earlier short films about a company that ships a very unusual product around the world. This full-length movie is the Rare Exports origin story.
Directed and written by Jalmari Helander, the film is rated “R” for some nudity and language. The version I watched had subtitles, so a viewer has to be able to read to see any bad language. As for the nudity, that’s something you’ll find out about in the “spoilers” section. Here’s the Internet Movie Database summary:
In the depths of the Korvatunturi mountains, 486 meters deep, lies the closest ever guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up. This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
A British research team is drilling deep into a mountain. They’re looking for the ancient figure that shaped modern versions of Santa Claus. This is not a jolly kind of Santa. It’s a Santa that would punish naughty children by torturing and killing them. The stuffy executive in charge of the team actually hands out safety rules to the drillers that include no profanity or smoking or drinking and so on. They scoff until someone uses salty language.
Two boys have cut through a fence to watch the proceedings. This is naughty. Even more so when, because of the opening in the fence, a pack of wolves slaughter the nearly 500 reindeer that their village had been counting on to get through the winter. The younger of the two boys has been researching the ancient Santa and is alarmed that he and his friends will be punished by him. What of the more surprising elements of this movie for me was how little gore there is. You see the dead reindeer, but it’s not until late in the movie that we get an actual onscreen death.
By this time, things have gotten scary. Our young hero’s father has discovered what he thinks is a dead man who looks like Santa in a wolf trap. But the creature isn’t dead and he’s not Santa. He’s an elf who looks like the traditional Santa, one of dozens and maybe even hundreds of similar creatures who have been unleashed on the desolate setting of the movie.
Except for our young hero Pietari, all of the other children have been taken and trussed up in sacks. The Santa elves have made off with every radiator in the village. They’re using the radiators to thaw out their kaiju-size boss man. The kidnapped kids are there because it’s been eons since “Santa” has eaten.
Pietari, his father and two other men from the village are all that stand between Santa’s murderous elves and mankind. Wonderfully, it is the timid Pietari who overcomes his fear and devises a plan to save the captive children and end this menace. He’s even willing to sacrifice himself to accomplish this. That’s one tough little guy.
Using the trussed-up kids and a helicopter, Pietari and one of the villagers lure the Santa elves into an electrified enclosure. Back at the village, Pietari’s dad and his friend blow the frozen Giant Santa to pieces. This stops the Santa elves just as they are about to slaughter Pietari. With their boss dead, they don’t know what to do. They just stand around in the enclosure.
Pietari’s dad and his friends go into the export business to make up for their losses from the reindeer. They hose down and clean up the Santa elves. They teach them how to be proper Santas. Then they ship them all over the world.
Warning. The nudity comes during the hosing down scene and several Santa-penises are shown. This might have been the inspiration for the Bat-penis (aka Batawang) in the flaccid Batman: Damned comics published by DC Comics under their Black Label imprint. I just made that up now, but feel to spread it online. Some comics demand to be ridiculed as often as possible.
For me, the only disappointing element in the film is that we never got to see a kaiju-sized Santa Claus or any subsequent kaiju-style rampaging. Hmm...maybe it’s time for a new take on Miracle on 34th Street.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
I enjoyed Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Without being obvious about its humorous aspects, it is a funny film. I loved how Pietari [Onni Tommila] finds his inner hero and the relationship between him and his father [Jorma Tommila]. The film builds suspense and then explodes into the scary stuff and the action stuff. It has a satisfying conclusion.
Rare Exports runs 84 minutes. The Norwegian backgrounds are quite spectacular and the movie has developed a cult following. It scored 84% on the Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” with an audience approval percentage of 71%. IMDb users gave it a 6.7 rating.
My final comment? This is a movie worth watching and one that you can probably enjoy every couple years or so.
I’ll be back tomorrow with another holiday horror movie. We’ve got three more days to go before Christmas and I’ll have a fearful film for each of those days. You’d best believe that murderous creatures are, indeed, stirring.
© 2018 Tony Isabella
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