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60 out of 91 people found the following review useful: Bleak and so Very Engaging, 22 September 2006 Author: Jamester from Canada
Call it the Arctic Documentary, meets Alive!, meets Jurassic 'Horror' Park.I saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival and enjoyed from beginning to end, rather unexpectedly with really good results.This movie is about an oil research team in the remote reaches of the Alaskan Arctic, trying to see just how feasible oil drilling is, weighing the environmental unknowns against the corporate needs to secure 'energy independence'. Then as this clash intensifies, the human stakes start to rise out against the bleakness of the landscape.Real, dramatic, yet occasionally intense, against a bleak landscape, the realness of this story shone through. This was my kind of movie.
42 out of 69 people found the following review useful: Gripping and well crafted, 24 June 2007 Author: CountryJim from United States
I was engaged for the whole movie. The sense of being out in the snow, building tension and sense of dread was totally captured. The characters were very well scripted and portrayed.If anything, the underlying threat could have been totally left to the imagination without a reveal. Having said that, the total impact of the movie was nevertheless not spoiled.The snow scenes and landscape were captured with a bleak and beautiful starkness. The action scenes were done with incredible realism and not overdone.Ron Perlman did a great job of portraying the rough and tough oil man, yet was able to shift as the plot unfolded. All the actors and characters were totally believable, and sustained their correct arcs through the movie.
17 out of 24 people found the following review useful: Great acting and great film making make for a creepy first half but a lack of direction ruins the second, 8 October 2007 Author: dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Eco horror film about the advance team from an oil company finding that the Alaskan wilderness is turning against it. Ten years earlier a test well had been drilled and what it found was kept secret. Now after years of negotiations and behind the scenes dealing the advance group from Northern Industries is preparing the way for full scale drilling. Arriving back from headquarters big wig Ron Perlman finds things are beginning to go amiss. The temperature is climbing despite it being February, its raining and more than one of the people in his crew is acting strange.Well made and well acted this film works for about 45 minutes until one of the crew, who had gone mysteriously missing, begins to go on about strange forces and "don't you see it". No we don't. And thats the problem. much of this film we don't see anything. To be certain we do see the guy wander into the waste and freeze to death and we see his lifeless corpse moved around, and we see the ominous animals,we see the deaths and we hear the scary words about the planet in revolt, but we don't see anything that makes sense. For whatever reason none of it makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. Its formless dread that never takes form, and while our lives are often controlled by it, you can't make a movie about it. To be honest I started not to pay attention in the last 35 or 40 minutes. The mood was good, but it just wasn't scary because the reason for the fear, other than clever film-making, was missing.I'll try it again down the road, but for now I consider it a misfire. (Also in fairness a friend at work really really liked it)
21 out of 32 people found the following review useful: The ending made me real angry, 14 December 2007 Author: dschmeding from Germany
The last winter is a movie that starts up promising with an oil field expedition in the arctic plains. The atmosphere of coldness, emptiness, isolation and the resulting paranoia are captured perfectly. Basically the movie starts off a lot like The thing with some modern ecological themes mixed in. There is something under the melting ice... is it nature taking revenge on man, is it ghosts, is it just the paranoia of the crew turning on each other or is it seeping gas from the ground causing hallucinations like the ecological adviser of the team suspects?? We don't know... but I didn't care because the atmosphere, music and beautiful pictures of the white nothingness are just too gripping. Until 2/3rds into the movie I really loved it and was waiting for something to drop the curtain for applause. But it didn't happen... the finale is a mix of all those ideas mentioned, unsure if the thrown in CGI Animal-Ghosts are just products of imagination or natures wrath or whatever. You just get some themes thrown in that never were mentioned before (so what are the childhood pictures supposed to mean and why was the strange box introduced into the plot heavily in the beginning to be dropped off in the end) plus a totally open and disappointing ending that I had the impression to have seen more than once before. Honestly I was angry there about a great movie being ruined so heavily... sitting there and kind of screaming "zoomout and pan, goddamnit" to the camera man. But he didn't ... I can't believe how stupid the last shot is. Watch the first half of the movie, turn it off and leave the rest to your imagination... I think then it could be a lot better than with the directors imagination leading nowhere.
18 out of 29 people found the following review useful: Stunningly awful, 11 December 2007 Author: imdb-9887 from United Kingdom
Starts off slow... so you think it's just taking its time, introducing you to the characters so you care when they (presumably) start to die horribly later on.Nope. It starts off slow, because that's how the rest of it goes too. Assuming you've managed to stay awake past the first 45 minutes we have some of the characters going slowly mad while ghostly sheep or something run around on the edge of their vision and random shots of environmental disasters are scattered across the screen.Just before you'd walk out of the cinema or fall asleep in your chair somebody finally gets killed (couldn't tell you who, despite all that build up), then they go mad/off themselves/get killed/whatever in quick succession.So, all self-induced mania? Well an incoming group on an aircraft crash for no reason whatsoever so they obviously had the instant version of the mania.Then it all goes completely to pot while crappy CGI see-through DragonMoose (tm) starts walking about and slapping people.Honestly, it's worse than I've described.Good job to the marketing team on getting all these positive reviews up here though! Two stars just for that.
11 out of 16 people found the following review useful: Coolly different horror. . .Spooky., 2 August 2008 Author: Rabh17 from United States
The setting is bleak, white and, of course, isolated. A remote drilling station with company employees waiting things out. Then something starts happening.Another reviewer pegged it nicely as a mix of "The Shining" with a little bit of 'The Thing" and you have a flavor of what this movie is like.What's nice is that there isn't the usual pot boiler about some secret military base, or some evil corporate shenanigans. The characters are the normal sorts of people who actually would work in this kind of remote, exploratory/drilling outpost. And I especially like the music/camera work they did in one segment. . .visually lyrical.And the 'Whatever it is"? I still don't have the darnedest idea!! That's what makes this movie a nice horror treat. Yes, there's a global warming message in there-- but this isn't an environmentalist groupie movie trying to hit you over the head. Global warming is just one of the ingredients.But overall. . .spooky.
34 out of 63 people found the following review useful: 'Wendigo' director scores another hit., 8 August 2007 Author: steevhopper from United Kingdom
Larry Fessenden is someone to watch. With first Wendigo and now this, he should be on everyone's cinematic radar- having demonstrated a unique voice, a refusal to do things the way others do them and delivering two absolute masterpieces in a row.Fessenden has a particular eye, a genuinely unnerving sense of pace and an approach to film-making that seems out of it's time. I can't tell if it's the depth of his characters, the measured beats of the screenplay, the great hollows of silence on the soundtrack or the straightforward refusal to write gags into his movies that does it, but it's like he's making movies for smart adults in a genre where such things are rare. And thank god for that, because this world could use some more Larry Fessendens to balance it out.Briefly, Ron Perlman is a hard-bitten Oil Prospector working in the Arctic Tundra. He has to get the big machines in, so that drilling can begin- but the weather's shot to hell and Company-employed Environmentalist Hoffman won't sign the right papers. And something's out there in the wilderness. Something that drives men mad and may have doomed them all.No spoilers here- see it 'cold' (if you'll pardon the pun). If you need it to be categorised, then imagine Kubrick's The Shining, crossed with Carpenter's The Thing, mixed up with Fessenden's own Wendigo sauce. It's a brutal, lyrical screenplay, using some fine actors and glorious cinematography- and it'll creep under your skin. Oh, just see it! Maybe that way, he'll make some more...Steev
7 out of 10 people found the following review useful: The Last Twenty Minutes!!!, 21 April 2008 Author: Wheesht from Scotland
Okay, nothing much to say here that hasn't already been said by all the other good reviewers on here.Director does a cracking job of building up a sense of tension, isolation and paranoia in the first half of the film. Beautiful, haunting location shots, spot-on musical score and some clever camera-work. Undoubted nods to the likes of 'The Thing', 'Blair With Project' and 'The Shining' but the director still manages to plant enough plot devices (mysterious white box, weird noises and footprints, well-acted descent into madness) to promise a worthwhile outcome.Sadly, at this point they run out of ideas. In fact if I didn't know better, I'd almost have thought that they switched directors about two-thirds in. Particular gripes: 1) Rubbish CGI. You do NOT need a monster to make your movie scary. Especially when it's some sort of reject from Rocky & Bullwinkle.2) The whole final scene. Been watching Resident Evil have we? The very final shot screams that they's completely run out of money and couldn't afford to do the apocalyptic wide angle shot that was needed here.3) Poorly done switch in pace. About two thirds in we go from slow, deliberate menace to frantic, unexplained chaos. Handled well this might have worked. It didn't.Reading this back it sounds really negative and that's not the impression I want to give. This was a decent movie and I suppose my annoyance is that it wasn't as good as it easily could have been given a bit more care and thought.
12 out of 20 people found the following review useful: A New Revolution In Hollywood Cinema, 17 March 2008 Author: elton_1987 from India
Somewhere during Christmas week where its winter over here, i sat and decided to see this movie only to realise that it was a good choice. Its about some oil drilling corporation unit sent to some part of Iceland to drill oil.It concentrates on a white box like structure throughout. When one of the crew members hallucinates presumably due to the release of sour gas and dies in the cold the others realise that there's something wrong with a lot of weird things happenings with no explanation.This movie gives out an important message which is not clearly shown in fact it is hidden and left for you to figure out.The Last Winter is about how nature takes revenge on man for misusing it and taking it for granted.This movie tests your thinking level and how about you perceive things.If you don't understand it you wont find what message this movie is revealing to us and perhaps foolish;but if you see it in a different way and think accordingly(i mean just think a little bit more) you will find its a masterpiece.This is one of the best natural horror films.Truly,very gripping and engaging.This ones a must watch.Simply exceptional and outstanding. A new revolution created in Hollywood cinema.
14 out of 24 people found the following review useful: Great until..., 23 September 2007 Author: yellowtonkatoy from United States
"The Last Winter" is a very moody film with a lot going for it in terms of having a great theme, interesting camera work, good acting and a strong cast. The director did a good job of setting up the story and following through the major plot points of horror movie structure, ala "The Thing," or "The Shining." I was pretty much with it all the way until... ahem... suddenly, Bullwinkle appeared. Come on guys, this CGI stuff just doesn't cut it on this scale. This movie would have been that much better and more mysterious had the "monsters" never appeared. I am trying to give credit where credit is due here, but didn't anyone say no to the glowing green moose-monster in a preview?
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