Mainlining Christmas

A few years ago, there's no way I'd have written this up here. That's not a strike against the movie - I liked this quite a bit - just an acknowledgment that it is absolutely not a Christmas movie. It is not set at Christmas, it does not reference Christmas (or any holiday, for that matter), and it is not about Christmas. However, the wintery setting and other elements (first and foremost the titular animal) resemble contemporary Christmas traditions and iconography. The movie also takes place in Lapland, a location with connections to the holidays, and folkloric winter horror has deep connections to the Christmas season, as well. In short, while this isn't a Christmas movie, the overlap with subgenres within the holiday film canon is substantial, and I suspect this will be of interest to readers of this blog. I know I'm stepping onto a slippery slope here, but I'm going to risk it to talk about this bizarre Finnish horror film about a woman who falls in love, g