The concept of Krampus has been absorbed into the popular consciousness for a few years now. I find that curious, despite being able to follow a trend leading through the decades up to this, starting with How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1966. Really, this dark and cynical contemporary take on Santa is just an extension of some of the underlying creepiness of the original mythological figure. I mean, this is a guy who watches children and is constantly judging them. And aren’t the milk and cookies left for him really a kind of sacrificial offering?
2010’s Rare Exports was a few years ahead of the more popular Krampus in presenting the jolly old elf as a not-so-jolly, and very old, demon. It is unleashed from its prison of ice deep within a Lapland mountain through a highly professional drilling operation funded by a wealthy industrialist. It is situations like this that make me think people shouldn’t be messing around with things they don’t know anything about just because they have insane amounts of money. I can imagine a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk initiating such a project. It’s like nobody learned the lessons of the dwarves who dug too deep in the mines of Moria.
An early sign something is amiss is when the drillers hit a layer of sawdust and then ice. The bazillionaire behind this endeavor (Per Christian Ellefsen) knows he has found what he has been searching for, and gives the foreman cards with precise instructions for he and his crew to follow from now on. The foreman laughs at these new rules, as I imagine anybody would. In addition to no more smoking or drinking, there’s an instruction to “wash behind your ears”.
Two boys from a nearby village overhear conversation about the imminent unearthing of Santa when they are on one of their routine visits to spy on the operation. The younger of the two (Onni Tommila) takes what he overhears to heart and starts reading up on the dark side of the Claus mythology. Onni comes to regard his advent calendar as a kind of countdown to the apocalypse. I especially liked how he regarded the large, two-door panel marked “24” in the middle of the calendar. Initially, he just puts a piece of tape over it. Later, he is using a staple gun to make sure those doors stay shut.
Onni’s father (Jorma Tommila) is a butcher, and he processes the reindeer meat that is the town’s chief source of income. Something has slaughtered the reindeer, and it is believed to be wolves pushed into this area as they flee the noise of the mining operation. To try to trap wolves, Jorma digs a concealed pit full of upward-pointing spikes.
His trap captures something, though not a wolf. He finds a naked old man impaled on the sticks. He and a friend (who looks like Simon Pegg gone to seed) discover the man is still alive. They will eventually come to accept the man they have found is Santa, and that he is deeply evil. Soon, they are in contact with Ellefsen to deliver the old man in exchange for a payment equal to the money they would have made off reindeer meat.
There are many other odd occurrences happing in the village around this time. There has been a mass theft from area homes of everything that can make heat, such as radiators and hair dryers. There was a weird theft from a barn of hundreds of potato sacks. The potatoes were left behind and only the sacks were taken. Curiously, nobody seems to have noticed all the area children are missing and replaced by creepy ass, life-sized dolls made of some sort of fibrous material. It’s like the Blair Witch started branching out into doll manufacturing.
I was bemused by the odd priorities of the parents. In contrast to the other families, Jorma and Onni have a very strong bond. I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising, since they are father and son in real life. There’s a nice bit towards the beginning of the film where it is clear Onni is either upset by seeing his father in his work as a butcher or maybe Jorma doesn’t want his son to see the carnage. Regardless, Jorna tells Onni to keep his eyes closed while he is at his work. This is a thoughtful note and the kind of humanity I have seen in many movies from Finland. Still, it seems dad could pay a tad more attention to his son, as he doesn’t have any questions when he sees Onni going to bed wearing padding and a wrestling helmet, and a shotgun slung across his shoulder.
What the village, and the viewer, will not know until the third act is the monstrous old man everybody believed to be Santa is merely one of the helpers—one of a great many helpers. As for Santa itself, we never we get a thorough look, but I suspect it is not far off from how I imagine the unseen “old gods” from Cabin in the Woods might appear.
If there’s one aspect of this picture where it falls short, it is the CGI. That said, it is used sparingly, and I immediately put it out of mind. When everything else about a production is this good, I can readily dismiss subpar special effects and move on.
Rare Exports isn’t so much a horror film as it is more of an action-adventure/comedy. What is most curious about the film is it is largely a kid’s movie, with Onni as its lead. But then there’s all the violence and gore which should make this unsuitable for children of his age. Alas, we are in an age where such kids will probably find even those elements dull and passé. At least there’s also the glut of old man full frontal nudity to have them blanching.
Dir: Jalmari Helander
Starring Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila, Peeter Jakobi
Watched on Oscilloscope blu-ray