“Who doesn’t love a Christmas horror movie?” offers our host Eric Ford, asking a question we’d never actually pondered before. “This Norwegian Krampus tale is totally unique, off the wall, and over the top, but built around great story and characters. It’s funny and has a bloody heart.”
Jalmari Helander’s first feature is an expansion of his comedic Rare Exports shorts, which were hilarious faux-infomercials on how wild Santas are trapped in Scandinavia and domesticated before being exported to Christmas markets worldwide. Amazingly, the longform version is even better.
We’ll keep it short so as not to give away the fun stuff: during an archaelogical dig in Finland, the real Santa Claus is unearthed. And you better hope he’s not coming to town, because he is bad, bad news. Lots of terrible (yet quite funny) things start happening, and then its time for some local reindeer hunters to take matters into their own hands. What ensues is a wildly humorous nightmare – a fantastically bizarre polemic on modern-day morality.
It’s definitely the Christmas movie you didn’t know you needed.