A group of American scientists show up and start excavating the mountain but something goes terribly wrong. Leave it to the Fins to make the ultimate evil Santa flick, creepy & funny. After the children are returned to their homes, Rauno decides to start a new business with the Subzero company, in which the captured elves are trained to become mall Santas and exported to various locations around the world. Reviewer Annika Pham, writing for Cineuropa.org, described it as a "Tim Burton-esque version of Santa's story" and said, "The icy Lappish landscapes are beautifully captured by [director of photography] Mika Orasmaa and the feel of the large-scale adventure epic is wrapped up in sweeping musical orchestration.

Unfortunately, there isn't much of a payoff in the end. It was rated a New York Times Critics' Pick. In 2003, the Finnish commercials production company Woodpecker Film published the short movie Rare Exports Inc. A British research team from Subzero is taking drill core samples on top of Korvatunturi (Ear Fell) in the Finnish province of Lapland. [citation needed], Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale has grossed $4,015,133.

Here, the film's writer and director Jalmari Helander established a band of three hunters (marker, sniper, and tracker) searching the wilderness of Lapland for the wild Santa Claus. [citation needed] The film was distributed in US by Oscilloscope Laboratories, an independent film distribution company. "[10], The film won numerous awards such as the Locarno International Film Festival's Variety Piazza Grande Award[5] and Best Motion Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Director – as well as a "Special Mention" for the Silver Méliès for Best European Motion Picture Award – at the 43rd Sitges Film Festival in 2010. He sneaks out of his father's house to a police truck, with his disappointed father in hot pursuit. The men and Pietari run to Hangar 24, where they find a horned being in an enormous block of ice being melted by the missing heaters.

With Jorma Tommila, Onni Tommila, Peeter Jakobi, Tommi Korpela. As Rauno, Piiparinen, and Aimo disconnect the heaters and use them to block the elves from the doorway, Pietari devises a plan. Or why not join our mailing list to stay up to date? Rare Exports (2010) On Christmas Eve in Finland, Santa Claus is unearthed in an archaeological dig. Box office recaps sent twice a month (maximum). Piiparinen comes out of the hangar, and distracts the elves by throwing gingerbread at them, so that he can reach the helicopter. Check back soon when the reviews are out! They dress the old man in Piiparinen's Santa costume, and message the Americans that they "have found Santa Claus". Kids will love the diminutive, motherless hero and a plot that's completely bonkers; adults will enjoy the exuberantly pagan images and deadpan humor."
I also found that the critics quite liked it, with the Rotten Tomatoes Consensus saying "Rare Exports is an unexpectedly delightful crossbreed of deadpan comedy and Christmas horror." (examined in the short blog Artificial Intelligence).

ROTTEN TOMATOES SAYSIt's the eve of Christmas in northern Finland, and an 'archeological' dig has just unearthed the real Santa Claus. RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE is a re-imagining of the most classic of all childhood fantasies, and is a darkly comic gem soon to be required perennial holiday viewing. When the local children begin mysteriously disappearing, young Pietari and his father Rauno, a reindeer hunter by trade, capture the mythological being and attempt to sell Santa to the misguided leader of the multinational corporation sponsoring the dig. The other two men make a net, which Pietari climbs on as it picks up the sacks of children to lure the elves to the reindeer pen. He continued, "Apart from the inescapable [fact] that the movie has Santa and reindeer in it, this is a superior horror film, a spot-on parody of movies about dead beings brought back to life. They reach a village, where Rauno hears from other villagers that potato sacks, heaters, and Piiparinen's wife's hair-dryer, have gone missing. In the depths of the Korvatunturi mountains, 486 meters deep, lies the closest ever guarded secret of Christmas. He wakes Pietari up by throwing a snowball at his window and tells him to prepare for rounding up reindeer herds with the other herders at the electric reindeer pen.

Unfortunately, there isn't much of a payoff in the end. If you consider cinema, ask for people's opinion on the film. -- (C) Oscilloscope.

Having lost all hope Rauno returns to his farm. Oh, and all the reindeer are dead."

Rotten Tomatoes-elokuvasivuston keräämistä 72:sta arvostelusta 89 prosenttia on sivuston mukaan myönteisiä. But this particular Santa isn't the one you Pietari enters Piiparinen's house, and finds that Piiparinen's son Juuso is gone, with a straw effigy in his place. It's a horror/comedy/drama ( yea, it's hard to classify ) which follows a group of local Findlanders who are stuck in the middle of it all. Summary of reviews for Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) - Rotten Tomatoes, The other two men place explosives all over Santa Claus' ice block, and cut off his horns, before fleeing the hangar in a truck.

It turns out to be Santa Clause, but a nasty and evil version. It looks like the explosions that have been going on at the fell for months have driven the wolves in the area mad. Unexpected comedy-horror that builds up and changes into farce towards the last 10 mins. Piiparinen brings a sack, which contains the skinny old man, and leaves his inactive body on a table in Rauno's reindeer slaughterhouse. While Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale does not have the level of gore of Dead Snow or the emotional impact of Let the Right One In (although Pietari does earn his father's respect in the end), it's a uniquely entertaining tale that adds a bit of welcome darkness to the often saccharine times leading up to Christmas. The kid character, surprisingly, is not annoying. "[11] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews". Pietari asks his father to spank him for his bad deeds, such as plying open the fence to Korvantunturi, as he fears that the children's bad deeds might have caused Santa to take them away.

Rauno's reindeer slaughterhouse has been on the brink of bankruptcy for a long time.

But Rauno has one more chance. Ebert concluded that "this is a fine film. The film won the Pegasus Audience Award at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, and was nominated for the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films's Saturn Award in the category of Best International Film.

The film is based on the 2003 short film Rare Exports Inc., and its 2005 sequel Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions, by Jalmari Helander and Juuso Helander, both of which involve a company that traps wild Santa Clauses and trains and exports them to locations around the world. "[13], Novelist and critic Kim Newman gave the movie 4 out of 5 stars ("Excellent") and praised its "very black humour and a strange mix of revisionist mythology, gruesome horror and authentic Christmas spirit. The time has come to dig it up. The site's critical consensus reads, "Rare Exports is an unexpectedly delightful crossbreed of deadpan comedy and Christmas horror." [10], "Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions" on the official YouTube channel of production company Woodpecker Film, Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, "Variety Reviews - Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale", "Bloody Christmas greetings from new Finnish wunderkind", "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)", "RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE Blu-ray Review", "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) - Rotten Tomatoes", "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale Reviews - Metacritic", "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) - Discovering a Sinister Santa in Finland", Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rare_Exports:_A_Christmas_Tale&oldid=979588638, Articles with dead external links from October 2014, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 21 September 2020, at 15:52. Rauno examines the carcasses worriedly. The remote Scandanavian setting and the sometimes creepy feel were interesting at times, but ultimately this movie just doesn't pay off.
It wasn't bad for a B movie. Farther away Pietari too examines the traces and is convinced that it's not the work of wolves, while Juuso warns him not to tell his father that they plied open the fence to Korvantunturi. Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus.

[citation needed], The film and crew earned further awards in 2011: nominated for Best Film for the Jussi Award, it won for Best Cinematography, Best Music, Best Sound Design, Best Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design. While he, Rauno, and Aimo discuss their plans, Pietari calls his friends on the telephone, and finds that they have all gone missing. [12], Roger Ebert awarded the film three and a half out of four stars and called it "a rather brilliant lump of coal for your stocking" and considered it "an R-rated Santa Claus origin story crossed with The Thing." After the positive reception from an online audience, Woodpecker Film produced and published the sequel short movie Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions in 2005,[7] again with Helander as writer-director. [10], On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 89% based on 104 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 7/10. Piiparinen comes out and asks the other two men to come and see the old man.

He can get thawed on some summer day. They are interrupted when Piiparinen tells Rauno to come and see the old man again, as the old man is strong enough to break a metal bar. They take the old man in a cage to an airbase, where they meet Riley. Productions (France), with support from the Finnish Film Foundation, Norwegian Film Institute, FilmCamp and Filmpool Nord.[5]. Conceived with winking humor and a terrific visual style, this movie is quite a refreshing treat. Beautifully shot and always fascinating, Rare Exports succeeds on many levels. [6] (It is available on other YouTube channels as well.) SIGN UP! Pietari climbs down the net of children and an antenna to open the reindeer pen, as the horde of elves runs toward him. Unbeknownst to them, he is an ancient, evil spirit punishing naughty children. Even though Pietari was grounded for playing a trick with his father for using reindeer traps in the fireplace, he has been full of fear of the approaching Christmas, like an animal sensing a more powerful beast in its territory.