The Last Winter

The American oil company KIC Corporation is building an ice road to explore the remote Northern Artic National Wildlife Refuge seeking energy independence. Independent environmentalists work together in a drilling base headed by the tough Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) in a sort of agreement with the government, approving procedures and sending reports of the operation. When one insane team member is found dead naked on the snow, the environmentalist James Hoffman (James Le Gros) suspects that sour gases may have been accidentally released in the spot provoking hallucinations and insanity in the group. After a second fatal incident, he convinces Ed to travel with the team to a hospital for examination. However, weird events happen trapping the group in the base.

"The Last Winter" is intriguing, beginning like "The Thing" blended with "An Inconvenient Truth" in wonderful locations in Iceland. Then the story shifts to a rip-off of "The Shining", ending in a complete and disappointing ambiguous mess. Ron Perlman plays an unpleasant character, and it is impossible to feel any empathy for Ed Pollack. It seems that the unknown director and writer Larry Fessenden was also affected by the hallucinogen gas of the story and end the movie completely mad, showing a weak answer of the nature in spite of having a plot with great potential. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Colapso no Ártico" ("Collapse in the Artic")

To be honest I wasn't expecting much going into this film, yet was pleasantly surprised about it for about the first 45mins. As with all isolation movies, there is a profound sense of eeriness, and there are particular things (such as the box from the previous expedition, and a strange log book) which, I thought, were going to be good set ups for more mystery further on in the story. The acting wasn't by any means bad either. Ron Perlman was, well, Ron Perlman, and James Le Gros did fairly well as his opposite. It wasn't even that the characters were unlike-able or underdeveloped.

But there certainly is a distinct point in the film where everything well and truly turns on its head. And from there it is all down hill.

It actually baffles me completely that a film can go from eerie and interesting, to ridiculous and plain stupid like flipping a light switch. It was like the writers got to a point and said "hmm, we haven't killed many people yet. Probably should drop the storyline and do some character culling." Then proceeded to make completely irrational decisions that left you screaming at the screen in frustration.

The biggest flaw in this film is that it never returns to the eeriness it started out with. Instead it decided it needed to go cliché and kill off characters in ways that were baffling. They never circle back to the set ups that they originally established, so leave you thinking 'well, what was the point'.

And there is none!

I am serious. The end of this movie has absolutely zero relation to the main storyline! And don't even get me started on the final shot. Whoever did that stroke of genius deserves a bullet.

Overall my experience of this film went a lot like this: 'Cool. Oh yup. Hmm creepy. Oh yup. Ooo nice! Hmm, interesting. Wait, what? No seriously, what? WHY!? What the f**k. What the hell, just use the dead guys jacket!! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? ....Are you serious. What,the,f**k. Let me guess, that's it? ...Yup damn. Well that was terrible.'

As most people have stated, it was a film that showed serious potential but threw it all away by sticking its head up its own ass. Watch the first 45mins and walk away. At least the questions you have won't be shadowed by the unnecessary questions we are force fed at the end.

"The Last Winter" has an effective build up. It's not completely original, mind you. We have seen that kind of setting before, in "The Thing" and a dozen other movies where a crew is isolated in a strange place where weird things start to happen. It's the memory of those far superior movies that make this one watchable at first. However, the story drags on and it all goes downhill soon.

The mysterious ongoings aren't really that intriguing, and they get less intriguing the more they are exposed. On top of that, Ron Perlman's character is annoying and unbelievable. He's just a constant pain in the a.., just for the hell of it. The worst part about "The Last Winter", however, is the resolution or rather the lack thereof. It seems as if director/writer whatshisface hadn't thought the whole thing through and just decided to go ahead with filming because the topic of global warming is so trendy right now.

Well, it's a pity. "The Last Winter" could have been a solid mystery/thriller. Instead it's an unsatisfying waste of your time. There are far too many good movies out there waiting to be watched for you to rent this one.

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.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to say about this one. It's loaded with so much promise - a cast of engaging characters; a bleak, isolated setting; slow-burn direction that builds a creepy atmosphere.

But that's where the good stuff ends.

The plot (or lack thereof) seems to involve the deaths of the aforementioned characters in random, arbitrary ways with no explanations offered. A few "ecological revenge" lines are thrown but they do little to clue the viewer in to what's actually supposed to be going on. To be completely honest - I don't think even the writer and director knew what was going on. I get the feeling they said:

"Hey let's make this creepy film set in an arctic drilling station, kinda like 'The Thing'..."

"Cool, so what's the plot?"

"Ummm, I don't know, I don't think it matters. Characters can die!"

"Cool, so what's killing them?"

"Ummm, I don't know, I don't think it matters."

"I guess not. Let's get started then!"