This Geek in Netflix: Rare Exports

After being forced to sit and endure the double-feature of Shark Attack 3: Megalodon and 2-Headed Shark Attack, I decided to give the finger to the evil duo of Mr. London and Mr. Kelly and watch something this week that didn’t look like an eye-raper.

Feeling rather festive with my rebellion, I turned to a promising looking Finnish movie— Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.  I know it doesn’t sound nearly as amazing as 2-Headed Shark Attack, but my survival rate is much higher with this one and, honestly, I like surviving.

Rare Exports is the third in a series of Santa-focused endeavors directed by Jalmari Helander, the first two being internet shorts titled Rare Exports Inc. (2003) and Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions (2005).  Assuming those two are of the same quality and idea of this movie, it’s safe to say that they’re pretty awesome.

Yes, I said it—I watched an awesome movie.  I admit I deviated from the recent spate of total suck in a major way as my rebellion bore non-Busey-related gingerbread man-shaped fruit.

I will confess to being biased and, yes, having a major thing for the evil Santa Claus concept.  This started when I was a young little horror nerdling, sitting around playing Hunter: The Reckoning: Redeemer on X-Box.  You see, there’s this one scene where you stop at one of those mall-like Santa Claus areas and suddenly Mr. Claus walks into view and sprouts tentacles and pulls two giant (and angry, very, very angry) teddy bears with fangs out of his sack and it’s breathtakingly amazing.

But enough with my rhapsodizing about Tentacle Santa, let’s get to the reindeer meat of this movie.

Subzero Inc., a company purported to be engaging in seismic research on the border of Lapland, has been drilling into the Korvatunturi Mountain—not to further the field of seismology but, more deviously, to unearth the frozen Santa Claus.

Brilliant, right?  Free Santa Claus from his icy fortress of solitude so he can rain down presents on all the good boys and girls of the world.  That’d easily clear out the waiting list for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, no problem.

However, all is not as silent and holy as it seems as the butcher’s son, little Pietari, delves into old books on local folk lore after eavesdropping on the company’s plan.  In his reading, he discovers that Santa Claus is not the loveable old gent we all believe him to be, but is instead a giant beater, broiler, and eater of naughty children.

As Christmas quickly approaches, the drilling goes silent and the town’s source of income, a large herd of reindeer, is brutally slaughtered by what the townsfolk believe to be large wolves and Pietari takes steps to protect himself once he finds footprints on the roof outside of his second-floor window.

The night before Christmas Eve, all of the children—save Pietari— disappear and Pietari’s father discovers an old man has fallen into one of his wolf-pits, pierced through the chest by the wooden stakes at the bottom of the hole.

He takes the dead man into his butcher shop but soon discovers that, while mostly non-responsive, the man is alive and reacts violently to gingerbread cookies and little Pietari.  Soon two other men from town join him as they attempt to determine what to do with this odd old man and find that they may have captured something more strange and powerful than they bargained for.

This movie was wonderful, and so much more than what I expected from the usual Christmas horror movie.  It was clever.  It was truly, absolutely clever.  Helander managed to work in and warp all of our Santa-related Christmas mythology in a lovely little, almost Gaimanesque way that I don’t have the pleasure of seeing all too often.

Story aside, visually this movie was stunning.  The colors were intense, the shots wide and very dramatic— everything lent itself to the sort of fantasy setting this movie needed.  The acting was wonderful and the boy who played Pietari was perfect for the role, a silent, studious Data (The Goonies) that stepped up to the plate when everyone else was wallowing in Christmas confusion.

So start a fire (preferably in the fireplace), set out some milk and cookies, and queue up Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale on Netflix on Demand.  It’s that time of year, after all.  Right?