TIFF 2010: RARE EXPORTS Review

Santa is not what you think. Having been sold for decades as a jolly fat man who lives to please children around the his true roots - much darker, much more horrid - have largely been forgotten. But soon, thanks to the foolish excavation of Santa's icy prison by a wealthy businessman eager to live out a childhood dream, everyone will receive a rude reminder and the only one who knows what's coming, the only one with any chance of stemming the tide, is one young boy in remote, rural Finland.

There is a claimant to Joe Dante's throne, folks, a new talent eager to step up and claim position as a purveyor of scares and adventure for children, teens and adults alike, and that man is Jalmari Helander. Helander first created a sensation with his Rare Exports concept when the 'real' Santa appeared in a pair of short films that went viral online and now he's back with a feature length treatment of the subject matter, a sort of origin story to the scenario played out in the shorts. It's the sort of good spirited adventure story laced with genuine menace and frights and danger that was once a staple for young viewing audiences - think Gremlins, The Goonies and The Monster Squad - but which have basically been regulated out of existence by the MPAA in later years. Because, lets be honest, there's no way that an American film for children and tweens will ever be allowed to include a frontal nude shot featured a literal herd of wizened old bearded men running over snowy hills in pursuit of a helicopter dangling a mesh net filled with a village worth of children stuffed in burlap sacks. But this film's got that shot - and many more besides.

Told from the perspective of a young boy who realizes that not only is Santa real but that the 'seismic research' crew atop a nearby mountain is determined to dig him up and that this may not be such a good thing, Rare Exports aims to be a delicious mix of black humor and adventure laced with some surprisingly bloody scares. You see, the Nordic Santa - the one we get our whole 'naughty and nice' mythology from - was a whole lot rougher than the Coca-Cola version, a horned beast who would chase down naughty children and spank them into literal oblivion. And sometimes eat them. He was an object of fear and violence best avoided, not the promised bringer of treats. And if the excavation crew is successful this is what will be unleashed on our hero's small village. And that's before we even get into the question of his swarm of Little Helpers.

A Christmas story for people who hate Christmas stories, Rare Exports mostly succeeds at reaching its goals. The character work in the early going feels more than a little perfunctory in places, the film not really spending much time allowing us to get to know and care about these characters, but once it gets into the core of the concept and the story it really begins to sing. That it's a very silly premise is undeniable but Helander and company play it deliciously straight, almost epicly so, avoiding the nodding and winking to the audience that would have let the audience off the hook and instead keeping us in the moment with our young hero. It takes great advantage of the fact that skinny, naked old men are inherently creepy - particularly when covered with blood - as it continually pushes its premise right out to the outer limits of what it can bear without cracking.

Though somewhat limited in story and character work Rare Exports is executed with such audacious style and with such a big vision that it's impossible to watch without a big grin spreading across your face. Is Helander the next Joe Dante? No, not yet, but he probably will be soon.