Happy Santa Hunting

reviewed by James Cheetham
jamescheetham.jcc@gmail.com
written for www.subtitledonline.com

Rare Exports, while technically a horror film, is your quintessential Christmas movie, a term that manages to conjure up images of bearded rotund men and a cherub chubby child out to discover an important life lesson – and it achieves all this. Just with an added bit of spice in the fact that Santa Claus is a horned devil man far more hell bent upon punishing the wicked children than ever bothering to shower gifts upon the good.

Making a merry stand against the coca cola created image of the Santa Claus we have these days, director Jalmari Helander makes a brave attempt in tearing down this accepted jolly creature and instead replaces him with a far more sinister character who’d have far more in common with the beasts found in the Grimm Brothers’ original fairytales.

As a man who quietly climbs atop our roofs and climbs down the chimney to enter our children’s bedroom solace, it would seem Santa Claus should have always been a character to fear and this is what happens to Pietari Kontio (Onni Tommila), the young Finnish boy-hero of Rare Exports who decides it is his duty to stop the evil ascension of Father Christmas.

Read the rest of the review at: http://www.subtitledonline.com/reviews/rare-exports-a-christmas-tale-2