The Bottom Line
Pros
- Well-defined characters
- Attractively shot
- Strong cast
Cons
- Slow pace
- Heavy-handed message
- Not scary
- Cheesy computer graphics
Description
- Starring Ron Perlman, James LeGros, Connie Britton, Zach Gilford, Kevin Corrigan, Jamie Harrold
- Directed by Larry Fessenden
- Not Rated
- DVD Release Date: July 22, 2008
Guide Review - 'The Last Winter' DVD Review
The Movie
The Last Winter explores the hot-button issues of global warming and oil drilling in the tale of oil company employees stationed near the Arctic Circle who are prepping the area for newly sanctioned wells.
When the group welcomes an environmentalist hired to conduct impact studies, clashes between the tree hugger and land rapists are inevitable, but they're nothing compared to the clashes that occur between the workers and a mysterious force that appears from the barren, icy land. The permafrost is melting, and it may have released a long-buried entity.
Soon, folks start to act strangely: hallucinating, walking around naked, dying. It's the last one that causes the most problems. As bodies drop, it seems as if the area is cursed and won't let them leave alive.
The Last Winter feels like a bigger-scale treatment of director Fessenden's last movie, Wendigo. Both take place in the snowy wilderness, both feature Native American legends and natural spirits, and both are deathly slow. With these two films and the vampire flick Habit, Fessenden has honed the craft of "art house horror": talky character studies in which scares take a backseat to interpersonal relationships and mood. Yawn.
In the case of The Last Winter, the desolate landscape provides ample opportunity for spooky goings-on, but it fails to take advantage of it in the way that The Thing or 30 Days of Night did. Fessenden's direction is fine, but the sweeping aerial shots prove more exhilarating than scary. As with his other works, it feels more like supernatural drama than horror.
In the end, the preachy plot feels like an amalgam of "nature run amok" films and "Indian burial ground" ghost pics, with half-baked elements that are never fully explored (The white box?).
The DVD
Special features include commentary and a behind-the-scenes featurette.
Movie: C-
DVD: C+
