The Last Winter (2006)

It seems to me that Ron Perlman either chooses dreadful movies to appear in OR puts a jinx on films in which he appears. The one exception that comes to mind is "Alien Resurrection" in which he was reasonably cast, as a very tall macho oddball. This motion picture, "The Last Winter" has a feeling of doom about it right from the start. ALL the characters are wooden. I have rated this 1 out of 10, because 0 is not available. AVOID IT !

Even if you are a patient film-watcher, this movie will try your patience. It starts off well enough, in a bleak part of Alaska (where it also ends, and where all the so-called "action" takes place). An oil company's exploratory team establishes a base and explores. Weird, inexplicable stuff happens. People have visions...or are they seeing real things? There are consequences. The characters aren't engaging so we don't care much, but we do get teased along for the ride. Are there monsters of some kind? Malevolent forces? "Oh," you think. "That reminds me of "The Shining." "Ah," you sigh. "Aliens." "The Thing, the THING!" you think.More supposedly weird stuff happens and finally, there's an ending of sorts, one which I think will disappoint most viewers. I gave this 3 stars because I like snow-and-ice settings in movies and it rather infuriatingly held my interest just enough that I wanted to see the outcome. I will not be watching it again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

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.

If you've ever wondered what the cast members of TV's "Friday Night Lights" were up to before they hit pay dirt with that wonderful series, check out "The Last Winter," where you can see no fewer than two of them - Connie Britton and Zach Gilford - fighting forces of evil together in a single film. Here they play employees of an energy firm that has sent a small team, headed by Ron Perlman, to the Arctic Circle to pump out the oil that lies beneath the newly-melting permafrost. James LeGros is a cocky environmentalist who keeps trying to convince everyone that something "not quite right" is happening to the climate in the area, but none of the "drill, baby, drill" types seem to want to listen. Yet, soon a mad-as-hell Mother Nature is taking matters into her own hands and, before you know it, rain is falling in February, the ice is breaking under the workers' feet, the equipment is malfunctioning, crows are circling the premises, planes are dropping out of the sky, people's noses are bleeding for no apparent reason, one man has wandered off into the wilderness stark naked, a mysterious creature is lurking around the base, and a strange form of madness has begun to settle in over the employees.There's really not a whole lot to say about "The Last Winter" - which has been directed, edited and co-written by Larry Fessenden - except that this cautionary-tale about the dangers of global warming is long on exposition and short on credibility and suspense. And, oh yes, the climax is really, really cheesy.It's nice to see Britton and Gilford outside the confines of Dylan, Texas for a change, but this low-grade mishmash of climate-change speculation and Inuit folklore - think of it as "The Thing" meets "An Inconvenient Truth" - has precious little else to recommend it.