The pub bore's favourite piece of trivia around Christmastime is to bring up something about the dark, mysterious history of the Santa Claus myth, or to inform you on how different incarnations of Father Christmas in foreign countries are just oh-so-different and wacky! All of those tedious conversations may have been worth it, however, if it meant that we got Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale in return. A gloriously deranged and dark Finish film expanded from an earlier short, Rare Exports sees a group of local reindeer herders having their work disturbed by excavations on a nearby mountain. Turns out that the scientists behind the dig are messing with forces they couldn't possibly understand, and those forces are the creatures that later inspired the stories of Santa Claus bringing presents to good children at Christmas. Of course it turns out the truth was far more frightening than the legend, as the herders (and the young son of one of them) end up running for their lives from a supernatural being who punishes the naughty and then some. It's violent, it's silly, it's occasionally quite scary, but mostly it's a Finnish film about creepy, bloodthirsty Slender Man-esque Santas eating people during the festive period.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
