"Santa's buried here" are not the words one expects to hear in a holiday-themed release, but, then, the dismembered reindeer and sacks full of kidnapped children are something of a surprise as well. This is not to suggest that Jalmari Helandar's film is some crass attempt at seasonal counter-programming -- the humor is too lightly played and the sincerity of its fantastical scenario too deftly deployed for that to be the case. Yes, Rare Exports is a Christmas-time horror film, but that's not to say it doesn't have just as many holiday morals to teach as any of those puppet shows that get rebroadcast near the end of the year.
Director Helander's script is set in a particularly remote stretch of Finland's Lapland region, right on the Russian border. In this snowy land of mountains, pine forests, and long dark snowy evenings, the winters are hard, the men are men, the boys are expected to be men (even the youngest of them ride snowmobiles with rifles slung across their backs), and the women ... well, there just don't seem to be any of them around. It's not the easiest place for a kid like Pietari (Onni Tommila) to grow up, with his dreamy attitude and inability to connect with his sandpaper-mannered father, Rauno (Jorma Tommila), the operator of a reindeer slaughterhouse who's fallen on hard times.
High above Pietari's isolated house on the top of a mountain, a sketchy-seeming fellow from some multinational corporation with a limited sense of social responsibility is directing a huge dig in horrible weather because he's convinced of one thing: the mountain they're blasting into is actually a tomb for the real Santa Claus. Helander structures it in classically Spielbergian fashion; no matter the light scrim of satire hanging over the whole endeavor, these scenes with all their swooping crane shots and gleaming equipment highlighted against the swirling snow still easily impart that pulse-quickening sense of discovery and the dark unknown that's essential for any story like this.
As can be imagined, the diggers do find Santa Claus, but it's not what they expect. A forewarning of what's in store is contained in the very instructions left for the digging crew, with very harsh strictures against cursing, smoking, or any other potentially naughty behavior. The results are soon felt down below, where Rauno and the rest of the community find an entire herd of reindeer, which was to be a hugely lucrative haul for them, pointlessly slaughtered in the snow. Pietari -- who, unbeknownst to Rauno, had snuck a peek at the mountaintop dig with his much-naughtier best friend -- starts to get an idea of what's going on. Fortunately having a stock of dusty old tomes on hand (where would horror films of this sort be without them?), Pietari does some research on the origins of the Santa Claus legend and sees illustrations of a horned, devil-like creature who doesn't spend too much time on toy-delivery duty: "The real Santa Claus spanks naughty kids to pieces!"
Once it becomes clear what the corporation has unleashed from the bowels of the mountain, Rauno and his Finnish-style redneck buddies have to do battle in the freezing night with the unholy creature, initially spurning any help from the pipsqueak-sized Pietari. While Helander's adventure has an infectiously energetic originality, its influences range all the way from classic boys' literature (where the weakling kid turns out to be the savior of his family and community) to Larry Fessenden's eco-horror fables like The Last Winter and in particular the more comic episodes of The X-Files. The slightly strung-out coda might be more perplexing than conclusive, but the film as a whole is wicked fun in the manner of a 21st century Grimm's fairy tale.
Director Helander's script is set in a particularly remote stretch of Finland's Lapland region, right on the Russian border. In this snowy land of mountains, pine forests, and long dark snowy evenings, the winters are hard, the men are men, the boys are expected to be men (even the youngest of them ride snowmobiles with rifles slung across their backs), and the women ... well, there just don't seem to be any of them around. It's not the easiest place for a kid like Pietari (Onni Tommila) to grow up, with his dreamy attitude and inability to connect with his sandpaper-mannered father, Rauno (Jorma Tommila), the operator of a reindeer slaughterhouse who's fallen on hard times.
High above Pietari's isolated house on the top of a mountain, a sketchy-seeming fellow from some multinational corporation with a limited sense of social responsibility is directing a huge dig in horrible weather because he's convinced of one thing: the mountain they're blasting into is actually a tomb for the real Santa Claus. Helander structures it in classically Spielbergian fashion; no matter the light scrim of satire hanging over the whole endeavor, these scenes with all their swooping crane shots and gleaming equipment highlighted against the swirling snow still easily impart that pulse-quickening sense of discovery and the dark unknown that's essential for any story like this.
As can be imagined, the diggers do find Santa Claus, but it's not what they expect. A forewarning of what's in store is contained in the very instructions left for the digging crew, with very harsh strictures against cursing, smoking, or any other potentially naughty behavior. The results are soon felt down below, where Rauno and the rest of the community find an entire herd of reindeer, which was to be a hugely lucrative haul for them, pointlessly slaughtered in the snow. Pietari -- who, unbeknownst to Rauno, had snuck a peek at the mountaintop dig with his much-naughtier best friend -- starts to get an idea of what's going on. Fortunately having a stock of dusty old tomes on hand (where would horror films of this sort be without them?), Pietari does some research on the origins of the Santa Claus legend and sees illustrations of a horned, devil-like creature who doesn't spend too much time on toy-delivery duty: "The real Santa Claus spanks naughty kids to pieces!"
Once it becomes clear what the corporation has unleashed from the bowels of the mountain, Rauno and his Finnish-style redneck buddies have to do battle in the freezing night with the unholy creature, initially spurning any help from the pipsqueak-sized Pietari. While Helander's adventure has an infectiously energetic originality, its influences range all the way from classic boys' literature (where the weakling kid turns out to be the savior of his family and community) to Larry Fessenden's eco-horror fables like The Last Winter and in particular the more comic episodes of The X-Files. The slightly strung-out coda might be more perplexing than conclusive, but the film as a whole is wicked fun in the manner of a 21st century Grimm's fairy tale.
