After watching Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Dustin is now convinced Santa is not our friend

It seems I haven’t gotten over my horror movie fixation since October was done and it’s just carried over into December. It also seems that I’ve now watched two movies in a row now that depict our jolly ol’ cookie-eating, toy-toting, bearded friend as an evil killer of sorts. This movie had me convinced, the whole sleigh-ride through, until it veered way off course at the end.

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So, like my last post about evil Santa, this one was also European (Finnish) and this time, it had subtitles, so I wasn’t distracted by bad dubbing. In the story, Americans have seemed to have found the real Santa Claus frozen underground and have since excavated him out. Well, the whole crew dissapeared (or slaughtered?). It appears that Santa has stumbled upon Pietei’s house. Pieti is a little boy who reminded me of Elliott in E.T. However, the apparent Santa Claus isn’t that friendly, and besides, doesn’t have any clothes on either. He does have a really good sense of smell for cookies (not kidding) and, of course, little children (creepy!). Well, we learn in the end that things aren’t what they really seem.

A lot of the movie had a Shymalan type of feel to it. It was as if Shyamalan did a Christmas movie exploring what would happen if we discovered Santa actually existed and he was a little on the creepy side. The first 90% of the movie I didn’t have to suspend any belief because we were experiencing this story through the life of Pietri in which we discover Santa is actually real. It was taking something completely fantastical and making it reality, much like Shyamalan does. The last 10% of the movie, however, was exactly the opposite. The movie turned from fairy-tale realism to scratch-your-head goofiness. There were some things that happened in the very end that I would love to talk to someone else about, but probably shouldn’t mention for spoiler-sake. This movie can be watched on Netflix streaming, so, check it out, then we’ll talk.

I give the acting a 9/10, the visuals a 9/10, the suspense a 9/10, but the story a 4/10 (for sheer disappointment in the end), compromising for a 7/10 as a whole-movie rating. Oh, and if you don’t like full-frontal old men nudity, don’t watch this film. I guess I don’t have too much of a problem with it, but I don’t know how y’all feel about the subject. Either way, Merry Christmas. Let’s hope Santa brings us some happiness instead, eh?

3 thoughts on “After watching Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Dustin is now convinced Santa is not our friend

  1. Nice review, Deuce! I’d really like to check this out, but it doesn’t seem to be available on Netflix Costa Rica (really gotta get me one of them there VPNs). But I’ll try to check it out in the US sometime.

    It does sound quite interesting, though, but I kinda breezed over the part about the ending, just to make sure I didn’t have too much information about it. I know you probably wouldn’t put up spoilers, but for me almost any information counts…which is actually a major weakness when it comes to working on a movie blog, come to think of it.

    In other words: “Stop. Stop. Shut up. You had me at ‘full-frontal old men nudity.'”

    Speaking of full-frontal old men nudity, though, I wonder if this Finnish movie has that because of the sauna culture. I know that in Germany (where saunas are also mixed), there’s enough old flesh in 2 minutes to fill one’s mind with a lifetime of horrors, if that kind of thing bothers you. I’m OK with it, though. Where was I going with this? Maybe just that Europeans are more into nudity? Who knows.

    In any case, thanks for the review!

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