Young Pietari lives with his stern reindeer-herding father Rauno in arctic Finland. On the eve of Christmas, an enormous excavation at a nearby mountain disturbs the locals and captures Pietari's curiosity. When Rauno's raindeer herd is mysteriously slain and the children in town go missing, Pietari realizes that the dig has unearthed the evil Santa Claus of local lore - who no one wants coming to town. Pietari's father rounds up a posse and captures the nightmarish creature in an attempt to sell him to the misguided leader sponsoring the dig. But Santa's freakish elves will stop at nothing to free their fearless leader, and what ensues is a fantastically bizarre holiday adventure testing the bond of father and son and pitting man against mythology. RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE is a wildly original re-imagining of the most classic of all childhood fantasies and a darkly comic gem destined for perennial holiday viewing.