MTSBM: The White Death

*Sniff*... If only...

Welcome to Movies That Should Be Made (MTSBM), a new series of opinion articles meant to make you feel like today’s movie selection is ridiculously inadequate (shouldn't be hard). We’ll talk about films that, obviously, we feel should be made. They could be based on a true story, a spin-off of another film, a sequel that never happened, or a totally original idea. So, without further ado, I present our first installment: The White Death.

Maybe it could be a horror movie.

This one is based on a true story, which I heard about while reading an article on Cracked. Simo Häyhä was a Finnish farmer who served his mandatory years in the military before retiring to live alone in the forest. While in the military he received some basic sniper training, which he decided to bust back out when the Soviet Union invaded Finland and started the Winter War in 1939.  Being Finnish and all, he wasn’t too pleased with his country being invaded and figured he should at least take out some Soviets.  So he did. And by “take out some Soviets”, I mean he sniped 505 (542 unofficially) of them with an old-school hunting rifle that had an iron sight, and got at least another 200 with a sub-machine gun. No, seriously; we’re talking about one dude taking out (at a minimum) 705 Soviet soldiers. He did it all in less than 100 days, too (for the statistically minded, that's a little over 7 confirmed kills a day for over three months, or significantly better than the entire US military in Afghanistan (oh, too soon)). What he did: Take his trusty hunting rifle, a few cans of food, his white camouflage suit, and a full supply of badassery out into the forest to terrorize some Soviets.

It's like Where's Waldo, only Waldo's looking for you. With a sniper rifle.

How on earth did he find so many of them in such a short amount of time, you ask? Well, upon discovering that all sorts of their soldiers were being taken out by some crazy farmer in the forest, the Soviets decided to send entire squads of soldiers, including dozens of counter snipers, to take him out. They used artillery strikes. They carpet bombed his general area. And they failed miserably. Simo earned the nickname “The White Death”, as he took out everyone that was sent to kill him. Even the carpet bombing failed, supposedly doing no more than shredding his coat a bit with shrapnel. Oh, and lest I forget, let me mention that he did all of this in 20 to 40 degree below zero weather, in a snowy forest, during a time of year when there was very little daylight.

The actor would be
more attractive.

I bet you’re wondering if he was ever stopped. Well, yes, he was. Someone got lucky enough to hit Simo in the jaw with an exploding bullet. The people who found him described Simo as having “half his head missing”. Thus ended The White Death’s reign of terror. Until, you know, a week later when he regained consciousness and a peace was declared. He later became a successful hunter and dog breeder, hunting with such people as the president of Finland.

Take a moment to digest the sheer potential of a movie here. I mean, yeah, sure, it probably wouldn’t be up for any awards. But it would easily be the most badass movie of all time. You know all those classic action heroes in The Expendables? Yeah, Simo Häyhä would kill all of them. And they legitimately wouldn’t know what hit them.


Ocean sheep,
Ben