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REVIEW:
It seems like The Black Saint has seen about 50 movies this week alone. I haven’t of course but it’s only Tuesday but who knows what my final tally for the week will be? I’ll tell you this though, the best movie I’ve seen this month and one of my favorites for the year is “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale”. A really strange & completely bizarre movie from Finland that takes the Santa Claus mythos & turns it on it’s ear in a really unexpected but wonderfully twisted way.
The film opens in Finland with an excavation crew looking for something buried deep inside Mount Korvatunturri. One of the workers discovers, strangely enough. some sawdust. When he reports & shows his find to his superior he immediately tells his employee that sawdust was used to keep frozen things insulated hundreds of years ago & that they are close to what he is looking for. He immediately produces some new cards for distribution to all of the other workers & instructs them to follow them to the tee. Among the new rules on the cards: No smoking, no cursing, no fighting, etc..etc. Of course, the employee curses & lights up a cigarette in response. The cigarette is promptly pulled out of his mouth & he is warned to watch his language. Seriously. The boss then instructs all of the workers to keep digging into the mountain proclaiming: “We have a grave to rob”!
Cut to a young boy named Pietari & his father Rauno who live not too far from the foot of the mountain. Pietari & his friend Juuso have cut a hole in the fence surrounding the excavation site & overheard the workers grumbling about what they’re looking for & the new rules. He doesn’t want to tell his father because he believes in Santa Claus & doesn’t want to be labeled as a bad boy. He has a book chronicling the REAL Santa Claus & is scared because according to this book when Santa is upset with you he doesn’t just leave coal in your stocking. He tortures you mercilessly & then kills you in most unpleasant ways. This really scares young Pietari so he makes sure his house is well lit & he is prepared for Santa’s imminent arrival so he can defend himself against him because he’s cut a hole into the fence & he thinks Santa will look at him as a bad child.
Meanwhile Pietari’s father & his friends notice some very strange things happening around town as the days get closer to Christmas. The movie begins on the first day of December & continues to Christmas day. Young Pietari has one of those 25 days of Christmas calendars on his wall. The kind that has little windows representing each day of the month until Christmas day. Pietari is so afraid of the day arriving that he tapes & then staples the little window representing the 25th shut. He’s afraid of Santa, really afraid. Meanwhile, someone has killed off all of the Reindeer that were in the pen outside of his home save for two of them that got away & when the men of the town (actually only 4 of them) go to the excavation site to investigate & hopefully find out what happened to their Reindeer they find the site devoid of life & a very large hole in the mountain. It’s obvious that something was dug up from very deep inside the mountain. Something evil..something like….SANTA CLAUS!
“Rare Exports” is a very rare type of film indeed. It combines elements of “John Carpenter’s The Thing” & “Night Of The Living Dead” & any number of legitimate Christmas movies & weaves them into a funny & scary little parable about what the holiday means to children. It’s even a sort of coming of age story as well because our hero, young Pietari begins the film as a very innocent little waif who carries around his teddy bear & ends the film as the one person who figures out what is going on & also devises a way to stop Santa & his army of (very strange) Elves from wreaking havoc worldwide.
http://horrornews.net/22599/film-review-rare-exports-a-christmas-tale-2010/
It seems like The Black Saint has seen about 50 movies this week alone. I haven’t of course but it’s only Tuesday but who knows what my final tally for the week will be? I’ll tell you this though, the best movie I’ve seen this month and one of my favorites for the year is “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale”. A really strange & completely bizarre movie from Finland that takes the Santa Claus mythos & turns it on it’s ear in a really unexpected but wonderfully twisted way.
The film opens in Finland with an excavation crew looking for something buried deep inside Mount Korvatunturri. One of the workers discovers, strangely enough. some sawdust. When he reports & shows his find to his superior he immediately tells his employee that sawdust was used to keep frozen things insulated hundreds of years ago & that they are close to what he is looking for. He immediately produces some new cards for distribution to all of the other workers & instructs them to follow them to the tee. Among the new rules on the cards: No smoking, no cursing, no fighting, etc..etc. Of course, the employee curses & lights up a cigarette in response. The cigarette is promptly pulled out of his mouth & he is warned to watch his language. Seriously. The boss then instructs all of the workers to keep digging into the mountain proclaiming: “We have a grave to rob”!
Cut to a young boy named Pietari & his father Rauno who live not too far from the foot of the mountain. Pietari & his friend Juuso have cut a hole in the fence surrounding the excavation site & overheard the workers grumbling about what they’re looking for & the new rules. He doesn’t want to tell his father because he believes in Santa Claus & doesn’t want to be labeled as a bad boy. He has a book chronicling the REAL Santa Claus & is scared because according to this book when Santa is upset with you he doesn’t just leave coal in your stocking. He tortures you mercilessly & then kills you in most unpleasant ways. This really scares young Pietari so he makes sure his house is well lit & he is prepared for Santa’s imminent arrival so he can defend himself against him because he’s cut a hole into the fence & he thinks Santa will look at him as a bad child.
Meanwhile Pietari’s father & his friends notice some very strange things happening around town as the days get closer to Christmas. The movie begins on the first day of December & continues to Christmas day. Young Pietari has one of those 25 days of Christmas calendars on his wall. The kind that has little windows representing each day of the month until Christmas day. Pietari is so afraid of the day arriving that he tapes & then staples the little window representing the 25th shut. He’s afraid of Santa, really afraid. Meanwhile, someone has killed off all of the Reindeer that were in the pen outside of his home save for two of them that got away & when the men of the town (actually only 4 of them) go to the excavation site to investigate & hopefully find out what happened to their Reindeer they find the site devoid of life & a very large hole in the mountain. It’s obvious that something was dug up from very deep inside the mountain. Something evil..something like….SANTA CLAUS!
“Rare Exports” is a very rare type of film indeed. It combines elements of “John Carpenter’s The Thing” & “Night Of The Living Dead” & any number of legitimate Christmas movies & weaves them into a funny & scary little parable about what the holiday means to children. It’s even a sort of coming of age story as well because our hero, young Pietari begins the film as a very innocent little waif who carries around his teddy bear & ends the film as the one person who figures out what is going on & also devises a way to stop Santa & his army of (very strange) Elves from wreaking havoc worldwide.
http://horrornews.net/22599/film-review-rare-exports-a-christmas-tale-2010/
All those naked old elves in the snow really bring a whole new meaning to the term "shrinkage". Poor guys!
Bestest Christmas movie evah!
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