The American oil company KIC Corporation is building an ice road to explore the remote Northern Arctic National Wildlife Refuge seeking energy independence. Independent environmentalists work together in a drilling base headed by the tough Ed Pollack 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 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.
Genre(s): Horror, Thriller
Runtime: 101 minutes
Rating: 5.8/10 (3,501 votes)
Release Date: 11 September 2006
Country: USA, Iceland
Languages: English
Company: Antidote Films (I)
Sound: Dolby Digital
Director(s): Larry Fessenden
Producer(s):
Larry Fessenden – producer
Kristen Kusama – co-producer
Jeanne Levy-Hinte – executive producer
Jeffrey Levy-Hinte – producer
Skuli Fr. Malmquist – co-executive producer
Sigurjon Sighvatsson – executive producer
Thor Sigurjonsson – co-executive producer
Writer(s):
Larry Fessenden – writer
Robert Leaver – writer
Cast:
Ron Perlman – Ed Pollack
James LeGros – James Hoffman
Connie Britton – Abby Sellers
Zach Gilford – Maxwell McKinder
Kevin Corrigan – Motor
Jamie Harrold – Elliot Jenkins
Pato Hoffmann – Lee Means
Joanne Shenandoah – Dawn Russell
Larry Fessenden – Charles Foster
Oscar Miller – Simon Marshowitz
Music: Jeff Grace
Tagline: What if mankind only had one season left on Earth?
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alright, well i am a special FX make up artist so I'm frequentlywatching new horror movies (and old) and you usually have 5 extremesthat a horror movie can fit into these days: -Asian extreme -indie-wannabe horror icons -completely commercial -remakes this would fitinto low budget indie, which doesn't give it justice, the masters ofhorror movies and the 8 films to die for comps are within this genreand id say none of the movies even meet this standard, horror seemsdead right now, Asian movies are constantly being remade as well as70's and 80's horror movies, which is alright but doesn't do justicefor the originals most of the times and commercial movies have no guts,lack thought provoking plots and meaningful story lines, then you havethe movies made for gores sake which does have its own undergroundfollowing… but to get to my point in not sure this movie fits intoany of these, it has something to say without being pushy, has talentedcast and crew and ITS THE SCARIEST movie I've seen in a LONG time. Whathappened to trying to make someone pee their pants in a theater, isn'tthat the point of horror? give this a try it's not perfect but it's astep forward for horror.
Once again, this site's viewers got it all wrong. The rating should bemuch higher.
If nature doesn't care then why would it take revenge? The notion thatghosts of millions-of-years old fossils would decide to take revenge onman is a bit too preposterous, even for a horror film. Why would theycare about man polluting the Earth? No clues are given as to whyfossils/oil would protest against them/it being used to fuel economiesaround the world. Does it physically hurt the fossils/oil hurt whenthey're/it is being turned into energy? Or are they upset because theydidn't get a cut of the profits? Maybe if Perlman had offered thisliving oil a percentage they'd been fine with the plans to drill…Perhaps those dragons aren't so much anti-business as they're justplain greedy. On the other hand, dragons have their families tosupport, too, hence a few dollars from Exxon and the like might helpthem lead a more luxurious life… No idea. E-mail me what you thinkthe dragons were upset about here, or if you think they were merelybeing a**holes.
Forget the somewhat cheesy ending with the ghost-dragons. And forgetthe somewhat problematic premise about nature "taking revenge" on man,i.e. the way this idea was conceived. This is a great movie. I haven'tseen such beautiful scenery since "Holy Smoke", plus there is a highlyeffective build-up of atmosphere that reminds me for some reason of amovie like "Safe". The cast is very good, the dialogue intelligent andrealistic, the soundtrack quite suitable.
Some people wrote that the movie starts off like "The Thing". What,just because of the polar setting in a horror film? (OK, not polar butAlaskan setting: same damn thing.) Does that mean that "Lord Of TheRings" is like "Excalibur" because there are many things happening incastles? Someone even mentioned that "The Shining" was being rippedoff. What, just because a person is found frozen in the snow? Thatmakes it a rip-off of Kubrick's film? Using this logic, "Braveheart"was a rip-off of every other movie with battle-scenes in which peopledie from stabbing. Perhaps "2001: A Space Odyssey" was a rip-off of"Plan 9 From Outer Space"? After all, both movies have STARS IN THEM!Honestly, some people…
TLW may not be 100% original – but what movie today is? The terrificphotography, an adult script (especially for a horror film), and a castdevoid of amateurs like Ashton Kutcher or over-actors such as JohnTravolta and Nicholas Cage, ensure that this film sticks out from thepiles of filmic rubbish that are released in their dozens every week.Plus, it always helps to have a beautiful woman in the cast, this timeone called Connie Britton.
As for the ending, sure it could have been better. Revealing the threatto be mere dragons mucking about in the snow was hardly an optimalconclusion to the mystery, but people who feel that the ENTIRE moviewas ruined by a couple of mythic lizards are far too demanding. Theseare probably the same people who will accept all the illogical baloneyin a De Palma or Hitchcock movie, but decide to nit-pick through TLWfor some reason. Perhaps they do that because a modestly-budgeted filmlike this hasn't been over-hyped? Some people need to be dazzled byexcessive marketing in order to feel as though nit-picking should beskipped…
Is it me or is Ron Perlman the long-lost twin-brother of Tom Waits?…
Let me start by saying there is one and only one slow-paced arctichorror movie that ever worked and it's John Carpenter's The Thing.Anyone who thinks they can remake—er, rip-off—the experience is settingthemselves up for failure from the start. In this case, The Last Winteris not just a failure, it's a laugh-out-loud joke from start to finish.
Let me start out by saying the casting is terrible. Ron Perlman is soover-the-top as the main leader it was like watching an old, clichédwar cartoon with the stereotypical big/loud commander. Hilarious. Thenyou have all the men referring to Connie Britton's character asdrop-dead gorgeous, when she's just flat-out ugly in this movie.Awkward. The rest of the cast is an attempt at recreating the cast fromThe Thing, but in a politically correct way.
Then you get to the laughable plot. It's reminiscent of The Happeningin that it never outright says "Global warming is making things killus!" but infers it in every single scene. I'm not about to go into theinconsistencies in the global warming debate, but, please, can someoneexplain to me how global warming makes ghost reindeer? Because as yousee in the second scene, ghost reindeer are as scary as "The ScariestMovie of the Year!" (L.A. Daily News) gets.
Wait . . . you're still reading this review as if I'm talking about aserious horror movie? The last time I saw ghost reindeer was on thoseold claymation Christmas cartoons.
If all of the things I just mentioned weren't enough for you to pretendthis film is sitting in the comedy section of your local video storeand not to horror section, I haven't even gotten to the level ofboredom. Point blank: there is a MAJOR difference between buildingatmosphere and just pointless scenes. The original '70s Alien did nothave a single pointless scene, because every single scene addedsomething to the atmosphere. The Last Winter is the exact opposite, andjust has boring, pointless scenes for the sake of boring, pointlessscenes. The atmosphere is paper-thin, except what the arctic naturallycreates on its own. There isn't a single scene of action or thrilluntil the last 20 minutes, and that is the only scene of action orthrill in the entire movie.
The characterization consists of your typical off-screen sex scenes,just like in every other movie with forgettable characters. At onepoint you even get to see one of the men strip off hisclothes—following the rules of political correctness and obscuring hiscrotch—and run around with his bare butt getting screen time. Unlessthe director has the maturity level of a 13-year-old boy, can someoneplease enlighten me of the point of this? Am I really the only personout there who sees no point of cheesy on-screen nudity for the sake of"Eh, every movie has it, so I can't go against the grain"? Well, folks,this is what you get when you give your money to cheesy, pansydirectors.
A few last complaints:
- The script has the realism of something written by a 6-year-old. -The Last Winter isn't scary and it certainly isn't fun or gory. -Cheese drips off every scene. Especially the ghost reindeer. – Theflash-cut directing worked in the Saw franchise, but it's downrightlaughable here.
Do I really need to go on any further, even though I really could? TheLast Winter is just a terrible green film with no intelligence and evenless entertainment. It's just a cheesy, wholesale cliché example of theoverdone cabin fever-type movies. It's like watching the work of a kidwho saw The Thing and had a wet dream, then got worked up in globalwarming, then became a director and welded his two loves together withcheese and unoriginality.
0/10
Larry Fessenden's "The Last Winter" is a ambitious and smartly madefilm. It's photographed beautifully and (by and large) acted withconviction and sensitivity. Though the central conceit about nature"taking revenge" is pretty corny, the atmosphere is also prettycompellingly bleak, and the tension mounts pretty effectively as thingsgo from bad to worse. Sadly, as many other reviewers note, the endingthrows it all away in a fit of awful CG monsters.
However, try turning it off right at one hour 27 minutes and 30seconds. This would have been a solid albeit ambiguous ending; if youmust watch further do it on a second viewing and consider it a deletedending. It's just goofy and pointless, and the final "twist" at the endis telegraphed almost from the very beginning (in fact, one characterearly on describes aloud exactly what the twist will end up being).
Even without the ending, the script has problems with its pettyblack-and-white portrayal of heroic environmentalist and selfish oilguy. An ensemble atmosphere pic like this lives and dies on thebelievability of its characters; Perlman's Ed Pollock is simply toovillainous to really be convincing, despite a few nice touches ofhumanity which Perlman brings to him. Le Gros' Hoffman is also a prettyunengaging hero, a blandly heroic saint of a guy who's always rightabout everything. I'm a serious environmentalist and a left-leaningguy, but the film's literal take on the situation (the dire warnings ofnatural disaster, the clear heroes and villains) is shallow at best andpreachy and patronizing at the worst. It plays to the most obnoxiouslyself-congratulatory nature of people concerned with the issuespresented here, while at the same time offering nothing of any realsubstance.
Still, the film itself is a pretty fun watch, and a definite step upfrom 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 ofKevin 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 theexperience. Regardless of its stumbles, the film has loads of ambitionto do something substantial and enduring, so even when it can't quitedeliver on its promise it still beats the slew of cheap-scare horrorremakes which every year become more numerous.
No doubt this film was made with the best of educational intentions.Permafrost thaw is indeed a very real and very serious problem, a partof the positive feedback loop that affects global warming. It'scertainly something that people should know about.
But, honestly, ghostly herds of caribou running around the sub-articlike the creatures in Pitch Black? This is not, repeat, NOT helpful.
Movies like Starlight, The Day After Tomorrow, and this misfire do moreharm to the environmental movement than any goose-stepping right-wingfroth-at-the-mouth blowhard like Limbaugh or Hannity.
It's difficult enough to get the average American to care about theglaringly obvious environmental changes on our planet without havingsome sub-moronic jack-booted boy-man pop up and sneer about how he oncesaw this one movie with global warming and ghost caribou and that guyfrom The Name of the Rose.
I want the minutes of my life back! This has got to be one of the worstmovies I've ever seen. Firstly it was about an hour into the moviebefore anything happened and when it did it wasn't scary. I keptwatching thinking anything this dull has to have an interesting ending,but it didn't! Oh and the creatures are what exactly? Moose ghosts?? Sotell me if I have the story right…….. Basically really old snowthat contains the soul's of moose ghosts is melting due to globalwarming and when an oil company drills a hole it releases these evilmoose ghosts to go around killing people and sending them crazy? My 4year old could write a better story!
Here we have a fine effort by Larry Fessenden to make horrorentertaining, rather than simply relying on splatter and body counts.The movie progresses at a leisurely pace, building characterdevelopment and tension. Odd things are happening, and the viewer isleft to speculate about what is going wrong. I do not get theimpression, like some others, that "The Last Winter" is meant to bepurely a message movie about screwing with the environment. When viewedas simply entertainment, it delivers. The on location photography addstremendously, and Ron Perlman gives a standout performance. Maybe theoil company drilling unleashed a hallucinatory gas,that caused abnormalbehavior, maybe it didn't. The film has many possible explanations,none of which are crystal clear, but that is also what makes "The LastWinter" fascinating. Recommended. – MERK
What a horrible movie. I had this on my list of DVD's to own. I finallybought it. If only you could return purchased movies for store credit.
Movie starts out fine. Whether it's slow or not as other have said, itkeeps my interest…as I thought it was going to be a good movie. Thiswas nothing but a horrible attempt at…something…I just don't knowwhat. Oh wait, I know…spend your money on this movie so I make aprofit by making the cover eye catching and the summary interesting.
The characters acting was fine. I like Ron Perlman. But there lacked afeasible plot with unanswered questions. In fact, the plot was nothingless than leaving you laughing. When you find out what was going on, Iwas left speechless. Speechless as in…you have got to be kidding me!
I swear, either these quotes by the reviewers are made up…or theydon't know a thing about a horror movie. One guy is quoted as saying onthe cover, "the scariest movie of the year." Yeah, remember the nameBob Strauss from the LA Daily News and never listen to his reviews. Ibet he is would say cotton candy is scary too. What a joke. There wasnothing scary about this movie at all. Horror? No freakin way.
Seriously, I don't know it got as high of a rating number as it does onhere. Cannibal Holocaust has a better rating than this movie.
The Last Winter ranks up as one of the most horrible movies I'veseen…right under Next with Nicolas Cage. I'd rather watch reruns ofMork and Mindy. And I hate Robin Williams.