Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

In Lapland, near the Russian border, an excavation opens a barrow. A boy works out that the original Saint Nicholas was not kind, that the reindeer are dying, and that the local children are being taken.

Jalmari Helander expanded his own short films into this, and the tone is a genuine achievement: it is a children's adventure film about a monstrous folk figure, shot with the seriousness of a survival thriller and a bone-dry sense of humour.

The reveal of what the excavation actually contains, and what the naked old men in the pen turn out to be, is the film's best idea and its title's joke.

It is one of the very few wholly original Christmas horror films, and it is Finnish rather than a cash-in.

Onni Tommila, the boy, is the director's nephew and is excellent.