The Last Winter (2006)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Larry Fessenden

Writers:

Larry Fessenden (writer)
Robert Leaver (writer)

Release Date:

24 September 2008 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

What if mankind only had one season left on Earth?

Plot:

The American oil company KIC Corporation is building an ice road to explore the remote Northern Arctic...

Plot Keywords:

Oil Company | Alaska | Arctic Region | Snow | Ice Road

Awards:

1 nomination

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
Hálfdán Theodórsson	...	Gary
Eggert Ketilsson	...	Frozen Trucker
Jack Fessenden	...	Young Hoffman
John Speredakos	...	Weatherman
Halfdan Pedersen	...	Doctor Pedersen (as Hálfdan Lárus Pedersen)

Also Known As:

Síðasti veturinn (Iceland)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA | Iceland

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:18A | USA:Not Rated | UK:15 | Germany:16 | Denmark:15 | Australia:M | Argentina:16

Filming Locations:

Alaska, USA

Company:

Antidote Films (I)

Trivia:

Arist Brahm Revel illustrated a comic book adaptation of this film.

Movie Connections:

Features Lektionen in Finsternis (1992)

Soundtrack:

My Baby Just Cares For Me

'Wendigo' director scores another hit.

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