The White Reindeer

The White Reindeer (Valkoinen peura, 1952) is a Finnish horror-fantasy directed by Erik Blomberg — watch it online on iFILM. Pirita is a newly married woman in Lapland; her husband, a reindeer herder, is gone for days at a time. She goes to the local shaman and asks for a love charm that will bring him back to her.

The charm works. Sort of. Pirita gains the ability to shift into a white reindeer and lure hunters to their deaths, feeding on their blood. Mirjami Kuosmanen plays her with almost no dialogue — just a gaze and a movement at a time. The film was shot on location in actual Sámi territory, and that Lapland winter does half the directing on its own. At Cannes 1953, the film took home the prize for Best Fairy-Tale Film. For fans of slow, atmospheric folk horror, this is the real thing. Stream The White Reindeer online on iFILM.