The Last Winter

It took me two watches to finally come around and give this movie credit where it was due. The first time I didn't see it all and I judged it unfairly as a result. It may not have helped that I saw it on the Horror Channel, which I only flick through out of boredom! It's a well crafted tale reminiscent of The Twilight Zone and with hints of Lovecraft, but also mostly steeped in reality with good use of psychology and paranoia like John Carpenter's The Thing.

You can't go wrong with it's cast, notably Ron Perlman, James Le Gros and even Kevin Corrigan and Jamie Harrold, who provide solid backing.

The theme is notably environmental horror with a big hint of the paranormal, which you can't tell in the Alaskan wilderness without a couple of natives on board. That theme, when it all mixes up with escalating events proves very atmospheric, and so whether you like the ambiguous ending or not, there's little denying that this slow-thawing chiller does a good job!

Ah, Alaska... The Final Frontier. By far the most breathtaking place on earth, and still the most magical place I ever visited - and probably ever will visit - in my life. Since I took a road trip there (nowhere near the North Slope, obviously) I try to watch as many movies as possible that are set in Alaska, especially if they are horror. So, regardless of how good or bad Larry Fassenden's "The Last Winter" turned out, at least I was fairly confident the filming locations and the photography would be astounding.

But "The Last Winter" has more reasons for existing than just its Alaskan (and apparently also Icelandic) filming locations. It's actually a rather ambitious, creative, well-acted and contemporary relevant combo of supernatural horror and climate fiction. It's not great, but compelling enough to keep you entertained throughout its running time. A hardened crew of the North Corporation, led by the robust Pollack, is making the final preparations to start drilling for oil, in spite of doubts and warnings from the independent environmental counsellor James Hoffman. Whilst Pollack and Hoffman are constantly bickering, and not just over the environment, other crew members are behaving increasingly strange and unpredictable. Are they being haunted by the Wendigo, are toxic gassing emerging from the soil, or are the geographical isolation and working conditions just becoming too unbearable?

Mind you, I'm not upholding the mystery with that final sentence. I genuinely had no clue what was going on! Near the end, Larry Fassenden loses his grip on the plot and the overall film, but compensates the lack of logic & coherence with a couple of spectacular scenes and visual effects. The global warming and ecological morals are omnipresent in Fassenden's script, but never shoved down our throats - which is good! The cast is fantastic, the final sequence is lousy, and the film as a whole is somewhat in between.

I'm a big fan of remote, icy movie settings, especially in horror; so it's possible that I'm being generous with my 7/10 rating.

This movie could have easily been spoiled with climate change preachiness, but the contemporary messaging was balanced with suspenseful dread and growing hints of the supernatural. The lead character (Perlman's Ed Pollock) is overbearing and unlikeable, but not comically so, and there was enough depth in other characters to assist the story.

If there is one criticism, the ending could be thought of as leaving too little to the imagination. Overall a nice way to spend a snowy night at home.

THE LAST WINTER is a cold, hope-destroying creeper of a movie. It has a thick atmosphere of mounting, inescapable doom. Though it is a bit preachy, wearing its politics clearly on its parka sleeve, it's also a well-told horror story. It's sort of like a frozen version of SESSION 9.

The only true quibble would be with the use of dubious CGI. Though it's understandable, it still takes us right out of the movie due to its artificial appearance. The argument can be made that simply not showing the supernatural menace would have been far more effective.

The film's biggest asset is Ron Perlman as the strong-willed, ultra-dedicated Ed Pollack. Perlman always gets the job done, and his role is pivotal.

Recommended for lovers of the insane and terrifying...

Larry Fessenden's "The Last Winter" is a ambitious and smartly made film. It's photographed beautifully and (by and large) acted with conviction and sensitivity. Though the central conceit about nature "taking revenge" is pretty corny, the atmosphere is also pretty compellingly bleak, and the tension mounts pretty effectively as things go from bad to worse. Sadly, as many other reviewers note, the ending throws it all away in a fit of awful CG monsters.

However, try turning it off right at one hour 27 minutes and 30 seconds. This would have been a solid albeit ambiguous ending; if you must watch further do it on a second viewing and consider it a deleted ending. It's just goofy and pointless, and the final "twist" at the end is telegraphed almost from the very beginning (in fact, one character early on describes aloud exactly what the twist will end up being).

Even without the ending, the script has problems with its petty black-and-white portrayal of heroic environmentalist and selfish oil guy. An ensemble atmosphere pic like this lives and dies on the believability of its characters; Perlman's Ed Pollock is simply too villainous to really be convincing, despite a few nice touches of humanity which Perlman brings to him. Le Gros' Hoffman is also a pretty unengaging hero, a blandly heroic saint of a guy who's always right about everything. I'm a serious environmentalist and a left-leaning guy, but the film's literal take on the situation (the dire warnings of natural disaster, the clear heroes and villains) is shallow at best and preachy and patronizing at the worst. It plays to the most obnoxiously self-congratulatory nature of people concerned with the issues presented here, while at the same time offering nothing of any real substance.

Still, the film itself is a pretty fun watch, and a definite step up from Fessenden's previous effort, the ambitious but amateurish "Wendigo" (the titular spirit of which gets name-checked here too!). Great photography combined with naturalistic acting from the likes of Kevin Corrigan and Zach Gilford do much to sell the vibe of the thing, and the setting and slow escalation of the action also add to the experience. Regardless of its stumbles, the film has loads of ambition to do something substantial and enduring, so even when it can't quite deliver on its promise it still beats the slew of cheap-scare horror remakes which every year become more numerous.