A Movie A Day Keeps The Zombies Away

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

In the depths of the Korvatunturi mountains, 486 meters deep, lies the closest ever guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up! This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus.

A Finnish Christmas, with an original take on the origin of Santa Clause. This was a delightful treat that tickled my funny bone. A nice combination of fantasy, some horror and action. 

All from the mind of director Jalmari Helander. I thought he had something, something i felt/feel when i watch a Tim Burton film. Hmmm… Dark and whimsical. Not bad for his 1st full length feature, i’m impressed.

Great cinematography and lighting, this was beautiful. There’s also pretty decent CGI work, not the best but good enough. There were some questionable “WTF? really?” scenes/dialogue, but that didn’t take the fun out of this this absurd holiday thrill ride.

This film is driven by it’s quirky cast of characters. Oh boy the “Santa” was creepy! Crazy old man. The hunters were pretty funny too, a bit cliche but funny. Amazing performance by the young Onni Tommila. 

So they unearth a creature and then things go wrong. Children go missing and mysterious things occur. What the hell is going on here?!? The hunters find themselves solving the mystery of the excavation, and come face to face with The Santa Clause. It was like a 30 Days of Night (2007) with “little helpers” instead of vampires.

And just when you think it’s over, the ending made me break out a huge smile.

I had so much fun watching this! Really wish i had seen this earlier… goddamn, THE Christmas movie of 2010!!!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401143/