Directed by Jalmari Helander
Written by Petri Jokiranta & Sami Parkkinen
Every once in a while, a filmmaker will get the idea to explore the seedier side of the holiday season. Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, from 1973, might have been the first, and might still be the best, countering the idea of the Christmas homestead as a place of peaceful, communal gathering through a particularly depraved twist. Since Clark’s movie, other cinematic attempts to send up Christmas have tended either towards the openly horrific (the Silent Night, Deadly Night flicks, the Black Christmas remake) or the lightly satirical (Christmas Vacation, and another Clark movie: A Christmas Story). Finland’s Rare Exports: a Christmas Tale falls somewhere in between, opting to conjure up a sinister new vision of Santa Claus (albeit one with its roots in Finnish popular culture) but retains a basically friendly sensibility even as it threatens to descend into genuine horror.
Legend tells that Finland’s Korvantunturi mountains are home to Father Christmas himself – but as Exports would have it, that’s more of a threat than just pleasant local color. Young Pietari (Onni 
Tommila) is acutely aware of the looming danger, and is attempting to stir as little trouble as possible in the days leading up to Christmas, lest he be kidnapped and boiled alive by the malevolent spirit. His gruff father, Rauno (Jorma Tommila), pays no heed to Pietari’s fears, but does find it odd when a tea of American researchers show up nearby on some kind of mysterious excavation. After an unseen threat slaughters the village’s reindeers – and threatens their bottom line – Rauno springs a trap for the unwanted intruders, and a strange, bearded figure winds up caught inside. It seems to react only when a child is nearby.
– Simon Howell
Visit the official Fantasia Film Fest website