Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Rare Exports

Dan: This was a rarity.

Rare exports,

Reegs: Lon A Christmas Tale

Sidey: Finish movie.

Reegs: Yeah. It's brought to us by the same people who brought Sisu to the screen. The finish Action movie that we liked from this one was, predates it considerably. This was Director Yamar Hele and with the guy who was also in Sisu Yamar.

Domer.

Dan: mla.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So this is a very different Christmas film.

Sidey: It's almost identical to El.

Dan: A horror. Yeah. Not like Elf our previous chatted about film. This is a, yeah. A like a science fiction horror.

Reegs: Oh, it's. I guess it poses the question, and what if Santa Claus wasn't a jolly fat man giving out presents?

He was a horrible, nightmarish monster who kidnapped

Dan: Well, it, it leans into those other Scandinavian tales

Of

St. [00:01:00] Nicholas and, you

Reegs: well

actually in Finnish. In Finnish, its Yoki Yu goat,

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Like,

but definitely that sort of depiction of him that you've seen before with horns where he looks like leaning in basically into the pagan elements of Santa Claus.

That you know where all of this kind of comes from.

Dan: Well, it opens up in an office where one guy who's kind of got Indiana Jones vibes, you know, the, that, that guy.

Reegs: He also looks a bit like any number of elderly of sort of sixties British. Character actors. Yeah. Like all

Dan: dressed like Colombo, but had that evil what's the name of that guy in the Indiana Jones.

And he, he

Reegs: the one with a burnt hand.

Dan: the Gestapo dude. And he, he had a burnt hand. So he, he is a little bit like that and he's explaining to a drilling like

Reegs: the head of the drilling

Dan: head of the, the drilling guy who's on top of the hill. They've got a load of dynamite and he is saying, look, what we think is. We're [00:02:00] not sure.

We thought we had hit a tree. There's loads of, you know, tree bark

Reegs: it's sawdust

saw dust. They, they, they, they've drilled into the mountain and they've discovered a, something, a block of ice, but surrounded by sawdust and it gets Riley, the American, whatever, Colombo guy. Very excited, straight away.

Dan: And he hands out a new set of

Reegs: Yeah. no bad language.

Dan: Wash behind your ears. No drinking, no smoking, drinking, all the

Reegs: nice to people

Dan: And

They're

like, what, what you doing? Because it's otherwise, he's a serious drilling guy and he gives him quite the reprimand. He goes, just bloody, make sure you do it. There's new rules.

This is health and safety. Yeah.

Reegs: And where they are, they're at the

Cotu mining site.

Dan: uri.

Reegs: Corvin,

Dan: yeah. And it's fenced off this area, but two young boys hidden behind the crates of dynamite. Looking at what's [00:03:00] going on here. And

Reegs: the one called Pie, our sort of hero is the actor.

Yuri Tom Miller's son. Right on Tom Miller.

Dan: Okay. And they're both checking out what's going on here. They shouldn't be there. And they escape back down the hill. They've cut a hole in the fence with pliers and they've got a snowmobile, and they hightail it out there and they're going, well, what's going on there? I wonder what they're doing.

You know, I, I think they're trying to find Santa Claus and the older boy. Josh. Yoshi uso, he kind of goes. Don't talk rubbish. You don't? Yeah.

Reegs: A bit of a mullet. Yeah, he had a massive mullet. Yeah, it was amazing.

Dan: And he said, don't be such a baby. It doesn't exist. Come on, let's get back home. And they're living out in the middle of fucking nowhere.

It's just ice. It's freezing.

Reegs: beautiful though. The scenery is frequently absolutely stunning.

Dan: is, it is.

Reegs: if you know, if you like winter and [00:04:00] snow

Dan: Yeah. In your underpants, because that's where he turns up next is, is

Reegs: oh, well we do though. We get a little bit of a montage over the credits of him reading about the evil Santas,

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: we?

Yeah. That's when he kind of discovers all the books and we see the horns that will set us up for later and all that sort of stuff.

Dan: Yeah. He's got a, a series of, of old books and things,

Reegs: and they tell us a story I think about how in prehistoric times the San people had lured Santa Claus, who was this demonic entity out to the middle of a lake and had trapped him in some ice.

Dan: And used the sawdust to keep the ice cold. Yeah. And then put 'em in the bottom of this mountain because he used to take kids and flog 'em and boil 'em. And anybody that was, that was bad. So, obviously they didn't like that and took away

Reegs: yeah, we get a cool thing, don't we? 'cause it starts with like one of those tickets 24 days to Christmas and you get all the bit there and then it jumps to like two days or one day to Christmas, whatever it I can't [00:05:00] remember what it is, but we're certainly picking up the story right before we know things are

Sidey: about. Well, we see the old man building a trap.

Reegs: Yeah. With a pig's head in it.

Sidey: He's he's dug a pit.

He's carving spikes, putting them in the ground.

He comes at the leaves, then snow, and then yeah, he hangs the pig's head over the top. His bait, he's trying to catch

Dan: with, with an apple in it. And yeah, it's clear that you wouldn't, and he put, he is a really good trap. He put snow over it and everything.

And I was thinking don't let the kids go down there at that.

of stage. But he's frightened that with all the, the dynamite going on, the wolves are gonna be running into around his, his area. So that's for the wolves. And then he's also concerned that his reindeer that he's herds aren't coming back.

But two of them suddenly appear over the horizon and they're very excited. They open the gates to let them all in this big pen. And [00:06:00] that's it. The rest of them aren't there. So they, they go off exploring.

Reegs: He saddles up with two of his

Dan: Yeah. They're all in it together. They're all reindeer herders and that is basically their livelihood.

And they go into towards the, the fence line where the boys had made a hole and they see 85 dead reindeer. And it's quite the site. They're, they're looking through and he's convinced obviously, that they're Russians up there on the mountains or they're allowed

Russians

to come through over land and they're the ones that are causing all the trouble.

There's kind of that anti

Reegs: well, he talks about the border thing, but it's definitely an anti globalist thing actually in the end there with the, definitely we talk about the ending

Dan: Right.

Reegs: there, but yeah. It. They know that stuff's been going off at the mountain, that there's been a, a team there and they're pissed off now 'cause he's like, that would've cost me $85,000.

That's cost [00:07:00] me, you know, that's our livelihood done for the winter sort of thing. So we're gonna go and get some reparations and they head up there with the kids in to. I love this. It, they're strapping up with shotguns and shit. Everybody's open carrying like shotguns and that as they walk around, including the kids and like, right, we're gonna go off for a confrontation with these guys, put the kid on the front of the snow bike and off we go.

They go up there and then it reminded me a bit of the thing.

Sidey: Yeah. I got some thing vibes. Yeah.

Reegs: he's got the flare and all that sort of stuff.

Dan: Well, that's it. There's a huge hole in the middle of the mountain and nobody's around.

Reegs: and it's all been abandoned. You can see like the, you know, the door was left open and all that

Dan: Yeah. They look like they've left in a hurry. He throws that flare down, it just keeps going. You can't even see the bottom of it. And he's like, wow, fat. Lot of good that did his and when he gets back the next morning.

When

Sidey: this is Christmas Eve.

Reegs: Christmas Eve

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. He, he, he wakes up [00:08:00] the, the little boy.

Reegs: Well, he's put traps, he's sort of home alone. His house including a bear trap in the chimney. Yeah. Which his father nearly sets off. Oh man. As well. We've had a, a heart wrenching scene the night before because obviously the mother has died and it's a hard time for the father who's trying not to show it to his, son and they sort of bond over a shared memory of the gingerbread

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: his mother used to make.

Dan: and he's, he's having a go at

cooking

best he can. The, the meat's overcooked in the morning. He's really pissed off 'cause he is nearly lost his hand to the bear trap.

Reegs: The kid's like dressed up in all this ridiculous costume, which he just.

Ignores for the most part,

Dan: Well, he says it's a game. Yeah. He's got a helmet, he's got cardboard taped to it. 'cause he's, he's terrified that Santa's gonna come and thrash him and and this, and this is his protective clothing. And when he goes out, he goes, dad, something's taking the bait.

That

Reegs: he goes for a piss, doesn't

Dan: Yeah. And they go [00:09:00] out and find that it isn't. A wolf in there.

Sidey: we see a sort of hand at me.

Dan: yeah, the boy, the, the the dad sees a hand

Sidey: and then he has to try and not let the kid look and it's obviously something to see and he's like, go over there, don't look.

And he is like, what is it? What is it? What is it?

Dan: Nothing.

nothing going. Well, why can't I look? Then he goes, no, just told you. And he, he quite annoyed at him and he says he's grounded. And next thing you see, he's called a friend who's helped him drag this. Body in a tar paulin over into, what is his butchery, I guess? Yeah. Yeah. He's got a, an outhouse, which we've seen him in there before.

And he, the, his son can't go in and open his eyes into this room because it's

Reegs: he has this casual conversation with him. He's like, don't open your eyes, son. And he's gutting this pig, like cutting bits off.

Dan: And so he brings. This old man with a white beard, very skinny. And who's been [00:10:00] speared falling into this and wearing no clothes.

Yeah.

Reegs: Well, I think he's dead at first.

Yeah he is out on the slab, I think, and then he twitches doesn't he is he's going, they're gonna cut the body up because obviously the dad is a bit like, shit, we've killed

someone

Sidey: think that goes do the arm.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: And it twitches, and he's like, fuck. And then he puts his head, or he puts the blade right over his nose and his mouth. He can feel his

Dan: Tough old bug is still alive. Yeah. And yeah, he's the kid

Reegs: turns up

Sidey: Yeah.

he is. They see him looking in through the window. They look up and he is like looking in and go, oh know.

Reegs: So the dad goes out to sort him, the kid out, and then by the time he comes back in, the guy's kind of up and about but not really talking.

And

Sidey: Well mate, he's nearly lost his ear. He's like, put his head Yeah, he's put his head down to towards the guy and he is obviously bitten him. Yeah. So he is obviously a violent fucker as

Dan: a bit more life in him than they first thought.

Reegs: Jabbing him with a broom, trying to get

Dan: Yeah, well they, they've all,

Sidey: just hunched over, isn't he? He's just like in a, almost like a a, a chimney almost by, yeah, by [00:11:00] a, by a wall. And he's just like slumped over again. He's obviously moved over there, but he's still not moving

Dan: as much. Well, he's, he's like,

Sidey: he is just not responding to anything. Something, isn't it? Yeah. It's just

Dan: kind of really

Like crawled into, into the corner and the little boy hails the, the police car that's on the main street outside his house and gets in the car with him and his dad's in pursuit.

As he's run away, he's seen that there's a man in there and he's really scared. He's obviously been talking about Santa Claus and this fits the description as far as he's concerned, but.

Reegs: all sorts of weird stuff

Dan: going on. There's a load of weird

Sidey: Yeah.

The, the policeman says, what the fuck's going on? Like, all this, all the radios been stolen out of all the houses, like, what

Reegs: And the, one of the guys like, oh, my wife's hairdryer was

Sidey: stolen. Yeah.

Reegs: And, and they also treat this as a, oh, that's, that's a bit strange, but nothing to worry about.

A lot of children have disappeared as well, including one of the guy's own kidney. He's just like, oh, fuck it. We'll see him

Dan: later.

Sidey: It's just, I'll be back. Back when it goes

Dan: he, he, he'll

Reegs: like [00:12:00] Christmas Eve. The kid's like 13. He doesn't know where he is. I'll be back later. Don't worry.

Dan: And all the sacks of that were holding potatoes have disappeared as well. So the potatoes are there. There's just like a massive shed of potatoes, but there's no sacks in, in which they were. So with these strange goings on, they head back to his house and he knows that his friend speaks a bit of English and he says, look.

Come with me. 'cause they found, I think Gregory James on the

Reegs: passport of some British guy is clearly not him.

Dan: Yeah.

But they haven't got anything better to go on, so

they use him as, as the translator. And he's, he's quite funny actually 'cause he doesn't have a huge grasp for the English language. But he, he says something like I don't.

What the fuck are you? Give us your money. This guy's got got nothing. Where, where you come from and they realize after a little while that he's either [00:13:00] mad this old guy who they've got in there or he's he's worth something and they think that he's worth something, they're gonna hold him hostage.

Reegs: Yeah

Sidey: They probably chain him up, don't they? Yeah. String him up.

Reegs: They do. That's after the, I think Pieri has told them it is Santa Claus and they've like scoffed at the idea. Yeah. But then isn't it when the, the, there's like a walkie talkie and his pocket goes off or something and the Americans starts talking on the thing, on the blower and suddenly they get this idea of, well, what if they were looking for Santa and this guy's got a big beard and here's a Santa costume that their friend was gonna wear to be the local Santa.

So let's kind of dress him up and hand him back to the organization

that want him,

Dan: which is what they end up doing. So they, they've got him in a cage and he doesn't seem to feel the cold. This guy

And they take him out and it's a blizzard conditions and they go to this big hangar and the helicopter comes down and the [00:14:00] guy who's still trying to play it like, well, have you got the merchandise?

And he goes, how much do you want for it? And one of the friends is saying that we should get millions for this. And the others going, look, I just want 85 grand

Reegs: to cover the loss of the reindeers plus 22% VAT

Dan: VAT plus 22% VAT. And they, he goes, right, well, let me have a look at it. Then he gets up close and he says, this isn't Soner.

This is one of his elves.

yeah.

One of his helpers. One of his helpers.

Sidey: Mm-hmm.

Reegs: And then he instantly lays down the rules. It's got that sort of gremlins type thing, right? Nobody swear. No, because I think we've already seen a, a scene of the Americans being absolutely eviscerated by another one of these, haven't we? A a hangar?

Yeah. Where they've got, they're all like, swearing. Oh, what the fuck? And

suddenly it like, well,

Dan: within five minutes there's another 40 helpers all naked, all edging ever closer

Reegs: all edging, all naked, all edging

Dan: ever closer to them.

Reegs: All these, and they literally [00:15:00] did have a bunch of old naked white

Sidey: men.

You get some for front all later on.

Reegs: Get a lot of dick in this movie. Yeah. I thought you'd like

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: And yeah, so this is good moment to pause. Just check everyone out. But they end up going into the hangar where they find all the radiators. And what they're trying to do is melt the massive

Sidey: They're throwing it out. Yeah.

That

Dan: has Santa.

Reegs: All you can see here is demonic horns.

Sidey: be massive.

Reegs: Protruding from the ice. And all the kids are there, like bound up in sacks.

Dan: Yeah. And all the ra Yeah. Say the radiators are on. So they start trying to call the the place down again by turning all the radiators off. Saving the, the kids,

Sidey: They tried to barricade the doors, don't they? 'cause they're all the elves are

Dan: hand Yeah. The helpers

Sidey: to, to kill 'em.

Reegs: And then the movie takes like a bit of a pivot again, a bit like elf did, but in a different way. This has been much more of a horror movie, grounded, dryly, realistic, and then suddenly goes to a kind of [00:16:00] kid led finale where he cocks the shotgun and the adults start listening to him.

They come up with this crazy plan to herd the old men like their reindeer using the children as bait.

Sidey: They, they keep, basically keep the kids in the bags, isn't they?

Yeah. And put it in a cargo net to be, dragged away by a helicopter,

Reegs: but this is all pie's idea who the kids have been at the periphery of, of all these other things that have been going on.

Sidey: Really. He just climbs on and just holds on

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: to this thing while it's swaying around in subzero, like sub minus 20 degrees.

Yeah. With a helicopter and lures all these

Dan: but it, but it's working. Yeah. They, they are like reindeer and they all go into the pen where the reindeer should have ended up.

I

Reegs: but he has to open the gate for them, Dan, and it looks like he's going to be completely sacrificed, like

Sidey: tell dad what I did all these

Reegs: by all these,

Dan: well, and at the same time his dad's drilling like a. Thousand bits of dynamite into the ice block and saying, this is how Santa is gonna be everywhere, all over the world at one time.

[00:17:00] And they blow off and he's had this kind of

Sidey: they blow off

Dan: hat on the whole time and they, they blow up the ice block and his

Sidey: hat comes off. Yeah. Comes off

Dan: comes off from the blast.

Sidey: and just as he does that, just as they're about to get to Pietro, whatever his name is and tear him limb from limb.

They kind

Dan: kind of pac

Reegs: blow up Santa. I think it kind of like it stops their connection to the hive mind

Sidey: or, yeah, basically. Or they're possessed whatever. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. And they're sort of just suddenly standing around like, need help. Yeah. Helpless old men standing around in the snow. We didn't get to see regrettably the full Santa. He was just

Sidey: I was waiting for that moment, but I guess the budget wasn't there. Yeah.

Dan: Took the horns though, didn't they?

Sidey: They did take the horns, but they look at the, they look at all the, these guys and they're like, how much do you reckon they're worth? Yeah, 85 each and it goes. 16 million, 800,000 and they're like, yeah, sound goes in and then it just goes into like some human trafficking thing.

It's so

Reegs: It's so bizarre. [00:18:00] Yeah. They're suddenly like washing them out in the showers. All these old men,

Dan: it. They hose these old men down and

Reegs: they put them in this like sweatshop where they have to learn to be Santa and like beat them if they

Sidey: don't like,

Reegs: if they're not nice enough and then they ship them off in crates around the world, I guess to malls and whatnot.

For them to be

Dan: Zanzibar seems to be a popular

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. for,

For, Santas. Yeah. And Petra and his dad are, you know, getting on better than ever. They're, they're kind of slapping each other on the back. You are, you're the man now you're the man.

And it was a really, really bizarre ending. Mm-hmm. It was because up until it flipped right there. Up until yeah, the helicopter moment.

Sidey: yeah, It goes when it goes full Goonies.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: it was a different film. It was like, wait a minute, we've only got 10 minutes to finish this. We better,

Sidey: I thought you were gonna get that guy. The one that they've got in the adv avatar bit was gonna start [00:19:00] off with them one by one and maybe the kid would survive and be the one to do something.

But it didn't do it that way. No,

Reegs: it certainly did its own thing. I

Dan: I didn't see. Essentially what a hundred old white men naked in, in snow conditions. With full frontal coming on.

No, with 10 minutes to go.

Sidey: hoping for that, but

Dan: yeah. Yeah. You hope? Always hoping,

Reegs: for it, but this one delivered. Yeah, I think unmistakably a finish. Yeah. Right. So bringing its own sensibility and, good fun like not treating its completely ridiculous premise. Very seriously for the vast majority of the movie, and not making you feel like an idiot for enjoying it, you know, not like winking or mugging at the camera and going, well, isn't this silly? And just the. Beautiful wilderness of Finland and like showcasing those hardy the sorts of faces you don't see in, you know, TV and movies in Hollywood,

Dan: No. Right? Yeah.

Reegs: like lived in real faces.

Dan: And you know, the premise of [00:20:00] leaning into more the, the brother's grim kind of style fairy tales with Santa Claus in that harsh environment really worked.

Really worked. It was just, I, I do wonder if I. They might have tweaked the, the end. I mean, maybe we remember it because it was so ridiculous at at the end. But

Reegs: well, it's based on two short films which focus a bit more.

I think on that kind of end

Dan: right idea. Yeah,

Reegs: the two short films are

Dan: I thought they might turn into reindeer or something.

Those helpers, I thought there might be something more magical going on rather than hosing them down, making them into Santas and sending them off in

Reegs: Yeah, it's weird, isn't it?

Dan: with little brief holes. And thinking the guy. The helicopter was now also like a jet pilot or a massive Airbus pilot.

Wasn't a

cargo Plane. Yeah. In the field. So, yeah. That bit seemed to be knitted together a little bit at the end, but this was 85 [00:21:00] minutes or something. Yeah. It was a pretty

short

Sidey: run time.

Dan: short run time, and definitely a good silly Christmas film.

Sidey: enjoyed it too. Yeah, definitely.

Reegs: Yeah. Good. I, you know, it. Some shared some of those like references to things like the thing or gremlins and other even Christmas, like home alone elements to it as well, but definitely uniquely its own thing as well.

Yeah, strong recommend for me.

Dan: Strong,