Director - Jalmari Helander (The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions 2005)
Starring - Omni Tommila (Last Cowboy Standing), Jorma Tommila (Priest of Evil), and Tommi Korpela (Purge)
Release Date - 2010
Genre - Horror/Fantasy
Tagline - "This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus," "This holiday season, the real Santa Claus is coming to town," and "You thought you didn't believe in Santa Claus anymore"
Format - Streaming (Netflix)
Favorite Quote - "The real Santa was totally different. The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax"
Rating (out of 5):
Some time during the summer I was getting an order ready on amazon.com when I saw this film in the recommended for me section. I often don't buy international films because I don't find them entertaining. Sure, I love Asian splatter films, but for the most part international flicks just don't offer me anything. I like shitty American movies...go 'Merica. However, I do love watching Christmas horror and decided to check if it was on Netflix, and it was. This movie is a Finnish film that was adapted in to a full length movie after the director had a string of hits with a series of short films similar in plot. I figured it may not be good enough to buy but it would, at least, be good enough to watch on Netflix.
This little holiday film opens with an excavation on a mountain in Finland by a team of Americans. It is 25 days till Christmas and the team is looking for something buried at the bottom of the mountain and encased in ice. They are instructed to have whatever it is removed from the mountain by Christmas. Two boys cut the fence wire and are snooping around and leave when they start using dynamite to blast the mountain. The boys rush home and tell no one of what they did. Pietari knows what they are looking for. He has been reading books and he knows the truth about Santa Claus. We then jump to December 23rd and Pietari's father and Pietari go to visit other villagers. Pietari's father is a commercial reindeer herder and rely on the reindeer to make a living, however, when waiting on the reindeer to arrive from the woods they only spot two runts. They jump on their snow mobiles and ride over the mountain to find that all the reindeer had been slaughtered. The herders are angry and blame the Americans for blasting the mountain and driving the wolves down. They also find the cut in the fence and know that is how the wolves escaped the inclosure. Pietari knows the truth behind the reindeer's death and finds a human footprint under one of the wolf carcasses. Pissed off, the herders drive up the mountain and find the work site deserted and a giant hole cut in the top of the mountain. The following day, December 24th, Pietari goes outside and discovers that the pig head over his father's wolf trap has disappeared. He calls for his father and, after inspecting it, he discovers a man in the pit. He does not tell Pietari about the man in the pit and makes him go in the house. He calls another herder and the two take the body to the shed he uses to butcher the animals. Once inside we see that the body is actually an elderly man with a long beard and nude. Pietari sneaks to the window of the shed and spots the body on the slab. His father catches him spying through the window and Pietari runs off and on to the road. His father grabs his truck and chases him and finds him get in a police cruiser. The police cruiser drives off and he follows it until they arrive at another reindeer herder's home. There the police questions his father and the herder before revealing that everyone had their radiators and stoves stolen last night. The other herder and Pietari go back to his father's butcher shed. Once inside the elderly man moves because Pietari is there. Pietari tells everyone that this is the ancient Santa that was imprisoned in ice. In a coat that was near his body in the pit, the herders find a radio and tell them they have Santa and want money for the reindeer. They meet the people responsible for this at an airfield where he informs them that the thing they captured is not Santa, but one of his many helpers. The man is immediately killed by another helper as others arrive from the woods and the surrounding compound. The group flee in to a hanger and once inside find the giant ice block with Santa inside it and all the stolen radiators and stoves pointed toward him, along with a mound of naughty children in nap sacks. Pietari knows that Santa's helpers will follow him if he has all the naughty children so they hoist them to a helicopter and fly them to an enclosure meant for reindeer. While Pietari and a herder do this, the remaining two herders drill holes in the ice and place dynamite inside. The group pull the plan off and destroy the Santasicle while capturing all the helpers. Wanting to make their money back for all the slaughtered reindeer, the herders wash and clean the helpers and sell them as mall Santas.
I did not expect much from this movie and I was pleasantly surprised. I was under the impression I was watching an evil Santa film, and to an extent, I was correct. However, the twist the movie took threw me completely off guard. The story is what truly made this movie and I loved it. The acting is decent I guess. It is really hard to judge something like that when you have to read the subtitles to a film, but for the most part I really liked that aspect. As for the special effects, the movie kinda skips on that. There is no real kills on camera. A guy is hit in the head with a pick axe, but other than that this movie does veer away from the horror aspect. The movie looks and feels like a fantasy film. However, that does not take away from the movie at all. This movie had me and my wife glued to the television. On the downside, the pacing with this movie has some serious problems. The movie just seems to drag out in many of the scenes with dialogue that is pointless. These scenes build in tension making the viewer assume something drastic is about to happen and then boom...nothing. That was my biggest concern with this flick, in fact, that is my only concern. This movie should be added to your holiday watch list. You will not be disappointed.
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