So apparently this is a thing. Which I have been lucky enough to find on British television at 0200, and how can you say no to cannibal Santa Claus?
We join our show, already in progress. Any mistakes in detail, please forgive because it’s early in the morning and the movie is subtitled in English with dialog in Finnish.
Prior to this, an ugly American archaeologist on top of a mountain found something in a bit of ice and made a stirring speech to an incredibly unimpressed excavation crew in yellow hard hats as two little kids look on. Shortly after one of them, a little boy, looks the most awesome Christmas book ever which involves line drawings of Santa sitting on a pile of skulls.
The little boy is worried and runs around in an ugly red sweater and a pair of navy blue underpants and has an odd conversation with his father, who is butchering a pig as they speak. It’s quite surreal.
And now… go!
0215 There are a lot of very lovely shots of snowmobiles traveling serenely over a snowy landscape back and forth between Cannibal Santa Mountain.
0215 Herd of dead reindeer. Man with ear flap hat and large beard #1: Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas indeed, sir.
0216 Apparently this is the work of Russian wolves, who are badass motherfuckers. Hungry badass motherfuckers, since it’s 433 dead reindeer.
0218 Underwear boy pokes up one of the corpses with a stick to reveal a humanoid footprint. He’s already seen pictures of cannibal Santa walking barefoot through the snow. “He must have been hungry.” YEAH NO SHIT KID. How he is not shitting himself in terror already I do not know.
0222 “The real Santa was different. The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax.” That’s kind of beautiful. And accompanied by a picture of evil Santa putting a screaming child into a cauldron.
0223 This kid is an amazing researcher. He has the whole 411 on how evil Santa ended up buried in a giant hill.
0224 Ugly sweater kid is also, I will note, constantly walking around with a hunting rifle longer than he is tall slung across his back. And is now wearing hockey pads. His dad is manly enough to wear a pink floral apron and bake his son cookies. They’re kind of an awesome little family.
0226 For the record, Ugly sweater kid’s name is Pietari. I will probably just call him Ugly Sweater Kid, or USK for short.
0229 The logos for the excavation site look like Christmas wreaths. I find this incredibly amusing. And of course, the crew is American. And a man with thick calves in tights kills them all, sending their hardhats scattering.
0232 USK and his dad have matching guns. I am very amused that USK runs around with this rifle (actually I think it’s a pump-action shotgun? But I fail at guns) and under one arm he has a stuffed animal. Anyway, there was a pig head hanging out as bait and now it’s going. USK and his dad go to investigate, and the dad sees a bloody human hand, then immediately pulls the, “It’s nothing, but you can’t see it.” This never works.
0234 USK’s stuffed animal is named Vuppe by the way.
0235 This movie is giving me a very strange impression of the Finnish. Mostly that they are very stern and shout a lot.
0235 USK’s dad helps another man drag a corpse in a tarp into the slaughterhouse. The other man is dressed like Santa. Maybe this is a Finnish thing too. But apparently he’s not evil cannibal Santa, he’s just someone that accidentally killed a drifter on his property in a wolf pit. This is a horror movie, guys. Never kill the drifter.
0236 Oh, apparently the guy dressed as Santa is playing the part for Christmas. Merry Christmas, USK’s dad – you get a corpse in a tarp.
0237 They’re going to butcher the vagrant, but he’s still breathing. Oooh, I bet that’s cannibal Santa. He can smell USK, who is hanging around outside. And this is not the sort of thing you want your kid to see holy shit what is wrong with these guys.
0239 This movie is making me want to go vegetarian if I ever end up in Finland, you realize. (I kid, I kid.)
0239 So far all the car chases have been very low speed because everything is covered in snow. I find this amusing.
0241 The town has been plagued by a mysterious series of radiator thefts.
0242 USK’s friend seems to have been replaced by some kind of super creepy blackened and shriveled up doll thing. USK greets this with a complete lack of surprise and concern. Maybe this is something that happens often.
0245 Protip: don’t lean in close to the mysterious, stinky, creepy drifter when he’s whispering something. No matter what happens next, you will not like it.
0246 “There’s something weird about him [creepy cannibal Santa].” “He’s a foreigner.” HAH.
0247 USK tries to call all of his friends on the phone and they are all missing. He is still remarkably calm about this.
0248 USK then draws the perfectly logical conclusion that his dad needs to spank him immediately, so that he will be absolved of naughtiness and, I assume, safe from the evil cannibal that just ate all his friends. He’s upset enough now that he’s shed a few tears.
0249 Uh oh, USK goes into the slaughterhouse and evil Santa reacts sort of like a cat hearing a can of tuna being opened. Well, but in slow motion.
2051 They tie up evil cannibal Santa and hang him from the ceiling. He swings slowly back and forth, chains creaking in the most eerie fashion possible, and they just sit there and stare at him, passing a plate of cookies around. What is this even.
0255 So apparently they are going to take evil cannibal Santa back to the excavation site to try to get money for him. Because the Americans want him back for a mysterious reason.
0256 The evil American that wants Santa is tiny and totally looks like Ebenezer Scrooge. If Ebenezer Scrooge had a helicopter. And a fake quasi-American accent.
0257 The cannibal Santa excavation company is named Subzero Inc. FINISH HIM.
0258 They put cannibal Santa in a cage. And for some reason dressed him in the Santa robes.
0259 And then they let USK wander off on his own. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
0259 Uh oh. Apparently the weird drifter guy is actually one of Santa’s elves. The real Santa is still out there. And, “He’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice.”
0300 Santa has an entire army of weird drifters with pickaxes. One of them killes Ebenezer Scrooge. The Finnish men smartly run away and find USK somehow.
0301 Oh there are all the radiators, and even a bunch of stoves. They’re defrosting real Santa, who is still in a block of ice. Aha, and there are all the kids, in burlap bags in front of the ice block.
0302 I am impressed by the ability of these sturdy Finnish men to pick up Stoves which were a second ago shimmering with heat and carry them over to barricade the door.
0302 It’s okay, everyone! USK HAS A PLAN!
0303 “It’s either me or Santa. I suggest Santa.” And then he yanks down a tarp, revealing boxes of explosives. USK you are a badass little motherfucker.
0304 Hahaha they distract the weird drifter elves with cookies!
0305 Suddenly one of the men can pilot a helicopter. They pile all the kids in a net and airlift them. Hilariously, most of the kids are still in the burlap bags, kicking and crying with their faces covered.
0306 USK is just hanging off the side of the net dangling under the helicopter like a little badass.
0309 I’m starting to feel like USK is going to grow up to be Bruce Willis. But Finnish.
0310 He stands bravely in the face of a charging horde of pale, bearded, naked elves. Lookit him go.
0311 The men blow up the hangar (and cannibal Santa) as they drive away. “And happy fucking New Year.” Someone should be putting their sunglasses on as they do so.
0314 So what do they do with the horde of scary bearded men? Wash them off and teach them to be Santas! Then put them in wooden crates as Rare Exports and ship them all across the globe. And now you know where your mall Santas came from.
…well. That sure was a thing. It had some humorous bits to it, but was mostly so understated I couldn’t get into it the way I could with other funny “horror” movies like Dead Snow. Though this was more of a dark action than a horror as well.