Review of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) by Harry W — 26 May 2014

Having never seen a Finnish film before and not being that much of a fan of Christmas movies, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale sounded like a diverse step forward for me.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale takes quite a while to establish what makes it a good film. For the majority of the first half of the movie, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is dominated by a lot of generic horror movie themes against the backdrop of a Christmas timeframe and a setting near the Korvatunturi mountain. For the first half of the film, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale does not have all that much to do or too many places to go. For a long time in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, the only thing that goes on is a slowly paced film which tells the story of a town which begins to lose radiators and children to a mysterious force that has been unearthed by excavations. It isn't until the story in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale makes a suggestion as to what the mysterious force could be that the story gets interesting. When the story becomes about the horror of Christmas mythology, that is when it becomes interesting. But it takes a while to get there and it doesn't necessarily grasp its potential until about 40 to 50 minutes in. Until then it is a slow burning film which has audiences asking a few questions, but not enough to really grasp their interest fully. Frankly, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is not everything that it could be until it gets to its second act and until then it is generic and formulaic while visually appealing but not all that much else.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale takes a massive turn in its second act because from there it gets interesting. Being a story about Christmas Horror mythology, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale becomes a tale about Santa being a large demonic beast who punishes naughty children. I was very happy to see this because I am sick of so many films that label Santa Claus simply as a magical man that watches over everyone and rewards the good. In actuality, Santa Claus is the source of horror around Christmas time, and Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is the fits film I have seen since Silent Night, Deadly Night to actually explore this. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale explores Christmas in a horror themed way, and it does it in a superior manner to Silent Night, Deadly Night. Eventually, the story becomes good as it chronicles a small group of men bent on putting Santa's hell to rest and rescuing their town from the horrors of Christmas. In contrast to the many more Jolly Christmas movies out there, I found Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale to be a nice change of pace and a very innovative take on Christmas which made it a memorable film. And it did become chilling and thrilling since Santa's Little Helpers made good villains as well, and it is all put into the setting of a deserted area full of snow where you are likely to freeze to death before you get a call for help. The setting for Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is great and it makes the film thoroughly convincing and moire appropriate for a horror setting. Plus, it is all captured with great cinematography which captures the large spectacle of the horror, as well as having some good tracking shots at times and occasionally focusing on the facial expressions of the characters as they face the horrors of the film.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is also terrific because of the subtle comedy in it. Although it isn't as funny as I might have hoped and the comedy doesn't really come in until the second half of the film, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale has a comedic edge to it which makes it a funny Christmas film and a chilling one at the same time. I mean, the film is about killing Santa Claus and in one scene a man even uses Christmas cookies to distract Santa's little helpers from the people whose lives are in danger. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale succeeds as a serious horror film with a subtle comic edge to it, and that means that it had more surprises to it than I had come to expect after witnessing the fist half of the film.

The visual effects are also terrific and the musical score is intense, so Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale manages to do a lot on its small budget which is impressive and manages to mostly transcend the thin nature of its story.

And the script in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is fine as well as the fact that the cast manage to do a lot for it.

Omni Tomilla's performance is pretty good. Playing the Christmas child archetype, Omni Tomilla manages to break the standard conventions of a Christmas movie and give a performance where he portrays an action hero. For most of the movie he is essentially just a child dragged into a twisted situation, but from when he enters door 24 and finds Santa Clause frozen in place, he changes. From there he becomes a hero, and he delivers his lines with the passion of one which is very impressive. It is hard to realise that he is actually just a child because the delivers his lines with such strength that he seems to have grasped what it takes to be an action hero. Oni Tomilla manages to give a performance way ahead of his age, and he makes one of the most memorable elements of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.

Jorma Tomilla, Tommi Korpela and Rauno Juvonen also give fine supporting performances.

So although Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale has a slow and boring first half, its second have redeems it by being chilling and funny all at once, cementing it as a film which is far from your average Christmas movie.