Editorials
Some Fairytales Are True: 10 Years Later, Celebrating Holiday Horror Classic ‘Rare Exports’
A lot of movies take a new twist on an old fairytale or legend, but few do it with the panache, wit, and subtle satire of Rare Exports-A Christmas Tale. Expanded from two short films, Rare Exports Inc. (2003) and The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions (2005), also from writer/director Jalmari Helander, it is a film filled with the darkest of dark humor, as biting as the winter chill on screen. It jabs a thumb in the eye of the Disneyfied versions of our most dangerous stories and twists the nose of corporate greed and ecological irresponsibility. Still, for all its sharp edges, at its heart it is the story of a father and son. But it begins with one man’s obsession.
At the direction of Riley (Per Christian Ellefsen) and his powerful Subzero corporation, workers have been drilling into Korvatunturi mountain and discover something strange: a layer of sawdust sixty-five feet thick far below the surface. Riley comments that sawdust was once commonly used to keep ice from melting. The mountain is, in a sense a giant freezer, but does not reveal what he believes is being preserved. He tells the foreman, Brian Greene (Jonathan Hutchings-who narrated the short films), to prepare to blast with dynamite and orders all workers to a strict code of conduct including no smoking, drinking, or cursing. In a speech, he declares to the workers that they are standing upon a “sacred grave.” A tomb that puts “even the pyramids to shame.” The speech is overheard by young Pietari (Onni Tommila) and his friend Juuso (Ilmari Järvenpää). Pietari is convinced that Riley has found the ancient tomb of Santa Claus and begins to study up.
Through his research, Pietari quickly discovers a much darker vision of the Santa legend than he had ever heard before. He reads stories of a cruel, horned creature that kidnaps and brutalizes naughty children, stuffing them in sacks, boiling them alive, and beating them with branches until they bleed. This Santa Claus leaves his barefoot prints in the snow and acts more like an animal than a man—and he is certainly not jolly. Pietari also becomes convinced that this frightening being is going to come after him for even the slightest misbehaviors he may have committed. He comments to Juuso that the Coca-Cola iteration is just a made-up fantasy, but this vicious and dangerous version is real.
This is the overarching theme of the movie. Throughout the years, the edges have been sanded off our fairytales and legends, making them more palatable to the masses. Stories of the eyes of Rapunzel’s prince being pierced by thorns and Cinderella’s stepsisters cutting off their own toes to fit the glass slipper have been tamed and softened since the days of the Brothers Grimm. In the same way, the old tales of Santa Claus from Finland, where the film originates, are dark and frightening. They look more like the legends of Krampus than what we think of as Santa Claus. Rare Exports is hardly the first film to explore the “hows” and “whys” behind Santa. Usually, they are explained in magical ways, as in films like Miracle on 34th Street (1947) or The Santa Clause (1994)—you know, warm and comfortable holiday fare. But those are the “nice” stories that Rare Exports has no interest in being. Those are the kinds of stories that have blunted Santa’s teeth and clipped his claws.
Somewhere in our history, as a society we decided it was cruel to scare children. As a father, I understand this instinct. But if children never experience fear in a controlled and safe space, will they really be equipped to handle it in the real world? In the film, facing a fearful and frightening vision of Santa Claus and his helpers leads to growth and ingenuity in young Pietari. Ultimately, it leads to a stronger bond between friends, neighbors, and above all, a father and son. The film raises some thought-provoking questions. Are we doing a disservice to the legend by making it kinder and gentler? Do we take away the power a story has by making it easier to swallow? Is it wise for us to embrace things that we should have a healthy fear of? On the other side of this coin, do stories like these have the ability to instill an unhealthy sense of fear? One that paralyzes us and our ability to function without fear? For all the questions it raises, the film gives us the space to answer them ourselves rather than spoon feeding a simple solution right down our gullet. It never forces any kind of agenda, even as it warns of these and other dangers in the world.
Pietari’s father Rauno (Jorma Tommila) is simply trying to do the best he can throughout the film, but the activities of Subzero Inc. have threatened their livelihood. Rauno is convinced that the blasting on the mountain has sent wolves down onto his land and that of his neighbors, threatening their livestock and the reindeer herds they depend on for their livelihood. In desperation, he digs an illegal “wolf pit” filled with sharpened poles and covered with branches and snow to kill the beasts. One day, Rauno and friends Aimo (Tommi Korpela) and Piiparinen (Rauno Juvonen) find the slaughtered carcasses of dozens of reindeer in a field and fear they have lost everything. Their fears only increase when instead of finding a wolf in his trap, Rauno and Pietari find an old man with a long white beard, who they assume to be dead. It turns out that this man is not so easy to kill—and undeniably vicious. Believing they have trapped Santa Claus himself, Rauno and company put the man in a cage and drive him to meet Riley, who informs them of a much more terrifying reality.
In many ways, Rare Exports is an “eco-horror” film, touching on the dangers of recklessly upsetting the balance of nature, particularly for monetary gain. The actions of Subzero unleash dangerous predators into the wild that destroy an entire herd of animals that people count on for their survival. It not only touches on the balance of nature, but the balance of human interaction and economics. In this case, how a large multinational corporation threatens to destroy the lives of the local farmers. The irony is that by the end of the film, this small group of farmers has monetized these predators into the titular Rare Exports, sending them all around the world. Shipping wild and dangerous creatures across the globe—what could possibly go wrong?
Still, above all, the film has a warm, beating heart in the relationship between Rauno and Pietari. We do not learn the details, but Pietari’s mother is no longer with them. She is only mentioned once as father and son share gingerbread cookies on Christmas Eve. Judging from the sadness on their faces in the scene, she has died. Rauno can be cold, distant, and even harsh to Pietari, but his love for his son is clear, though a bit clouded by disappointment. He is disturbed by his son’s strange fixation on Santa Claus and his insistence on perpetuating this “fairytale.” On Christmas Eve, Pietari begins to ready himself, apparently for battle, by dressing in a kind of makeshift armor including a red hockey helmet and a piece of cardboard duct taped to his backside.
As the precocious boy’s suspicions reveal themselves to be true, Rauno’s delight in his son becomes more and more apparent. By the end, he is positively bursting with pride over Pietari’s heroics. The second short film, The Official Rare Exports Safety Instructions, planted the seeds for this element of the story and even stars the same actors as father and son. But even these warm-hearted elements have a bit of a dark side as Rauno and Pietari transform their small business from the humble reindeer ranch and pig farm into Rare Exports, Inc. They use all the knowledge that Pietari has gained to tame, somewhat cruelly, their wild Santas into the kind and rosy-cheeked version that the masses will embrace. They are taking part in the very process that Pietari decries earlier in the film.
Even with all its exploration of important and even troubling issues, Rare Exports never loses sight of its main reason for existing—to entertain. The film is filled with action, humor, mystery, chills, and even a little gore. There is a harrowing helicopter chase, explosions, and vicious, naked old men with farm implements and a fixation for gingerbread cookies. In other words, what’s not to like? Though it has gained some foothold as a cult film around the world, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is still not a regular part of the Christmas horror conversation, but it absolutely deserves to be. Perhaps the fact that it is largely in Finnish has hindered its growth in popularity in the United States. Still, it is a wonderfully weird and endlessly inventive film, a film worthy of that special status of Holiday Horror Classic.
So, as you go about your Christmas Eve traditions it might be worth reviewing the Santa safety instructions and leaving a plate of gingerbread cookies out. In the morning, check carefully that your children haven’t been replaced by some crude, life-sized effigy. Don’t forget to look for bare, human footprints in the snow. We may have spent the past several centuries trying to deny it, but maybe some fairytales are real. And maybe some of our dreams have claws.
Can you believe it’s already been fifteen years since 2009? I feel older than Jason’s mother’s head. But never mind all that. We’re going to look into the past in celebratory fashion today and take a month-to-month look at what the world of horror looked like back in 2009.
The dreaded month of January kicked things off in usual January fashion with a forgettable title, The Unborn. A David S. Goyer picture that’s not very memorable but managed to be the sixth most successful horror film of 2009 domestically, raking in over $42 million at the box office.
Right behind it on the calendar was Patrick Lussier’s My Bloody Valentine 3D starring “Supernatural” actor Jensen Ackles. This slasher remake took the idea of January horror and embraced it, making a silly and gory slasher that was the world’s first R-rated film to ever use Real3D technology. Anyone looking for legitimate scares was probably pissed (the film has a 44% Rotten “Audience” rating) but genre fans had fun with it to the tune of over $51 million at the box office (on a $14 million budget).
Next up, releasing on January 30 was the sleepy PG-13 horror flick The Uninvited. For the life of me, I’ll never understand the choice to release a movie called The Uninvited two weeks after a movie called The Unborn; to be fair, most of us are unable to remember much about either of them.
The reboot of Friday the 13th was served up to us for Valentine’s Day Weekend 2009. A slasher movie that made a ton of money and had fans begging for a sequel… that never came. The Platinum Dunes reboot may not be universally beloved, but I know a fair share of fans (myself included) who thought the new Jason, Derek Mears, and team made a film that was both fun and brutal. And it was juicy enough to come in as the number three most successful domestic horror film in 2009 to the tune of over $65 million. Friday the 13th ’09 was nowhere near perfect but it was a damn fun time with some underrated Jason Voorhees moments and a sleek plan to tell Jason’s origin story quickly via flashbacks that some superhero franchises could learn from. Oh yeah, and it starred the other “Supernatural” bro, Jared Padalecki. I’m sensing a pattern here.
‘Last House on the Left’
Next up, yet another remake of a classic horror film: The Last House on the Left. Wes Craven wanted to see what his low-budget horror film would look like with a little walking around money and the results were that we, the audience, got to see a dude get his head microwaved. The critics weren’t huge fans but let’s be honest, it could have been a lot worse given the subject matter and lack of nuance in the 2000s. Last House went on to land itself in the top ten horror box office returns of the year.
March would also feature one of the many notches in Kyle Gallner’s horror belt, The Haunting in Connecticut, a movie with maybe too many generic possession genre moments to make a major dent in the status quo but enough to make it memorable. I’d take it over many of The Conjuring franchise spinoffs of today, personally. Though, they’re all very much alike.
April Horror would conjure nothing for audiences but Sam Raimi would bring the loud, scary, and funny back to the genre with Drag Me to Hell on May 29. This film that was somehow still PG-13 even with a cat murder, flying old lady eyeball, and mouth-to-mouth puke action was a blast to experience in the theater. Audiences agreed as the film ranked #7 on the horror box office of the year, cashing out at $42 million thanks to a loveable lead in Alison Lohman, the forever horror victim Justin Long, and some good old-fashioned, Evil Dead II-type fun.
‘Drag Me to Hell’
July would shock horror fans in a completely different way with adoption horror flick Orphan. The ending may have had all of us feeling super uncomfortable and shocked but the movie itself had adoption groups majorly upset at how the film depicted the dangers of adoption. So much so that the studio had to add a pro-adoption message to the film’s DVD. No matter, the performance of Isabelle Fuhrman would carry the film to a $41 million box office run and later spawn a decent prequel in 2022.
Speaking of collecting, The Collector was also released in July 2009 and was a pleasant surprise featuring a shitload of originality and some scares to boot. Yet another horror success that would make $10 million on a $3 million budget and spawn a sequel. We’re still waiting on third installment, which abruptly stopped shooting several years back under strange circumstances.
The fourth Final Destination film graced us with its predestined presence in 2009 as well with The Final Destination; the 3D one with the race car track opening. The film was (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) a financial success, raking in over $186 million (worldwide) on a $40 million budget.
Rob Zombie went Rob Zombie’ing as hard as he’s ever Rob Zombie’d with Halloween II later that month. He’d Rob Zombie so hard that we wouldn’t see Halloween on the big screen again until almost ten years later with Halloween 2018. And nothing controversial ever happened in the franchise again. *Shuts book* Stop trying to open it! NO! NOOOOOOOO!
‘Halloween II’
Another remake in Sorority Row was the first film to follow Rob Zombie’s divisive stab-a-thon with a schlocky Scream-esque slasher flick that had a good enough time and even boasted a few neat kills. Critics weren’t fans of this one but if you were? You’ll be happy to hear that writer Josh Stolberg just announced he’s working on the follow-up!
Sexy Horror September continued a week later with Jennifer’s Body and an all-new, emo kind of Kyle Gallner. Jennifer’s Body didn’t exactly crush it for the critics or the box office but has success in its own right and is considered somewhat of a cult classic thanks to some hilarious writing and leading performances from Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. Also, shout out to Adam Brody’s band Low Shoulder. Machine Gun Kelly could never.
Part of the low box office for Jennifer’s Body could have had something to do with what came next as Paranormal Activity would rock the horror world a week later. The genius marketing of the low-budget film would feature clips of audiences on night vision cameras losing their minds. Whether it scared you to death or you found the entire concept ridiculous, you had to see it for yourself. Paranormal Activity would bring in almost $200 million worldwide on a 15 THOUSAND dollar budget. I’m no mathematician but I’m pretty sure that’s good. The horror game changer may just be the most remembered of all the 2009 films and it’s one every studio in the world wanted to replicate.
‘Paranormal Activity’
One film’s game changer is another film’s flop as Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster’s space horror Pandorum had the unfortunate scheduling of lining up against Paranormal Activity on that fateful day and in turn, being mostly forgotten.
Spooky Season 2009 kicked off with the beloved horror-comedy Zombieland in October, complete with Jesse Eisenberg’s meta-rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse, Bill Murray, and Woody Harrelson who just wanted a fuckin’ Twinkie. There’s nothing like a good horror comedy and Zombieland proved that all the way to the bank, making $74 million domestically en route to a second film that brought back the entire cast.
It’s only been twelve seconds since I said the word remake, so let’s fix that. The Stepfather remake would follow a week later and be met by an audience getting a little sick of them. Unlike some of the other spirited remakes that surrounded this era in horror (not that they ever stopped), The Stepfather felt like an uninspired retread of the understated but completely messed up 1987 Terry O’Quinn horror cult classic. It’s largely been forgotten over the years.
“Who am I here?” Oh yeah, it’s October in the 2000, there’s bound to be a Saw movie around here somewhere. Saw VI would be released on the 23rd of October and continue the story of Detective Hoffman while adjusting the rates of some shady insurance adjustors. Saw VI would also fall victim to a little bit of Paranormal Activity mania with the film being bested by the continued rollout of its predecessor. Things were looking a little bleak for the franchise at this point. Probably none of us would have imagined that fifteen years later we’d be talking about the same director (Kevin Greutert) returning for the eleventh movie in the franchise.
‘The House of the Devil’
After all these humongous box office successes, sequels, and remakes it would be three memorable indie flicks that would round out October of 2009; the ultra fucked up Willem Dafoe, Lars von Trier sex/horror flick Antichrist, followed by Ti West’s ’70s haunter The House of the Devil and rounded out with some Australian torture horror in Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones. All three movies each make their mark in their own special ways. What a way to end October.
But it was November that would bring the movie that scared me more than any other on this list: The Fourth Kind. A lot of you are assuredly rolling your eyes right now but this one messed me up on a cellular level despite it being a complete and total fake. The Fourth Kind decided to meld a traditional horror film with the stylings of The Blair Witch Project in an opening designed to make you believe it was based on a true story. An embarrassing attempt but the film itself had me afraid to sleep near windows at night after seeing those found footage abductions. It still messes with me, to be honest. WHY ARE THEIR MOUTHS STRETCHING SO MUCH?!?!
December was too busy doing Avatar and Alvin and the Chipmunks-type family affairs for any horror movies but even without it, 2009 was quite a year for horror. I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some other memorable films that were released either straight to video, limited or overseas that year including Case 39 (that oven opening!), Exam, Daybreakers, Splice, Dead Snow, The Hills Run Red, The Descent 2, Blood Creek, Cabin Fever 2 and [REC] 2.
What were your horror favorites from 2009? Comment below and let us know!
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