Friday, November 02, 2012

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

(2010) ****

I've always found the European version of St. Nick/Father Christmas a bit creepy--sometimes he's kind of gaunt, with robes instead of a jolly cotton-fringed suit.  Apparently, other people feel the same way.

The premise for this fun little indie horror flick is that some corporation has dug up the frozen corpse of Santa Claus. He was  defeated and frozen at some point in the distant past by the locals, but now he's being thawed out. A bunch of naked scrawny hairy men (elves?) show up to capture all the naughty little kids, who they leave in bags outside the huge ice block. I guess Santa will be hungry when he wakes?

It's all really clever, with lots of memorable iconoclastic imagery. The perspective is also well done--it has a Spielberg feel in how it's all told from a little boy's view--and he's got one of those class Spielbergian oddball costumes. In this case, a hockey helmet and hockey shoulder pads over his regular clothes.

I watched this a few weeks ago when I saw JPX mention it, and it's definitely worth a rec!

5 comments:

Catfreeek said...

I love this flick! Abduscias and I watched it post Horrorthon last year and I meant to watch it this year to review it but I never got around to it, so many movies so little time. Nice to see it appear again and get some much deserved creds.

Octopunk said...

Yes! Santa Claus is scary!

Nice review, plus you get the award for "review with the most cocks."

Abduscias said...

I loved this movie!

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I counted 8 schlongs. One on the right I couldn't tell if it was a finger or a penis.

This movie was the grand finale of our Horrorthon. Loved it!

DKC said...

ARGH! I totally wanted to see this one! Ah, the promise of next year...

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...