User Reviews

Perhaps it's because I saw "Rare Exports" on Steven Spielberg's birthday, but: Director Jalmari Helander was clearly inspired by the grandmaster of the family-friendly adventure **** plot goes like this: In a godforsaken place in northern Finland, right on the Russian border, there's a mountain where Americans are conducting excavations. Because the mountain is actually a gigantic, ancient tomb of the real Santa Claus. Who, in turn, is actually a terrifying monster. A young boy and his father are drawn into the story when all the children in the area disappear and their livelihood – reindeer – is slaughtered by **** just under 90 minutes, you get a watchable adventure from the perspective of a young boy, but it never quite settles on one particular theme. A touch of spookiness with a few monsters, a hinted-at adventure with a rich mythological backdrop, a father-son story (Where's the mother?), a coming-of-age tale, and a dash of anti-Christmas comedy à la "Gremlins" and "Krampus."It's all very family-friendly, endearingly quirky, but also a bit long-winded. While there is a big payoff, the build-up is far too drawn out and fails to make Santa Claus truly menacing. The score and visuals, however, are fantastic, the effects are good, and the ending is delightfully absurd—it's definitely worth watching.

This is an adventure fantasy film with horror elements and it features themes including hunting, mythology and wilderness. This is, unsurprisingly, quite a quirky watch and I enjoyed it, as it definitely puts a new spin on the family festival to put it mildly. I found myself feeling quite protective of the younger boy character, Pietari from early on. The plot is quite bizzare to say the least. It definitely has an element of dark comedy to/about it. I find it interesting to see other countries takes, or twists, on Hollywood/Western stories. The plot pace is slow and ardent fans of gory horror will likely be disappointed by little action there is from scene to scene, although there are undoubtedly a few moments which may make you jump but its not choc full of them. The absurdity of the situation kept me watching, with some 'uh-oh' type moments being really quite amusing!. I found the way that some of the plot details came to light to be quite satisfying - it is certainly somewhat of an anti-Christmas film in a sense, a little like Bad Santa. There is a fairly sinister tone to the film and I'd say its somewhat atmospheric but at the same time, I couldn't quite get myself to feel utterly scared or frightened purely due to the absurdity of the plot. That said, I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy it as clearly I did for its said absurdity. Aspects of the plot are perhaps somewhat Burton-esque, as in Tim Burton but mainly in terms of the genre/themes and darkness to it, rather than therre being a large amount of CGI or a big name cast and the like. Cast wise, the film stars Onni Tommila as the young boy, Pietari Kontio. He stole the show so to speak, with his young somewhat cherubic, innocent looking face trying to deal with the strange situation he finds himself faced with. It would be hard not to feel for him. Meanwhile his father, Rauno Kontio, is played by Jorma Tommila and other cast members include Tommi Korpela as Aimo, Rauno Juvonen as Piiparinen and Per Christian Ellefsen as Riley. Content wise, this film contains some nudity, including male gentials and obviously a fair amount of violence, which is moderate and not too detailed, mostly only shown briefly but the odd moment may seem a little gory to some and there are bloodied corpses depicted at least a couple of times. There is some strong language shown in the English subtitles, from the original Finnish language but its not constant. There is an almost constant sense of threat which could make viewers scared for Pietari but the darkly comedic side to it means its unlikely people will feel it to be as scary or worrying as it may otherwise have seemed. The musical score is quite sombre and menacing and I felt did add to the overall tense atmosphere during some of the later scenes, once the absurdity had somewhat died down (I say somewhat, perhaps not entirely). There are some instances of quite well handled cinematography, featuring hoardes of numerous zombie-esque people. I won't say anymore so as not to be giving any spoilers for obvious reasons but I struggle to think how else to review this without mentioning one or two details. I shouldn't review such a film without making it clear that this is a Finnish film and as such, the dialogue obviously isn't entirely in English (although, surprisingly, there are some instances of English in the script but certainly much less than half) and so, unless you know the language of course, you have to rely on reading the provided subtitles to follow whats going on. This may put you off or not depending on your personal preferences. In a word, yes. As long as your alright with subtitles and you don't mind a bit of dark comedy then you should find this amusing and possibly somewhat enjoyable, which might sound tasteless but I didn't think it was a film to be taken entirely seriously. There are some instances of good landscape shots aka cinemtaography and I enjoyed watching it.

really good finnish movie you should watch this because it is really good winter time movie

It is just your average SF, semi-horror, quirky Christmas suspense story set in the wilds of Finland. It draws on old Northern European legends of an ominous Santa Claus figure who punishes and frightens children. Young Pietari lives with his dad in a chilly little mountain farmstead. An international mining company is digging an enormous tunnel into a nearby mountain and succeed in waking up a bunch of frozen krampuses. Then things start breaking loose, as our young hero's dad succeeds in trapping one of the geezers and, with some help from his friends, tries to hold him for ransom. Then the head krampus begins building a big hive-like thing and drawing his followers to him. But that is just the plot - it excels as a visual experience. Very well shot, a good-looking flick.

It's certainly a unique Christmas film. We get a very different take on Santa here. It's a Christmas adventure-horror flick with light doses of humor and a fantasy vibe. The results are quite entertaining. The movie's biggest strength is in it's young lead Onni Tommila. He maybe young, but he proves to be just as talented as the rest of the adult cast. He fits the hero role well despite his young age. The only thing the movie is missing to fully bring it's concept to life is a bit more in the excitement department. It's lacking in action or real tense moments. A final showdown of some sort would have been appreciated. Yet, it's hard to complain when this fantasy-horror is so teeming with imagination. The knowing winks with some well included humor are also appreciated. All in all it's just an entertaining watch that does something out of the ordinary for Christmas films.

Preposterous, but it gets away with it as the film doesn't take itself too seriously. Builds up a good sense of expectation and suspense, and the ending is just fantastic. Easily my faourite Christmas film of all time.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

A group of archaeologists have uncovered the world's best kept secret hidden deep within the Korvatunturi mountains, a being of such ancient and terrifying evil that it had to be locked away for centuries in an icy tomb beneath the earth. But now, Santa has been released, and it is up three of the town's trappers and their brave young boy to stop the creature before it can wreak its bloody vengeance on all of the Earth's children! RARE EXPORTS met with immediate success upon its initial release in 2010, gathering the support of cineasts world-wide as "an instant Christmas classic." Ancient lore mixes with modern humor as director Jalmari Helander explores the darker side of the Christmas tradition. Helander tells this whimsical fairytale with a wink, allowing the twisted humor to flow naturally from his characters as they approach the feral Santa Claus with utter apprehension. Onni Tommila gives a heartfelt and endearing performance as Pietari, who passes easily through the rites of manhood as he conquers his childhood fears in order to save his friends. The only misstep falls on the rushed and gimmicky finale, which breaks away from the slow and deliberate pacing while dispelling much of the film's magic for a few cheap laughs. RARE EXPORTS is a complete departure from any other holiday-themed horror film that will surely be revisited for many years to come.

This film sounded more interesting than it really was. I went through the entire movie waiting for something even remotely interesting to happen, but it never did. The first part of the film is extremely boring, and the second half is just average. The problem here is that the origin of this evil, ancient Santa is never fully realized; hell, you never even actually see him. This movie is comparable to having intercourse and having to stop before you get a chance to climax. It's a real shame, too, because the premise was very interesing, so it's a real bummer the movie is such a bore.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]