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The Last Winter [2006]
![The Last Winter [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41OCEmHgyxL._SL160_.jpg)
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Editorial
Synopsis
Deep in the Alaskan wilderness, a team of oil riggers are stalked by an unseen supernatural force. After one worker is found dead, the remaining crewmembers become disorientated and start to question their sanity. A series of disasters render the station incapacitated, forcing two of the team out into the cold in a desperate bid for survival. Is their hostile environment playing tricks on their minds, or is there a more sinister explanation? Paranoid, claustrophobic, and chilling, THE LAST WINTER taps into man's most primal fear... that of the unknown.
Thought provoking!
Review date: 2008-05-13 Rating: 10 out of 10
Well directed, brilliantly acted and filmed. Basically it seemed to be
about the earth fighting back, maybe trying to shake off the humans
responsible for seemingly devastating it. Very sad in this respect, but
a movie that needs to be seen, hopefully to get people thinking about
their impact as a collective mass that everyone is having on this poor
planet we call home, often to the detriment of all other forms of life
which have suffered terribly in one way or another, and I think this is
what was being shown in the film, and the spirit of the earth and it's misplaced creatures rising up conveyed this message very well, though not in such detail as to spoil the mysterious effect but in ghostly ways that were just right, not too little and not too much, but just enough to get the message home to what it was really all about. Maybe the director had a different vision to what I am interpreting from what I have seen in it, but this is how it came across to me.
Also a very beautiful film to look at in it's pristine whiteness of wilderness.
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Reviews
Missed the mark
Review date: 2008-05-03 Rating: 4 out of 10
It was such a shame watching this film as it had all the ingredients of a good horror movie - cabin fever, wilderness, lots and lots of snow etc. Unfortunately it felt like this film hadn't quite decided which plot to follow - concentrating on possibly the poorest storyline and missing the mark on what could've been a really creepy film. The end is the worst part - cutting the film short making the viewer feel like it has been added as an afterthought, leaving everything unexplained (but not in a good way).
"We have no idea with what we're dealing with here"
Review date: 2008-04-04 Rating: 6 out of 10
Evil has a face and its name is Mother Nature. Or so Lary Fessenden would have you believe. The Last Winter is the second effort by him and, whilst it is a much stronger effort than his previous film, its reach exceeds its grasp. In it a group of oil diggers have moved to Alaska as a last-ditch effort to increase America's oil levels, but it seems their snowy resort is less than co-operative to their plight.
It's obvious that the film's major influence is John Carpenter's re-make of The Thing, indeed, its Alaskan setting depicts a diminutive effort of replicating Carpenter's sense of paranoia and claustrophobia. But there are two major differences between them: one, The Last Winter is a supernatural-based horror, swapping Carpenter's relentless gore for ghosts and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night, but, also, it features an inclusion of female characters and, therefore, the soap opera of heterosexual relationships. Amongst its cast is Ron Perlman (of Hellboy fame), who is a little wooden here, but always an enjoyable screen presence. However, him, and the rest of the cast, never really gel together in a believable way, featuring a completely fruitless attempt at a steamy, sordid quasi-affair. It doesn't help matters that the cast are given lines that only oil diggers will understand, whether they are in its audiences or not, and the cast deliver them with little conviction.
But there are things to like here. The film begins with an information video from `North', the company our heroes are tagged to, and is reminiscent of the opening scene from Cronenberg's Shivers. There, the bourgeoisie suburban life is responsible for all the horror that occurs, and The Last Winter plays with similar themes. `The Overlook Hotel' of Stephen King's The Shining is famously buried on top of an Indian burial ground, resulting in the lakes of blood in Jack's madness, and Fessenden's cast are also buried on top of its killer - oil. "What is oil but fossils and spirits?" one character asks. Well, whatever it is, it seems pretty irritated.
The thesis behind The Last Winter is clear and concise: here, external horrors are no longer limited to the ghouls of Christian allegory but are instead exchanged for the impending doom oil shortage and global warming invite. Also, its American colonisation of Alaska doesn't have to be studied in depth to find parables with the recent Iraq war. All this is an effort that should be applauded amongst horror fans, indeed, the recent examples of the genre include the simple nastiness of Rob Zombie's work, which presents a child's-eye interpretation of 70s American horror. What Zombie forgets is the engagement with society depicted in, for example, Wes Craven's early work, but this is not something lost on Fessenden. However, here maybe The Last Winter's biggest problem - whereas The Shining kept its meaning subtle, Fessenden has clearly been riddled with his films hypothesis, but has forgotten to include anything particularly scary.
The scariest moments offered here include the short Blair Witch Project documentary footage, which supplies a predictable but effective jump, and, also, in the films only gory incident, a particularly well executed scene in which a group of plane-crash survivors meet an outstandingly gruesome end under the beaks of The Stand-like crows. The dilemma with The Last Winter is one felt recently with 30 Days of Night; it's just too slick to be scary. The over-ambitious camera work and digital effects detract from any potential frights and, therefore, the films respectable moral message lacks any real punch. Also, the film unfortunately succumbs to a cliché-ridden conversation over a transmitter between hope-lost survivors, and a sentimentally bleak ending one would not find out of place in your latest Blockbuster Apocalypse pulp.
Overall, the contentions of The Last Winter are worthy, which is something of a rarity in mainstream horror pictures these days, but, on the other hand, one can't help but feel short-changed in its lack of scares. I'm with Ron Perlman's character- "I'm not afraid of this place." Undeniably.
I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE IT......
Review date: 2008-03-29 Rating: 4 out of 10
...but unfortunately I have to agree with the other rather cold impressions listed here. First of all, I must say that the setting attracted me very much. one inevitable comparison is THE THING, which is one of my favorite horror movies of all times. Terror lurking around an artic station....exactly my cup of tea. The movie starts with a very interesting and suitably creepy premise: a misterious experimental oil well that has been abandoned for many years and is now going to be made operational again by our cast of characters. Some decent talent on show here, even though Ron Pearlman cannot be said to have too many nuances of expression, but he is OK with the role in question. On the plus side, some nice photography seems to usher into a nice horror movie... the problem is that Last Winter at lenght fails to deliver. I have to agree with other reviewers saying that the movie takes far too long to reach its climax, and by the time it gets there... you care little. Too few scares and quite far apart. The movie does manage to convey some kind of eerie atmosphere, especially when you see the box sorrounding the well, (white and creepy) but it is not really scary enough. And the problem is not that the movie is made with a low budget: there are plenty of extremely scary movies out there made with less money. It just fails to achieve what it says on the box: to terrify you. Imho, that is enough to skip any product. In the end, 2 stars, because it is not totaly devoid of some cinematographic merit.
Didn't get it
Review date: 2008-03-24 Rating: 2 out of 10
This movie seems to be a love it or hate it piece and I am afraid I fall into the second category. It spends an hour going nowhere, 20 minutes not making any sense at all and ends abruptly. It's a pity as it has some fine actors in it, and the location should have lent itself to the sort of creepy atmospheric films I normally appreciate but with this one I just never got hooked and by the time the plot did start to unfold I didn't care enough about any of the characters to be emotionally engaged. a big disappointment for me.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Ron Perlman
Creators:
Ron Perlman (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Revolver Entertainment
Manufacturer: Revolver Entertainment
EAN: 5060018489223
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-08-06
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 101 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2006
Language: English (Original Language)