The Finnish film documenting the true, ghastly nature of Santa Clause looked like it could be exploitation horror fun, but instead will leave you with question marks dangling over your head. The film makes huge leaps in narrative logic, in one case young Pietari deducing from explosions on a mountain, “Santa’s under there!”
What?!
Nothing implies such a statement and Pietari’s proclamation stands in for the film’s inability to expose such a key plot detail in any other fashion. Which is emblematic for the rest of the film, including the moment Pietari, hitherto a weakling, suddenly becomes Rambo as he organizes helicopter pickups and heroic gestures. Everything is inexplicable in Finland evidently.
Some of the issues could stem from a terrible subtitle translation, but most of the awful simply stems from bad storytelling. Cool idea, terrible execution. Don’t even bother renting.
-Remington Smith
The Filmsmith 
Vampire Rumble: Let the Right One In vs Let Me In
Note: to avoid redundancies, let me clarify that Oskar and Eli are the boy and girl from Let the Right One In and Owen and Abby are the boy and girl from Let Me In. Also, this post contains major spoilers for both films.
My wife pointed out that there is a difference between re-making a story and re-telling a story, as we’re always re-telling similar tales with different window dressings. Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a clear example of a re-make: it was first made in 1997 (Austria) and re-made, shot-for-shot, by Haneke in 2007 (U.S.). Alternatively, something like John Carpenter’s The Thing is a re-telling of The Thing From Another World, which itself was based on the short story Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. Let Me In is an example of the latter re-telling, not a mere re-make. Continue reading →
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Tagged bully, eddie izzard, funny games, Horror, let me in, Let the Right One In, Matt Reeves, Sweden, The Thing, the thing from another world, U.S., Vampire, who goes there