[/slash Filmfestival had a special day of Christmas Horror movies. This was the first one.]

Rare Exports is Jalmari Helander‘s first feature film, starring Tommi Korpela, Jorma Tommila, Onni Tommila, Rauno Juvonen and Jonathan Hutchings.

Plot:
Right around Christmas, miners find something strange in the ice beneath a mountain in Finnland. Pietari (Onni Tommila) thinks that they found Santa’s grave – but is he really dead? And why would you go to the trouble of burying him almost 500m deep in ice?

Rare Exports is a perfect horror comedy, though the horror part – at least for me – was minor. The idea is awesome, it’s told with a great sense of humor and the pacing is spot-on.

I absofuckinglutely loved the idea of Evil Santa and the naked-man-elves. It fits very well with older (German?) tales of Saint Nicholas, which can be quite gruesome sometimes.

And the elves were very well cast. Really creepy, but then also kind of adorable.

The rest of the cast was very good, too. Especially Onni Tommila who added most of the comic relief, and yet also surpisingly much gravitas – no small feat for any actor, but especially a young boy like him. And Jonathan Hutchings has a nice narrating voice.

As I said before, the horror parts are rather small, at least for me – I was never even close to being scared (though I can imagine other people being). But that was okay. It was definitely supposed to be funnier than scary.

Summarising: Definitely a must-see for horror fans and others.

Finally, to spread the Holiday cheer, here are the two short films that this movie is a prequel to.