Satan Claus- RARE EXPORTS Review

Has anybody noticed that Christmas films are now like the also-rans at the box office each December in the same way as a festive single will fall under the wheels of the X Factor winner's single in the race for Christmas number 1? Last year, the big draw was Avatar, leaving Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol out in the cold. Then again, Zemeckis got the last bonafide Christmas hit at the cinema with The Polar Express at the end of 2004.

With Gulliver's Travels and Little Fockers looming hideously into sight in the next couple of weeks, I'm pleased to recommend the hidden festive gem of this year, Rare Exports, a Finnish horror thriller about a boy who still believes in Santa Claus. That is, the Santa Claus of Finnish folklore- an angry, naked old monster who prowls around punishing naughty children with death more than he rewards nice kids with presents. The boy's community of reindeer herders in Lapland manages to capture the monster when Santa's burial mound is unearthed by archaeologists, but Christmas is just around the corner...

For all of the demented promise of "Santa kills kids" as a story, what distinguishes Rare Exports as a real festive treat is how tastefully the actual violence is handled. More often than not, it's apparent only be flying headgear rolling into shot as old Father Christmas decapitates a naughty someone or other off camera. My only major criticism of the film is that it could as easily have played to a family audience if it weren't for the profanity and shots of Santa's chestnuts flopping around as he chases down his prey.

I criticise this only because if this gets the following it deserves, a souped up American remake is surely inevitable, and they'll take their cue from the 15 certificate content rather than the story. That means it'll be directed by Eli Roth when Joe Dante could do a better job with it. Ho ho ho. But as in the case of Let The Right One In and The Secret in Their Eyes, other modern classics in the foreign language that have been poached by Hollywood, the source material we've got is something far less easy to classify.

What Jalmari Helander, the creator of this concept, has managed to do in his script and in his direction is to balance festive spirit with demented and slightly disgusting horror elements. Santa, when we see him, is repulsive- as the resourceful Pietari, our leading boy, tells us, "the Coca-Cola Santa is a lie". Even though he borrows certain elements from The Thing and Raiders of the Lost Ark to pitch the feature, Helander goes all out to subvert that hegemonised American image of Santa Claus, making a film that's not so much The Santa Clause as Aliens, the Christmas special.

The pace might be slow overall, but viewing it from the outside after the fantastic second half, it's about Pietari's growth from a boy into a man in the most isolated homestead imaginable. In the slower parts of the film, we see how he has to put up with teasing from his dickhead friend, and piss in the snow for lack of a bathroom in the cabin where he lives. The biggest attraction is the expedition at the top of the nearby mountain. Once that all goes wrong, he becomes something of a badass, tooling up with a rifle and hockey gear for armour, and setting bear traps in the fireplace in case Santa comes down the chimney.

Few other filmmakers could afford to pace things as slowly in such a manageable 83 minute film, but Helander pulls it all together rather well. The actors seem to have it down, and Onni Tommila, who plays our hero, overcomes that notion that all child actors seem to give good performances in a foreign language because English audiences can't understand what they're saying to hear how they delivered it. For Tommila, it's all about his poise and his approach as much as his dialogue. You can totally believe him as a makeshift action hero.

Rare Exports is the best festive film in years, and despite its deadpan approach, it really is within reaching distance of being like Gremlins, rather than making a Christmas exploitation film like Black Christmas or that Jack Frost that didn't have Michael Keaton in it. This currently sits as one of my favourite films of the year, and I'll definitely be revisiting it next December, to enjoy more of its twists and turns, its gleeful grubbiness and the warm Christmas feeling it left me with. You'd better not shout. You'd better not cry. You'd better not pout, I'm telling you why. There's a serious possibility they might remake this in Hollywood. And fuck it up.

Rare Exports is playing in selected cinemas nationwide. Seek it out and have a very merry Christmas.
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If you've seen Rare Exports, why not share your comments below? If you really can't make it to a cinema that's showing the film, the short film embedded below is a more than reasonable substitute to tide you over.



I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

You Know, For Kids! - THE HOLE 3D Review

Joe Dante, he of Gremlins and Small Soldiers fame, is pretty much the reigning king of this kind of movie, mostly because no one's made an effort to take his crown since he last made a family-oriented horror film. And in The Hole, we finally have someone using irksome technology in a really appealing way, to tell a really compelling story.

That story involves Lucas and Dane, two brothers who move into a new house with their mother, only to find a trapdoor in their basement that seemingly leads to a bottomless pit. Along with girl-next-door Julie, their natural first response is to goof around with it. But the abyss also gazes and puts the kids up against their worst fears as it tries to claim each of them.

By family-oriented horror, I'm really talking about entry-level horror, on the same wavelength as Doctor Who. The best thing about this type of horror is that it scares out the optimum response from its audience without trying too hard, as you'd think it would have to. You could collect up the amount of blood spilled in this entire film in a thimble, but it offers up far more scares and thrills than its supposedly adult counterparts, like Saw or Final Destination. 

Dante's aiming for the primal fears of childhood in his characters, whether irrational phobias, or more emotional fears, rooted in loss and childhood trauma. He doesn't trivialise the irrational though, actually giving ample reason for those fears rather than messing around with perspective to show how silly such a fear would be. Younger brother Lucas is terrified of clowns, for instance. By the end of the film, I'd be surprised if the majority of younger viewers weren't also terrified of clowns.

I mention Doctor Who, because it very much has the same target audience as this film. Anyone who enjoys being frightened by whatever nightmare fuel Steven Moffat has ignited each week will adore The Hole. It's not for the very youngest of children, but kids upwards of 8 years old will really go for this. The 12A certificate is pretty apt- this is definitely more extreme than PG-rated fare like Monster House or Coraline- but it's still suitable for some who wouldn't get in without their parents. It's a horror film for the whole family, and I'd even say it's worth shelling out for 3D tickets.

We've seen 3D used pretty superficially before now- if you want to quibble about other great examples, then I'll admit the flying scenes in How to Train Your Dragon were very good and no horror film has equalled the fun exploitation of the technology in My Bloody Valentine.  But here, Dante uses 3D to convey emotion. It's not beneath him to do the "throw stuff at the audience" gag, but it's always more intriguing when we see one of our heroes alone and afraid in the middle all that added depth James Cameron has been banging on about.

The only shortcomings of the 3D are reflective surfaces. It may seem like an odd niggle, but if you look at any given window or shiny object in this, it looks animated. There's presumably some confusing photographic reason for it, but it's occasionally distracting. There's also a bit of weirdly obvious ADR here and there too, marring otherwise great performances by the leads. Chris Massoglia and Nathan Gamble are believable siblings and Haley Bennett is probably going to be something of an adolescent crush du jour, like Phoebe Cates in Gremlins before her.

It's not exactly an illustrious field, but I also think it's the finest horror film of 2010. Indeed, it leaves one released just this week, Devil, in the shade. To directly compare for a moment, this has more jumps and tension in any given 10 minutes than Devil has in 80 minutes, and the catharsis of Shyamalan's film utterly undermines any fear factor that might have been there. Instead, Dante opts to make a film as much about the fear as about overcoming it, and it's supremely entertaining.

Maybe it's not quite as anarchic as Gremlins and Small Soldiers, but Joe Dante makes a very welcome return with The Hole. Mark L. Smith's script is part of the reason why we've got a more sentimental film, but that's not a mark against the film- it's never over-balanced by sentiment. I don't know how else to recommend it now that I've already said it's my favourite horror film of the year so far, and a 3D film that's worth the price of admission. There can be no higher praise! But it's dark, whimsical, and will spook viewers of all ages- everyone should check this out. 

The Hole 3D is now showing in 3D (duh) in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Hole 3D, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? Hey, there's arguably more shame in being scared by a torture porn film than by this family film, so go see it, huh?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.