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Review by Ken King |
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USA Release: Sep. 24, 2010 Love Streams Productions, FilmCamp, Filmpool Nord, Agnès B. Productions, Davaj Film, Love Streams, Pomor Film, Cinet, Kinology, Yleisradio (YLE), Oscilloscope Rating: USA: R |
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"Roll up your sleeves, prepare the dynamite. Do what you do best. You have a grave to rob."
- Riley
With that sentence, this is how RARE EXPORTS basically starts.
RARE EXPORTS Sausage Party Movie Trailer
An American (?) businessman named Riley (Per Christian Ellefson) has a dig going on at an ancient mound in Finland. When his foreman, Brian Greene (Jonathan Hutchings: SEASICK, THE RUINED EYE) comes to Riley about their drilling deep and finding saw dust, Riley is excited and tells them to carry on. Riley goes out to make a grand speech to Greene's crew.
Unbeknownst to everyone involved, they have some more members of the audience, hidden away, listening to what is going on. Two boys, Pietari (Onni Tommila: BIG GAME, THE LOOK OF A KILLER) and Juuso (Ilmari Järvenpää) whose curiosity has gotten the best of them, have cut through a chain link fence surrounding the excavation site, so they can spy on the activities. Pietari, obviously the smart one, knows something is rotten in Denmark, I mean, Finland, and goes home to check his hunch out.
Pietari pulls out many tomes he has on the myths and legends of Santa Claus. He discovers that Good ol' Saint Nick, is anything but a saint. He is a cannibalistic figure who has more in common with Santa's "shadow" the Krampus, than he has with the one that adorns Coca-Cola products come Yuletide. This monster has a taste for children and goes through rather drastic means to acquire them. The legend has it that he devours the "bad kids" but Pietari finds out that the legends often lie about such details or make up things as they go along.
Pietari's father, Rauno (Jorma Tommila: HAMLET [1985], LIPTON COCKTON IN THE SHADOWS OF SODOMA, PRIVATE EYE VARES, PRIEST OF EVIL, BIG GAME), meanwhile, has been digging pits with stakes in them to trap wolves who might be traipsing through to attack him and his son, or their pigs (I assume that's the reason. It is never truly explained.)
It's Christmas Eve and Santa is coming to town. There are a lot of things to be done. Some of Rauno's buds have constructed an electric fence corral to trap reindeer. One is Juuso's father, Piiparinen (Rauno Juvonen: LIPTON COCKTON IN THE SHADOWS OF SODOMA, TIE NAISEN SYDÄMEEN, PRIEST OF EVIL, BIG GAME) and their pal, Aimo (Tommi Korpela: KAHUN MILLIMETRIT, PRIVATE EYE VARES, PRIEST OF EVIL, V2-JÄÄTYNYT ENKELI, KOTIRAUHA, BODOM, DEADWIND [TV], POISSA, MARIA'S PARADISE, THE NIGHT SERVANTS, NYRKKI), who can speak English. They await a herd that they know to be coming.
When they see nothing but a couple of reindeer not worth herding, they know something is wrong. They find out soon enough: the deer have all been decimated by an unknown person, or persons. The men all think it is the excavation crew inside the fenced area of the dig. Pietari finds out differently when he nudges one of the dead carcasses and sees bare footprints — a sure sign that Santa Claus is behind this vast slaughter.
Rauno and his posse, go through the gates of the fence after seeing the entrance that Pietari and Juuso made earlier. Those reindeer were what the village was depending on for meat and they had a substantial dollar amount attached, 85k to be exact. They head up the mountain to look for some answers.
No one is there. The place is deserted. A radio crackles to life. The dude at the other end is Riley. He wants to know what is going on and wants to talk to his lead guy, Greene. Aimo tells him the place is deserted and they want to talk money.
When Rauno and Pietari return home, something has fallen in their trap.
RARE EXPORTS North American movie poster
"Santa Claus!" Is Pietari's thoughts. The old man is hauled into Rauno's shop where he butchers pigs. Piiparinen comes over, dressed as Santa for some shindig going down in the village later where he is to hand out presents. A policeman comes by and asks if the men and boy had seen anything out of the ordinary, because there were weird reports of heating sources like space heaters and ovens, even hairdryers are being ripped off. Also, potato sacks have been stolen, the tubers contained within, left behind, scattered on the ground.
The men reply in negative and the cop is off. They head quickly to the butcher shop to question the old man from the trap. Things just don't go quite as planned. When the oldster wakes up, the men query him in Finnish and English. No Bueno. The only thing the old man responds to in any way, is the presence of Pietari.
Rauno sends Pietari away and the boy inspects the pit a bit more closely. He finds a gunny sack and there is a straw figure inside about Pietari's size. The boy starts to call other houses where his friends reside. He finds out firsthand at Juuso's house that his fears have been realized. Santa is jacking all the kids in the village and replacing them with straw totems.
Of course, his father and the other men don't believe him, and they get ready to trade off Santa for 85k, if not more.
Riley meets them at a seemingly abandoned airfield and sees the prisoner in the back of the truck. What he tells them next, sets things in motion where all hell breaks loose.
The night is suddenly swarmed with naked Santa's and they are homing in on the men at the lonely airstrip.
TRIVIA Actor Onni Tomilla is Co-writer and Director, Jalmari Helander's nephew. Director and co-writer Jalmari Helander, along with his brother and co-writer Jusso, and their friends, actors, Jonathan Hutching, Jorma Tommila, and Tommi Korpela, raised money for their RARE EXPORTS feature film by shooting, not one, but two short films first. Would you like to watch them? Damn Straight, you would! |
Does all this sound weird to you?
You haven't read the half of it.
What happens in the last ten to fifteen minutes of the film makes you wonder if this has a happy ending, or a case could be made for kidnapping, human trafficking, and torture. I know I was scratching my head wondering just what the hell to think. There's a wink and a nod to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK that's hard to miss and made me grin from ear to ear, despite the other strangeness I had just witnessed unfold on the TV screen.
Director Jalmari Helander (BIG GAME), who shot mostly shorts up to this point and a few television shows afterwards, created a whacked out Christmas movie that is also visually stunning. Some would think this is a slow-moving piece that doesn't really pick up much until the final third of the movie. But hang with it because the payoff is worth the wait. At least, I think so.
FINAL THOUGHTS
While I can't disagree that this is a flawed film, there's enough of interest for me to recommend it to others. I had one major gripe, but I can't say what it is without giving away a major plot point. That, along with the slow-moving pace in several spots in the movie, leaves me no choice but to give it a lower ranking than I normally would.
Three Shriek Girls
This review copyright 2020 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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