Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Review: The Last Winter (2006)

The Last Winter is director Larry Fessenden’s fourth feature film and his most high profile to date. This film tells the story of a team of oil company workers in the arctic, attempting to establish a base of operations for a controversial new drilling operation. Two things automatically sprung to mind when I first read about this film: environmental issues, and John Carpenter’s The Thing. Let me get both of these out of the way. First, this film does have a strong environmental message. How strong you ask? Well, during the film there is a montage of ecological disasters as one of the characters talks about how we hate our planet so much. Preachy? You bet. Thankfully, this scene is short and the majority of the film is free from such ham-handed sociopolitical posturing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the green thing, but while I don’t mind it being a theme in my movies, don’t hit me over the head with it and don’t stop the film to try and “educate” me, it’s insulting. Secondly, there’s the obvious comparison to John Carpenter’s The Thing, as well as the original The Thing From Another World. Do the films compare? Not really. While both are horror films set in the arctic and feature some kind of “monster”, the monster in Last Winter is very subtle, very CGI, and very spiritual. Oh, and bloodless. So, don’t go in expecting a sweet creature feature. Does this mean that Last Winter is bad? Not at all. As a matter of fact, I found the film quite good for the most part and a definite step forward directorially for Larry Fessenden.

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While Fessenden’s previous films haven’t really starred any actors of note, he manages to make a major coup here by casting Ron Perlman as the team captain and main source of frustration and hostility towards our “hero” environmentalist character played by James LeGros. As if their personal views about the environment and politics didn’t put them in enough of a conflict with each other, Fessenden throws in the fact that LeGros’ character is sleeping with Perlman’s ex-squeeze played superbly by Connie Britton. Perlman really steals the show here which is a bit unfortunate for LeGros, whose understated straight man is very well done. However, far be it for me to complain about Ron Perlman eating up the scenery. The man is a consummate actor and a joy to watch in any film.

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If you’re not familiar with Fessenden or his previous films, No Telling, Habit, and Wendigo, allow me to prepare you for if you choose to seek out this film. Larry’s films are almost always horror films, but most of the horror is either implied through trippy, psychedelic camera work or atmospheric shots of people staring into nothingness. Now, this is very effective but essentially all of his films are character driven conflict first and foremost. Compared to Wendigo, which Last Winter is essentially a sequel to, Last Winter’s horror elements are downright vulgar in their displays of existence, manifesting in the form of CGI spirits. Unfortunately, for the most part, these CGI critters just don’t work. There are a few instances where they’re effective, but since their presence is simply implied through most of the film, when we do finally see them up close, they’re a bit of a letdown.

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Other than the atmosphere and CGI critters, the horror here is found in the idea of the melting permafrost unleashing substances that have been frozen for tens of thousands of years. On top of that, it is pointed out that the oil they are drilling for is essentially the decomposed remains of ancient living beings. This corruption of nature is hammered home by the vague Native American spiritual underpinnings delivered to us by some ethnic cast members. While this part may sound like the preachy bit, I actually found this a fascinating twist on the “nature run amuck” subgenre. So, if you think you can handle what is essentially a bunch of atmosphere and conversations, followed by a bunch of CGI ghosts, then I suggest you give this film a chance. It’s not great, and has a lot of problems, but I found the good outweighed the bad, and perhaps against my better judgment, I liked it.

Noah "Annubis" Soudrette

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