Great concept let down by the execution. It's an entertaining film but I can't help feeling the Santa myth is rich enough to be subverted in many more ways than they manage to include in this film.

Good Movie

The first hour rocked! Kinnda wish they'd kept it at that. Surprisingly good acting.

Visually pleasing and the adult actors do a good job. The script is rather poor given how good the idea is.

The film has a lot of gorgeous cinematography. It takes a long time to get to the point, but the last 20 minutes just make it all worthwhile.

It's unevenly put together at times, but this is such a delicious inversion of the Christmas story that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Under the black comedy lurks a genuine sense of menace which gives it a great atmosphere.

In the frozen wastes of northern Finland, an excavation team discovers the REAL Santa Claus buried within a mountain--and a young boy who's done his research knows just how much trouble is in store. Like its protagonists, it's a straight-faced, rather grim affair, but the sharp direction and strong acting--especially from Onni Tommila as our hero--see it through, and there's a weird, darkly whimsical coda to send you out smiling. Looks very good, given what was likely a tight budget.

Interesting concept, uneven execution.

This Finnish look at the dark side of the festive season is an odd, darkly funny movie that defies categorisation. Often horrific, but more frequently wryly amusing, director Helander offers a truly unusual take on Father Christmas, pitched somewhere between Futurama and Black Xmas.

"Santa is one bad mamma jamma in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, a yuletide fable that's equal parts sincere, silly, and scary." - Nick Schager

Rare Exports isn't the sinister horror the trailers promised. But it is an incredible Christmas/Family film. It really captures the childlike essence of 80's films such as Gremlins, Goonies and ET. The end sees a dramatic action heavy finale, which surprisingly works. Rare Exports also remembers to have a heart, as the boy struggles with his distant father.

Earns points for the Spielbergian, child's-eye fantastical tone it takes, but sometimes silly's just silly. Worth seeing, though, and I won't forget the image of a dozen naked old elves stalking our heroes anytime soon.

A fun, extremely silly movie. What parents should show their kids to calm them down after they find out Santa isn't real.

Ingenious idea and pretty nice visuals though you cannot find that majestic mountains from Finland (it was shot in the Northern Norway instead). Tommi Korpela was brilliant as always, but the kid actors were painfully bad. Jalmari Helander spoiled almost totally the promising black comedy script.

Building on the two amusing shorts it doesn't quite deliver. The idea is still great and they developed it into something even better, but they don't quite reap the fruits of it in the third act, which really had potential to be the most awesome part of any horrormovie ever made. Sadly it falls short and doesn't achieve this. Also: I know that several countries are calling themselves "the home of the real Santa" but after this one, I think Finland is definitely out of the race.

Killer Santa Claus flick that is more of an oddball dark comedy than a horror film, it never really revels in the gore and the atmosphere is threatening but not scary at all. For a movie that takes its sweet time getting to all the plot points, it rushes though the ending way too fast....still, it had a child character I didn't want to murder, so points for that. The boy was actually weird and funny, and behaved like a real kid, not how a Hollywood writer thinks kids should be.

http://gorgview.com/rare-exports-a-christmas-tale

And now for something completely different. This is an odd film.

The movie takes too long to get interesting, and when it finally does, it ends very anticlimactically.

A hilarious black comedy that is refreshingly subtle, not always exploiting or taking its absurd premise to the extreme. A unique addition to the Christmas canon.

It wasn’t as good as I was hoping for, but I suppose it was entertaining. The ending was pretty anti-climactic though, I felt.

Crazy story and I really liked it.

i'm not familiar with the kind of thing i'm seeing

To fully enjoy this movie, you truly have to be a Finn or one that knows the Finnish people well, as a lot of the atmosphere and banter is based on the nationality. From the constant swearing to the Finnish Äijä-stereotype (with not even one single female character around, mind you) it's an entertaining black comedy that will certainly delight those who generally dislike the "traditional" Christmas hassle.

what the hell did i just see?

It started out interesting and quite promising but I guess I expected something different. Maybe some things got lost in translation but anyways, I don't think it was too good. Oh, and never in my life did I want to see the naked bums of about 200 old men!

Dark, Bizarre Christmas Tale from Finland! Mildly entertaining, but worth a look if you are so over Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!

Despite the ridiculous number of shriveled elf penises I was forced to endure... Wait, let me rephrase that. Despite the ridiculous number of shriveled elf penises shoved down my throat... Er... How about, despite the ridiculous number of shriveled elf penises recorded onto a digital film medium and then relayed to me via a countless number of 0s & 1s arranged in a way that when manipulated by a computing device they would once again resemble shriveled elf penises...I really enjoyed this movie.

A bit anticlimactic.