In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Monday 14 December 2015

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE [2010]

Jolly ol' St. Nick has been portrayed many a time in the cinema world in rather frightening forms before but nothing's made me quite as uncomfortable as the Santa Claus featured in director Jalmari Hellander's Finnish fantasy/horror film, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.
A small town of reindeer herders are picked off one by one, after an excavation on the nearby Korvatunturi mountains unearths what appears to be the real Santa, who bears no resemblance to the friendlier "Coca-Cola Claus".
With it's snow, dreariness, all male cast and horrific tension, it's essentially The Thing only with plenty of humor, gingerbread and flesh-eating elves.  In short, it's a really really weird movie but it's not quite scary or gory enough to make it truly outrageous as it seems to want to be but instead it focuses on tension, weirdness and what-the-fuckery.

3 naughty boys out of 5

No comments: