The Last Winter (2006)

Very well executed

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

From the DVD cover I was expecting a B-level horror-film-in-the-snow, style "30 Days of Night". This is not a horror film, which may explain why it has disappointed some reviewers here.This film is in fact more of a supernatural, environmental ghost story, combining an environmental theme to fantasy story-telling and form. In a nutshell, search and exploitation of natural resources cause damage to the environment, expose the characters to hidden, subterranean forces.The story is intriguing and original: an environmental theme, powerful and mysterious forces as in "The Mist" unleashed against the camp base standing for our consumer/industrial civilization. Similarily to "Monsters", we barely see these forces but thanks to an incredible sound design, they seem to be everywhere and appear from nowhere.The direction is strong from the beginning to the end and sometimes quite risk-taking. The Last Winter could maybe have gained more by departing from the classic Hollywood model, further in the direction it takes. Still this film is overall a very good surprise and I believe there is no other film like it. Highly recommended.

This is a very creepy film. Perhaps it's the setting, a bleak, desolate snowy climate, or perhaps it's the isolation the characters face on a daily basis. It's moody and dark and wonderful.An oil drilling company called 'North' has decided to drill in what is literally the last untouched place on earth. The drilling is headed up by Pollack (Ron Perlman). Pollack doesn't listen to the environmentalist that was hired to go with them (James LeGros). There's more stuck in the drilling compound, like Maxwell, who starts to get very scared of the "them" he sees outside the compound.The setting makes things very creepy. And the eco-horror aspects are equally scary. The performances are all great.True, however, the end may be well received to some. It's a little weird. But I found a giant transparent moose out in the middle of nowhere creepy as well.Well worth your money.

A joint American-Icelandic supernatural adventure in which a group of engineers in a remote Arctic survey station succumb to paranoia, delusions, and ultimately death. Is it a poisonous gas, a virus, a mythological wendigo, mother nature or just bad weather?Perhaps it's because writer-director Larry Fessenden is also an actor that he has such an interest in developing characters and it's refreshing to see a modern horror movie that hearkens back to the quality ensemble playing of 'Alien' and 'The Thing'. But whereas those movies built suspense and horror on the back of our compassion for well rounded characterization, 'The Last Winter' doesn't really do much with it at all. A promising set-up slows down to a glacial pace with very little actually happening for great stretches of time. The sporadic thrills, when they come, are well handled, and there are a few scenes that have a genuinely chilling quality. But events are so labored and drawn out that it takes real will power to persevere to the end. When we get there, we're rewarded with a climax that is just plain silly. I like my horror with a minimalist aesthetic, and few things are more minimal than a research station in the frozen wilds of the Arctic Circle. I love the look of the movie and the authentic and gritty realism of the production design and cinematography. It's all the more frustrating therefore that having created such a believable and detailed world, Fessenden fails to find a story worthy of it.

A film that splits people in to two groups indeed. first of all lets look at the bad reviews, well to begin with there are no ghost moose's. The tension and horror in this film does not look to supernatural or alien things to scare us. Their might be a hint of that but when it comes down to it its about our imaginations, our superstitions and beliefs that trigger our responses to situations. The exorcist had a massive audience compared to this but it was all made up hokum and mostly hysterically funny. At least "The Last Winter" tried to take in to account cause and effect from a scientific point of view. it may not do it very well at times but the film has consistency. Apparently most Americans don't even believe that global warming is happening let alone that humans are contributing to it so its not surprising some of the films messages are dismissed. A gas that causes hallucinations and paranoia? We have made them so I'm sure nature can. If you are not a gore fest carnage freak then this is a film for you