Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, dir. Jalmari Helander

Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (But You Should Probably See It Anyway) I may struggle to convey how odd Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is. This Finnish genre blender incorporates a whole load of genre and film sensibilities: It's a dark, brooding thriller that slowly boils up the tension It's a grim-dark like fantasy It's a children's Christmas movie It's an at times violent horror movie It's a corny action romp And it satirizes all of this while also taking itself and the story seriously. And here's the thing. As you can tell, I am not recommending this film. However, I can't say it's a bad film. On the contrary, the things that this movie is incorporating in it's story is pretty good. The horror and thriller aspects of the film are done well enough. The fantasy elements are mixed well with the setting. And even the Christmas elements are interesting. But the mix of all these elements just didn't gel well with me. Even though the film is about 75 minutes long, Rare Exports feels like it drags along. The "reveal" of what's going on doesn't happen until 45 minutes in, where the story is more about a frayed relationship between a widower dad and his son. And when the reveal happens, it goes into this more Michael Bay/Roland Emmerich style of story that honestly had me rolling my eyes more than being invested. But the odd thing is that the concept of the film is actually interesting: a buried evil Santa that captures children sounds like a great time. But for me, I honestly sat there puzzled with what I was watching. The thing is though, Rare Exports isn't a bad movie: it's just a movie that didn't hit me very well. Rare Exports feels like a love/hate: some are going to be like and wonder what in the hell did they just watch. Others will adore it, champion it and put it on it's rotation of Christmas movies to watch every year. It feels like I'm copping out a little, but as much as I don't recommend the film simply because I didn't enjoy it, I can fully see that there will be some that will love it. I guess what I'm saying is if this interests you, give it a shot, even if I didn't like it.