Heavier Trip: Road to Wacken (4 Stars)

Not as good as the first film.

Too much comedy.

Not enough music.

But Babymetal is cute.

Nightborn (5 Stars)

This is the tenth film in the Stuttgart Nights Festival.

Jon and Saga have just got married. They move into the house in Finland where Saga grew up. There's a lot of work to be done, because the house has been empty for years.

Nine months later Saga has a child. The child isn't normal. He has a hairy back, but the doctors reassure her that it's nothing to worry about. Other things are more unusual. Within a few months the baby, that they call Kuura, is able to stand and walk. Most disturbing is that Kuura doesn't want to drink milk, he only wants blood. By the time he's six months old, Saga is feeding him raw meat. At first Saga rejects the child, but she grows to love him, and as they bond she slowly becomes feral.

"Nightborn" is the best film of the festival so far.

Rare Exports (5 Stars)

It's getting close to Christmas, so maybe I should weaken and watch a few Christmas films. "Rare Exports" is a classic that I've watched a few times already. And it's not in my top 100 films list? I need to think it over.

The film introduces us to the real Santa Claus, but that's not him in the picture. It's Piiparinen, the villager who dresses up as Santa for the kids. Finnish names sound so weird to me, but they probably think Mike sounds weird as well.

My son Benjamin arrived today and will be staying with me until January 6th. That will make my viewing random. He usually picks what he wants to watch, but sometimes I can persuade him to watch something else. His first words are always, "Let's watch a horror film". I have nothing against horror films, but I prefer to watch a variety of genres. Let's wait and see what we'll be watching for the next two months.

Success Rate:  + 0.0

Hit Big (2 Stars)

This is the second film in the Stuttgart White Nights Festival.

Marjaleena owns a bar in the Costa Del with her husband Mikko and her son Vili. She was crowned Miss Finland in 1985, but that was a long, long time ago. Now she spends her days drinking cheap Spanish wine.

Her ex-husband Worm, an Albanian gangster, is released after 20 years in prison. He insists on buying the bar off her. His offer isn't very generous, but Worm threatens her into accepting it. Shortly after Marjaleena moves out she discovers that Worm had buried millions of Euros below the bar. Together with her family she attempts to rob him.

The story itself isn't bad, but I found the alcohol annoying. I don't mind drinking in films, but in "Hit Big" it's ridiculously exaggerated. The family goes out to battle gangsters, and the first thing they do is drink themselves into a stupor. It just doesn't make sense.

Hatching (5 Stars)

This is the 16th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival Nights.

The Fantasy Film Festival has saved the best till last. Almost last. There's a 17th film, but I skip the last fil each day because I'd miss my last bus. I left immediately after "Hatching" and went for a small snack at the Brezel und Bier in Feuerbach. It's at the station, so it's ideally placed for quick visits.

In the introduction to the film, the director Hannah Bergholm said that it's a film about the lack of love in a seemingly ideal family. That's obvious from the start.

Tinja is a young girl, 11-ish, who lives in a beautiful home with her parents and her young brother. She's training as a gymnast, not because she has any love for gymnastics, but because her mother wants her to. Her mother was a successful gymnast as a child, and she expects Tinja to follow in her footsteps. It's obvious to the viewer that Tinja doesn't have what it takes, but her mother pressures her relentlessly.

Tinja finds a small egg in the forest and takes it home. She keeps it warm, and it grows rapidly. When it hatches it has the form of a large bird, but over the following weeks it changes. It looks more and more like Tinja, and the two develop a symbiotic relationship, feeling one another's pain.

I can't say more without giving away spoilers. All I'll say is that the story alternates between terrifying horror and a touching coming-of-age drama. In my opinion it's clearly the festival's best film.

Rare Exports (5 Stars)

Today I submitted to the pressure and decided to watch a Christmas film. I hope my readers will forgive me. It's difficult to completely avoid the Christmas spirit all around me.

The film is about an isolated village on the border between Finland and Russia, where most of the villagers work in the reindeer herding business. They find proof that Santa Claus isn't a myth, he's a real person who's still alive today. Then they do whatever they can to kill him.

Merry Christmas!

Success Rate:  + 0.0

Heavy Trip (5 Stars)

I used to chat with a Finnish friend online. I'll never forget what he told me. "Finnish music is great, but Finnish films suck". When he said Finnish music, he was referring to heavy metal. I haven't spoken to him for almost ten years, so I wonder what he would say about "Heavy Trip"; a Finnish film about Finnish music.

The film is about four friends in their twenties who've been practising in the cellar of a reindeer slaughterhouse for 12 years. So far they've been playing the songs recorded by their favourite bands, such as Cannibal Corpse and Children of Bodom. Now they feel they should make the big step of writing their own song. They're inspired by the sound of a reindeer being ground to pieces in a meat grinder. They also need a name for their band, and they choose Impaled Rectum. Did they really need 12 years to pick a band name? It's what I would have done first, before picking up the instruments for the first practise session.

They have a chance meeting with the organiser of the Norwegian heavy metal festival, Northern Damnation. That's a fictional festival, so the name is up for grabs! They give him a demo tape of their first song, which they describe as "symphonic post-apocalyptic reindeer-grinding Christ-abusing extreme Fennoscandinavian pagan battle metal". He's impressed, but he says all the bands are booked, so they'll have to wait a year. This doesn't stop the band. They steal a truck and head to Norway to gatecrash the festival.

The film is mildly comical, but it's primarily a feel-good movie with great music. There's also a serious message. It's repeated several times that you can succeed at whatever you want if you only have courage.

This film has the seal of approval of the Roman Catholic Church. You won't go to Hell if you watch it. If you don't believe me, ask any nun. They sit and watch it when they have a girls only film night.

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

Heavy Trip (5 Stars)

Best. FinnishFilm. Ever.

This is an incredible film that won me over immediately when I saw it the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival in 2018. I like it because I'm a fan of heavy metal music, but I can recommend it to anyone, whatever their music tastes might be. It's a hilarious comedy about a young man struggling to survive in a world that's against him.

Turo Moilanen is a man in his late 20's who lives in Oulu, Finland. If you've never heard of the town, you're not alone. I doubt it sounds familiar to anyone who doesn't live close. It's a university town in northern Finland. Turo doesn't even live in the centre of the town, he lives on the outskirts, near the sea (the Gulf of Bothnia). It's a beautiful place to live, but it's just about as far as any European can live from civilisation.

Turo loves heavy metal, and he sings in a band that's been practising in the basement of a slaughterhouse for the last 12 years. Practising for what? Will they ever come out of the basement and let anyone else hear them? They haven't even played local gigs, so their dreams of international success are far away.

This is the slaughterhouse basement. The perfect place for practising.

And this is the slaughterhouse from the outside.

What do they slaughter? Reindeer, of course! Early in the film the band members complain that they have to eat reindeer every day after practising. It could be worse. I've only ever eaten reindeer once in my life, about 30 years ago, but I still remember the taste. It's spicier than the usual central European meats, chicken, beef and pork. I wouldn't mind eating it every day.

But let's get onto a different topic. Windows 10 sucks. Really, it does. I have two computers, my desktop PC and a laptop. The desktop, that I'm sitting at now, uses Windows 8.1, while my laptop uses Windows 10. I watched the film on my laptop and made a few screenshots to use in this post. Then I sat down to write the post (on my laptop) and ugh! All the screenshots were black.

It's not possible to make screenshots from Netflix with Windows 10. I've known that for a long time. They call it a feature. I call it a bug. That's a good reason to stick with Windows 8.1 when using Netflix. I've already asked for help in forums, and everybody says the same: there's no way around it, except for using an older operating system.

However, the problem is even trickier. As soon as Netflix is loaded in Windows 10, whether it's in your browser or in the standalone Netflix app, it turns off the screenshot function completely. What I mean is, if you open Netflix, then minimise it, then try to make a screenshot of a different window, it won't work. Netflix blacks out screenshots for the whole computer.

That's what I did wrong today. I forgot that I had the Netflix homepage open in another window, so my screenshots of "Heavy Trip", which I watched with Amazon Prime, failed. After the film was over I had to close Netflix, then go back and make some new screenshots.

I really hope that Windows 8.1 will remain available for a long time. It's useful having Windows 10 on my laptop for comparison, but I don't want to be stuck with it when I have to buy a new computer.

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

Rare Exports (5 Stars)

This is my 17th horror film for November 2019. It's also a Christmas film. Am I allowed to do that? Christmas is only a month away, exactly one month, so it must be okay by now. We're almost there.

The film claims to be about the real Santa Claus. He's not a friendly old man who bounces children on his knee and gives them presents. He's a monster who eats little children, after beating them to tenderise the meat. As the story goes, he was trapped underground on the Finland-Russian border hundreds of years ago. Now he's escaped, and his loyal elves, who have been waiting all this time for his return, are gathering children, so that he will have something to eat on Christmas Day.

The film's tone is serious from beginning to end. By pretending not to be a comedy, it's all the more hilarious. You might not laugh out loud while you watch it, but you'll have to chuckle when you think about it afterwards.

I'm sorry to say that the film is now out of print. If you live in America, you can watch it on Amazon Prime. In other countries you'll have to look for it on Ebay.

Merry Christmas!

Success Rate:  + 0.0

Big Game (5 Stars)

Some people like to go on holiday to wild and exotic places in other parts of the world. Not me. When I was younger I visited Scotland, Switzerland and France. Mostly I visited the same area in Scotland over and over again, maybe a dozen times. I didn't want to get to know new places, I wanted to get to know the same few places more intensely. Apart from day trips, my last holiday was in 2003. Sixteen years ago. Now I stay at home. Don't worry, I get fresh air, but I get fresh air locally, not in faraway places. If I want to see more of the world I watch a film.

"Big Game" takes place in northern Finland, but it was filmed on location in the mountains of Bavaria. The scenery is breathtaking.

I suspect that most of the aerial establishing shots were filmed in Finland itself. This scene doesn't look like Bavaria. Does anyone recognise it?

I'm pretty certain that this is Bavaria. Any shots which contain people or vehicles must have been shot in Bavaria.

So here we have Samuel L. Jackson standing in front of the Bavarian mountains. For people who enjoy travelling, it must be a great life as an actor. Samuel gets to walk in the mountains, breathing the fresh air and admiring the scenery, and he gets paid for it. In his place I'd be tempted to mess up my lines so that I can stay a day longer.

"Big Game" is a brilliant film on so many levels. Not just the scenery. It's a clash of two different worlds, and two very different men. Is it an exaggeration to call it a buddy movie? Samuel L. Jackson plays the President of the United States, and Onni Tomila is Oskari, a 13-year-old boy performing a Finnish manhood ritual. To become a a man he has to spend 24 hours alone in the mountain forests hunting. The president's aircraft is shot down by terrorists, and he's rescued by Oskari. Together the two have to survive as they're hunted by the heavily armed terrorists. All Oskari has to protect them is a bow and arrow.

Oskari's father considers him a failure. He doesn't think he has what it takes to live up to the long line of hunters in his family. All Oskari needs is the right motivation. When he realises that he's the only one who can save the leader of the free world, he rises to the task.

Oskari is so good as a lone hunter that the president should invite him to join the Avengers. Or is that a different film?

Success Rate:  - 1.3

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

Heavy Trip (5 Stars)

This is the tenth film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

Ever since I saw the trailer for this film I knew it would be something special. I expected it to be one of the best films of the festival, and after seeing it I consider it to be one of the best films of the year, surpassing even "Mandy".

The film is about an amateur heavy metal band, in particular its lead singer Turo, in the remote Finnish town Taivalkoski. Their dream is to make it big, but after 12 years of practising in the cellar success seems to be far distant. By chance a Norwegian comes to the town to buy reindeer blood, and it turns out that he's the manager of the Norwegian heavy music festival Northern Damnation. This awakes hopes that they can play their first public concert.

The film is so funny that the whole audience was laughing throughout. I assume that there were few heavy metal fans in the audience, so it seemed ridiculous to them that there should be aggressive heavy metal in Finland. I know otherwise. Despite its relatively small population Finland has a large number of heavy metal bands, such as Korpiklaani and Children of Bodom.

The film might be funny, but the music is exactly what heavy metal fans like. They describe their musical style as "symphonic post-apocalyptic reindeer-grinding Christ-abusing extreme Fennoscandinavian pagan battle metal", but the name is the only thing that's comical about their music.

It's a brilliant film. I can't wait to see it again.

This is Ellena, one of the organisers of the Fantasy Film Festival. She's a nice girl, even though she's not a heavy metal fan. Or maybe she is. Appearances can be deceptive. Not many people know that I'm a heavy metal fan.

Rare Exports (4½ Stars)

Why should I be watching a Christmas film in October? It's a Christmas horror film. Is that a good enough excuse?

The film takes place in the Korvatunturi Mountains, which are considered to be the place where Santa Claus lives with his elves. The Finland-Russia border cuts through the middle of the central peak. Since it's an open border and it's easy to accidentally stray into Russian territory, hikers and mountain climbers have to receive written permission from the Finnish border guard before entering the territory. The border area near the mountains is uninhabited, apart from a small community of reindeer hunters who live in makeshift huts for part of the year.

Korvatunturi's location in Finland.

The Finland-Russia border.

There are contrasting legends about Santa Claus. One is that he's a kind old man who lives in a cave in the mountains with his elves, making toys to give to children at Christmas. The other is that he's an evil creature that sleeps all year, then comes out of his cave at Christmas to capture children for food.

First there's a whipping to make the meat tender.

Then it has to be cooked in a cauldron.

There are rumours that the local people rebelled against Santa Claus 400 years ago. They lured him onto thin ice on a frozen lake. Then they bound him and buried him in a deep pit in the mountains, where he's been trapped ever since.

An American scientific team has been hired by a man who takes the rumours seriously. They're drilling to find the real Santa Claus. What they don't realise is that only Santa is trapped. The elves have been hiding in the mountains for centuries, waiting for their leader to return. When Santa is brought up from the mountain, still tied up and encased in ice, they come out of hiding and attack the Americans.

The elves aren't cute little boys dressed in green. They're creepy old men who run around naked. If you want to take a closer look at them click the picture above, but I'm warning you: it's not a pretty sight. I take no responsibility for any psychological damage which can result in permanently destroying your enjoyment of Christmas.

The reindeer hunters are the world's last line of defence in preventing Santa's return to make mankind suffer. Pietari, the 10-year-old son of a hunter, is the one who understands the danger and rises up as a natural leader in the battle.

Reading this review, you might think that "Rare Exports" is a comedy. Not at all. However amusing the premise might sound, this is a horror film with nothing to laugh at. This is the first film by the Finnish director Jalmari Helander, who later went on to make "Big Game", one of the best films in recent years. I can hardly wait for his next film.

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

Rendel (4 Stars)

This is the fourth film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

A Finnish superhero? Is that possible?

A masked crime fighter called Rendel takes on a criminal organisation that wants to sell vaccinations to African countries. There's nothing wrong with vaccinations if they are effective, but these aren't. It's one big sham, fake medication that's been approved by bribing the right people.

Rendel doesn't speak. All he does his hit hard. He's guided by the vision of a beautiful woman who tells him what to do. Is it a real person or just a schizophrenic delusion? It doesn't matter as long as he manages to beat up the bad guys.

Big Game (5 Stars)

This is a film that has an epic feeling without being an epic. Everything about it feels larger than life. It can be called the Finnish film industry's coming of age film. What I mean is, Finland's films have had a bad reputation for years. They've been hampered by poor budgets, not allowing special effects to do justice to the extravagant action and science fiction stories. "Iron Sky" was a valiant attempt to make a memorable Finnish film, but it was too camp to gain widespread popularity. "Big Game" was made with a budget of $10 million, making it the most expensive Finnish film ever. It's easily accessible by having credible action, and it manages to retain a truly Finnish character.

It's a tale of two men who could hardly be more different. Oskari is a 13-year-old from a remote village in northern Finland. William Moore is the President of the United States. Oskari has to spend 24 hours alone in the mountains to hunt wild game to prove he's a man. By all accounts he's weak, and not even his father has faith in him that he can catch anything. President Moore is the most powerful man in the world, but when Air Force One is shot down over Finland he finds himself powerless to defend himself. The inept hunter and the stranded president become friends, fleeing from terrorists who want to kill the president.

"Big Game" shows off Samuel L. Jackson's considerable talent. He isn't just the loud-mouthed actor that we see in "Snakes on a Plane". He can also play intelligent, sensitive roles. The child actor Onni Tommila, barely 14 at the time the film was made, shows remarkable talent as the film's lead actor.

It was interesting to discover that the film was shot entirely in Germany. The director said that districts in Finland have either mountains or forests, but not both together. In order to be able to shoot the whole film in one place they had to go to Bavaria. That seems very strange to me. There was really no suitable location for filming in Finland? Maybe my Finnish readers can comment on this.

Big Game (5 Stars)

I expected this film to be good, but I was unprepared for what hit me in the cinema. From the very first minutes I knew I was watching something spectacular, and by the time the film ended I was convinced this was the best new film I've seen this year. The film's cinematography, the luscious music and even the film's name on the splash screen pompously tout the film as an epic, but it lives up to the promise. In fact, the film has an unmistakable retro feeling to it, like the big budget films of the 1950's and 1960's. When trying to compare it with other films the first film that comes to mind is "Ben Hur", a very different film but with a similar feeling to it.

The film combines two stories about two different people from two different worlds. Oskari is a boy from the north of Finland who has to go alone into the woods on his 13th birthday to prove that he is capable of being a hunter. He has a lot to live up to, because his father Tapio is his community's biggest hunter and caught a bear on his 13th birthday. William Moore (Samuel L. Jackson) is the President of the United States. While on route to a G8 conference in Helsinki Air Force One is shot down by terrorists. His guards all perish in the attack, and the only person able to protect him from terrorists hunting for him is Oskari.

The clash of the two worlds functions perfectly on screen. There are scenes that seem comical to me as a big city westerner, but people from Finland probably take it for granted. When the president arrives in Finland he assumes that everyone must recognise him, but nobody does. It's Finland, who cares who the American president is? The president begins the film strutting arrogantly as the most powerful man in the world, but once he accepts that he's become the least powerful man in Finland he learns humility. Even when he talks arrogantly Samuel L. Jackson seems somehow likeable. He would make a good president, better than the one the Americans have now.

My friends who went with me to the cinema all enjoyed the film, though they weren't as exuberant as me. I think it's incredible. It's the best film I've seen for a long time.

Star Wreck (2 Stars)

Captain Pirk is stranded on Earth in the 21st Century. Realising that history has been changed, he attempts to change it back by making himself the Earth's emperor. Drunk with power he wages war on all alien life.

This is a parody of Star Trek (various series) with elements of Babylon 5 and Stargate mixed in. The plot is clever and the humour is well conceived, but it's spoilt by poor acting. The characters are all wooden and interchangeable. If you want to see a good Star Trek parody watch Star Trek XXX instead.