Rare Exports – Crappy Christmas to You

This picture is better than the actual movie.

Rare Exports is a 2010 Finnish movie about Santa Claus. Although, it’s not Santa in the big red suit with a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. No, this version of Santa is a lot nastier. The film’s conceit is that Santa is a mythical monster, like something you’d see in an original Brother’s Grimm fairy tale. Santa is a feral creature who lives in the isolated woods of Finland. He ravenously kills and eats anyone who is naughty. Unfortunately, just about everyone is naughty, so no one is safe.

Sounds like a great setup, right? The premise is cool as hell, and certainly wins points for originality. OK, not exactly. The idea of a nearly impossible to please Santa Claus was already done in Futurama. A robotic Santa had such high standards that only Dr. Zoidberg made it to the nice list. Everyone else got a helping of laser blasts and rocket attacks. So, the idea isn’t completely original. But what idea is? The important thing is the execution. As long as they executed it well, everything will be fine.

The execution, however, sucked. The movie’s running time is only 82 minutes. Within such a short time to work, and with a cool premise, the best thing would be to introduce the characters, then jump right into the action. Rare Exports doesn’t do this. It spends the first 60 minutes farting around with boring characters. When shit finally gets going, there are only 20 minutes of film left. To say that the first hour of the movie is squandered would be an understatement.

Awesome Christmas Movies

Bloggers like to post their top Christmas movies. The problem is their lists are always the same: A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone etc etc puke. Well, I thought it was time to give you a list of real Christmas movies. The kind that are festive, and really get you into the holiday spirit. These movies can be enjoyed by family and friends, and should be mandatory viewing annually. Let’s make a new Awesomely Shitty tradition. Watch and love these movies every year, or you can’t be my friend anymore.

12.) RED – Bruce Willis loves the holidays. You can really tell. With RED, as well as two Die Hard movies and The Last Boy Scout, he’s a guy that really embodies the Christmas spirit. This movie in particular tells us it’s never too late to get excited for the holidays. Although the main characters are all retired from their work as assassins, they get together for one last hurrah. Even though you may be an old grouchy Scrooge, you can get festive once again. It’s a positive message like that which makes this such a heartwarming film. A group of old friends reunite to kill people and blow shit up one more time. This movie gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

11.) Lethal Weapon – Kind of like Bruce Willis, screenwriter Shane Black must really love Christmas. So many of his movies take place during the holidays. This time around we get to see Mel Gibson playing a suicidal cop, as he battles with the villainous Gary Busey, who seems to be playing himself. There is plenty of mayhem as L.A. is ripped to shreds. It ends with a Christmas celebration. I suppose the entire movie (the murders and shootouts and near suicide attempts) is a metaphor for the insanity of the build up to Christmas. This movie is really deep like that.