Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (Jalmari Helander, 2010)
Everyone is on the naughty list
Rare Exports is one of my absolute favorite Christmas horror movies that I’ve watched again and again.
As far as festive films go, Rare Exports is an utterly unique cinematic treat — even among scary holiday movies. There is no psycho killer here, no cute new pet that spawns a bunch of little monsters after being fed post-midnight, no global zombie outbreak that just happens to occur on the Xmas.
In Rare Exports, Christmas is itself the source of the horror. And delightfully so!
I’m a sucker for pretty much any film that’s set in the snowy wilderness, and Rare Exports makes exemplary use of its setting in Lapland in northern Finland. The bulk of action takes place on the rural outskirts of a small town, where ten-year-old Pietari lives with his father.
It’s a breathtaking landscape, if you’re into that sort of thing (which I am) and it’s also steeped in festive folklore. These days, Lapland is known as a popular Christmas tourist destination where you can go and visit Santa, but Lapland has long been regarded as being the birthplace of Father Christmas.
Specifically, legend has it that Lapland’s Korvatunturi fell (Old Norse for “mountain”) which sits on the Finnish-Russian border is actually the secret location of Old Saint Nick’s magic workshop.
The Korvatunturi is right outside Pietari’s bedroom window. It’s so close, in fact, that he and his friend sneak over to spy on the international archeological team working there, allegedly conducting geological research. In truth, they’re digging for something. Because they believe the mountain is an ancient burial mound.
That’s right, they think that this is where the real Santa Claus is buried — and they mean to excavate him.
In a wonderful example of the film’s dark humor, the opening scene includes one of these scientists puzzling over an ice core sample which is just sawdust (from Santa’s workshop!), followed by the expedition’s boss hurriedly handing out new safety rules ordering no smoking, no cursing, no arguing (lest Santa declares you naughty!).
From there, things get merrily bleak.
Pietari’s father and friends are dependent on the annual reindeer harvest for their livelihoods, but something has attacked and killed the entire herd. Children go missing in the night, replaced in their beds by creepy wooden dolls. And then a naked old man turns up in a trap. Could it be that he is actual ancient Santa in the flesh? And that he’s evil?
All of this might sound quite wild, and while I totally get that, I also feel obliged to point out that Rare Exports actually feels like a fairly grounded film. Tonally, it’s like a very dark E.T. or Goonies, combining elements of horror, adventure, and dark comedy into a cohesive, highly-polished movie that is entirely fresh and free of tired horror tropes.
I adore Rare Exports. The film is such a joy to watch. It’s a horror movie *about* Christmas that’s inspired by *actual* Christmas lore! It's an utterly unique and very fun film to watch in the countdown to Christmas.