The story takes place in a Finnish mountain town. The townsfolk learn of archaeologists doing some digging further up the mountain, who have been blasting apparently for seismic experiments. The small village's main source of income is from reindeer meat and one day some citizens, including the protagonists, the boy Pietari and his father, have discovered all the reindeer dead by the fence restricting access to the mountain. They are angry of course, believing the scientists' explosives have scared the wolves out of their habitat and the wolves are attacking the deer. Pietari's father protects his property from wolves by building a wolf pit with stakes. They catch something, but instead of an animal it is an old man.
Believing the old man is dead, Pietari's father tries to get rid of the evidence in his abbatoir. But the man is still breathing. Pietari seems to to think the man is something else. He believes the old folk tales which say that the Santa Claus of olden times was actually a malevolent being, who ate children. Eventually Pietari tries to convince his father and others of this "fact." At first they are disbelievers, but when the man starts to act strangely, perking up when he sees Pietari, they start believing him.
At the same time, there have been mysterious thefts of radiators, hair dryers and stoves. The children of the village have disappeared, except Pietari who had been grounded and indoors. Pietari puts the many clues together and discovers who the mystery man really is and forms a plan.
As I said there are many different elements in ths film. Pietari's father is a little despondent (there is no mother so I assume she died) due to losing the deer as income and being a bad housekeeper and trying to get Pietari to toe the line. Most of the middle of the film is suspenseful with some elements of horror, as the group find out from Pietari's reasoning what's going on and decide what to do. But the ending gets more jokey and action oriented as there are heroic action scenes involving Pietari, and then later the townsfolk deal with some elves (unconventional types of elves, but the jokey part). And of course the fantasy elements of Santa Claus and treating him like a real character instead of something that is in the imagination.
The actor playing Pietari was very good, behaving and acting like a real child. The character was young enough to carry around a stuffed toy but still brave enough to stand up to the adults for what he believes in, and also sacrificing himself at the end, so he was well-rounded and believable. Some depictions using special effects could have been more realistically rendered, and things/effects you would hope they would show, they didn't I guess due to budget restrictions. I doubt it was for lack of imagination. The story in itself was very original and not one I've seen before, especially treating Santa as an evil character.
This is a very uncoventional film, not easy to peg as for a family audience or even for fantasy fans. Keep an open mind though, I think you might enjoy this one.
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