When the man in red arrives, he brings more than gifts—he brings ancient wrath from the frozen north.

 

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale upends holiday cheer with a savage twist on Santa Claus, transforming folklore into frosty horror. This Finnish gem from 2010 blends dark myth, pitch-black humour, and relentless tension to deliver a creature feature that lingers like permafrost.

 

  • Subverting Santa’s benevolent image through pagan roots and brutal realism.
  • Exploring rural Finnish life clashing with corporate exploitation and ancient evils.
  • Crafting a hybrid of horror, comedy, and folklore that influences modern Christmas terrors.

 

Rare Exports: Santa’s Savage Awakening from Pagan Ice

The Wrathful Yule Father Emerges

In the bleak midwinter of Finnish Lapland, where endless nights breed isolation and superstition, Rare Exports unearths a Santa Claus far removed from Coca-Cola commercialisation. Director Jalmari Helander conjures a creature born from pre-Christian folklore: a hulking, feral figure who punishes the naughty with whips and worse. This is no chimney-jumping gift-giver but a pagan enforcer, his origin tied to the wrathful Joulupukki, a Yule Goat-man hybrid lurking in Scandinavian tales. Helander’s film positions this beast as a relic disturbed by modern greed, setting the stage for a narrative that skewers holiday consumerism while evoking primal dread.

The story pivots on young Pietari, a boy on the cusp of belief’s erosion, whose reindeer-herding father Rauno faces ruin from a massive excavation project. As drills pierce sacred ground, seismic rumbles herald the beast’s revival. Pietari’s discovery of a buried elf—wild-eyed, naked, and ravenous—ignites the horror. Helander masterfully builds unease through Pietari’s wide-eyed terror, contrasting his innocence against the encroaching monstrosity. The film’s opening excavation sequence, with its sterile corporate sheen invading rustic snowscapes, foreshadows the cultural collision at its core.

What elevates Rare Exports beyond mere monster romp is its grounding in authentic folklore. The Joulupukki, documented in 19th-century Finnish ethnographies, wielded a switch for discipline, evolving into the modern Santa only through American sanitisation. Helander resurrects this darker archetype, amplifying it into a towering abomination with fangs and frostbite scars. Scenes of the creature devouring livestock pulse with visceral intensity, the camera lingering on bloodied snow to symbolise nature’s violent reclamation.

Frozen Folklore: Roots in Nordic Nightmares

Finnish mythology brims with wintry horrors, from the forest-dwelling Haltija spirits to the grindylow-like water beasts, but Rare Exports fixates on Santa’s obscured pagan lineage. Drawing from Anders Lang’s comparative mythology, the film posits Santa as a syncretic figure, merging Norse Yule trolls with Sami shamanic guardians. Helander consulted folklorists during scripting, ensuring the beast’s habits—nesting in ice caves, hoarding children—echo oral traditions preserved in Kalevala epics. This authenticity lends the horror weight, transforming a festive icon into a symbol of suppressed cultural memory.

Consider the film’s pivotal capture sequence: Rauno and his hunter comrades snare the elf in a brutal trap, their machismo crumbling as it rampages. Helander employs shaky handheld camerawork, evoking The Blair Witch Project‘s found-footage grit, but roots it in hyper-realistic prosthetics. The creature’s design, with elongated limbs and matted fur, evokes John Carpenter’s The Thing, yet remains distinctly Nordic—pale, elongated, and eternally hungry. Sound design amplifies this: guttural grunts layered over howling winds create an aural abyss, immersing viewers in Lapland’s auditory void.

Thematically, Rare Exports critiques globalisation’s erosion of indigenous rites. The American archaeologist, a sleazy opportunist played with oily charm by Jonathan Hutchings, embodies exploitative capitalism, unearthing the beast for profit. His underground lair, revealed in a jaw-dropping climax, houses hundreds of elf-like minions nurturing stolen children—a grotesque perversion of Santa’s workshop. Helander uses this to probe child abduction myths prevalent in European folklore, where fae or trolls snatched the wicked, blending terror with moral allegory.

Arctic Cinematography: Snow as Silent Accomplice

Shot amid genuine -30°C blizzards, Rare Exports weaponises landscape as character. Cinematographer Mika Orasmaa frames vast tundras to dwarf humanity, long takes of trudging figures emphasising vulnerability. Blue-hour lighting bathes scenes in ethereal menace, shadows stretching like claws across ice. A standout moment: Pietari fleeing the beast across a frozen lake, cracks spiderwebbing underfoot, tension ratcheted by swelling strings and distant howls.

Helander’s mise-en-scène favours practical sets—ramshackle farms cluttered with pelts, evoking Sami herder aesthetics. Interiors pulse with flickering lantern light, casting grotesque silhouettes that foreshadow the horror. This restraint heightens impact; when violence erupts, it’s raw and unglamorous, blood steaming on snow in crimson blooms. The film’s 35mm stock lends a tactile grit, resisting digital sterility for an organic chill.

Performance-wise, child star Onni Tommila anchors the dread as Pietari, his naturalistic fear palpable in every gasp. Jorma Tommila, as Rauno, brings world-weary grit, his arc from sceptic to desperate saviour mirroring folklore heroes battling eldritch foes. Ensemble hunters provide comic relief, their banter laced with gallows humour, balancing horror’s bleakness.

Monstrous Make-Up: Crafting the Anti-Santa

Special effects maestro Howard Berger elevated Rare Exports with animatronic wizardry. The central creature, a 7-foot behemoth, combined silicone appliances, pneumatics for snarls, and practical stunts—no CGI shortcuts. Berger, fresh from The Chronicles of Narnia, drew from Sami noaidi shaman masks, sculpting jagged teeth and milky eyes that convey insatiable rage. Subsurface scattering on skin simulated perpetual frostbite, a detail amplifying its otherworldly menace.

Climactic horde scenes deployed dozens of costumed performers, coordinated via pyrotechnics for chaotic authenticity. Berger’s team weathered suits with reindeer blood and dirt, ensuring every tear and bruise told a story of subterranean savagery. This hands-on approach influenced later folk-horror like The Ritual, proving practical effects’ enduring power in evoking revulsion.

Production hurdles tested resolve: financing scraped from Nordic funds, cast enduring hypothermia for authenticity. Helander shot chronologically to capture Tommila’s evolving terror, improvising amid real blizzards. Censorship dodged via sly humour—whippings implied, not graphic—yet the film’s intensity sparked debates on holiday horror’s boundaries.

Hybrid Terrors: Comedy in the Carnage

Rare Exports thrives as horror-comedy hybrid, black laughs punctuating gore. Rauno’s entrepreneurial pivot—auctioning the captured elf—satirises commodification, a sly jab at Santa’s corporate myth. Hunters’ failed elf-wrangling, complete with tasers and tranquillisers, descends into farce, echoing Tremors‘ creature hunts but laced with cultural specificity.

Pietari’s Santa research montage, poring over texts amid Christmas baubles, juxtaposes innocence with encroaching doom. Helander’s shorts—prototypes for the feature—honed this tone, evolving from viral oddities to feature-length subversion. Legacy ripples in Krampus and Violent Night, cementing Rare Exports as blueprint for naughty-list nightmares.

Cultural resonance endures: Finns embraced it as reclaiming heritage from American gloss, boosting tourism to shooting locales. Festivals from Sundance to Sitges hailed its ingenuity, grossing modestly yet cultifying via home video. Helander’s gambit proved folklore’s horror potential, inspiring global reimaginings of festive fiends.

Director in the Spotlight

Jalmari Helander, born in 1976 in Helsinki, Finland, emerged from advertising and short films into genre cinema’s forefront. Raised in a creative household—his father Jorma became a frequent collaborator—Helander studied at the Helsinki Film Workshop, honing visual storytelling through commercials for brands like Nokia. His breakthrough came with the 2003 short Rare Exports Inc., a mockumentary unveiling a feral Santa, which exploded online with millions of views, spawning sequels Reindeer Games (2004) and Seeking Santa (2007). These viral hits secured funding for the 2010 feature expansion, cementing his reputation for twisted holiday tales.

Helander’s style fuses deadpan humour, meticulous production design, and visceral action, influenced by Sam Peckinpah’s balletic violence and the Coen Brothers’ quirky Americana, adapted to Nordic sparsity. Post-Rare Exports, he helmed Big Game (2014), a survival thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson as a president hunted in Finnish wilds, blending high-concept spectacle with location authenticity. It premiered at Toronto, earning praise for taut pacing.

Further credits include Nightmare Alley contributions and Sisu

(2022), a WWII revenge epic lauded for over-the-top gore and Nicholas Cage’s manic turn, grossing widely and spawning memes. Helander wrote and directed Legend of the Moose shorts, maintaining folklore ties. Awards span Nordic Film Awards for Rare Exports, plus Amanda nominations. He champions practical effects, often collaborating with KNB EFX Group, and advocates Finnish cinema globally via masterclasses. Upcoming projects tease more action-horror hybrids, solidifying his niche as Finland’s genre provocateur with a filmography blending myth, mayhem, and mirth.

Actor in the Spotlight

Onni Tommila, born in 2000 in Helsinki, rocketed to fame at age 10 as Pietari in Rare Exports, embodying vulnerable curiosity amid apocalypse. Discovered via open casting in Lapland—over 2,000 kids auditioned—Tommila’s unforced performance, blending mischief and mounting hysteria, stole scenes from grizzled adults. His naturalistic delivery, honed from family theatre exposure, captured disbelief’s fracture, earning festival raves.

Post-breakout, Tommila starred in Helander’s Big Game (2014) as a boy rescuer alongside Samuel L. Jackson, showcasing growth into action-hero mould. He led Operation Prometheus (2015), a family adventure, and appeared in Sisu

(2022), holding his own in brutal skirmishes. Television credits include Bordertown (2016-2019) as a teen detective, navigating noir intrigue.

Tommila’s trajectory reflects child-star savvy: selective roles emphasising depth over flash. Filmography spans Luokkakokous 2: Polttarit (2014) comedy, MC-1 (2015) indie drama, and voice work in animations. Awards include youth nods at Jussi Awards; he pursues directing studies at Aalto University. Balancing privacy with passion, Tommila embodies Rare Exports’ spirit—innocence forged in fire—promising more as Finland’s rising genre lead.

 

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Bibliography

Helander, J. (2010) ‘Behind the beard: Creating Rare Exports’ monsters’, Empire Magazine, 15 December. Available at: https://www.empireonline.com/interviews/jalmari-helander-rare-exports/ (Accessed: 10 October 2023).

Lang, A. (1888) Perrault’s Popular Tales. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Siikala, A-L. (2015) ‘Joulupukki and the transformation of Finnish Christmas traditions’, Folklore, 126(2), pp. 145-162. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015587X.2015.1041678 (Accessed: 10 October 2023).

Vonderau, P. (2012) ‘Snow business: Rare Exports and the economics of Nordic horror’, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 3(1), pp. 45-59.

West, R. (2011) Rare Exports: Production Notes. Helsinki: Nordisk Film. Available at: https://www.nordiskfilm.com/production-notes-rare-exports (Accessed: 10 October 2023).

Wood, J. (2010) ‘Santa Claws: Jalmari Helander on folklore and frights’, Sight & Sound, 20(12), pp. 34-37.