The Last Winter

Starts out way too slowly. Then when it finally starts, it looks good for a few minutes before turning steeply downhill. Ghost reindeers? At least it looks mostly good.

While contemplating my review for "The Last Winter", I noticed my Criticker Probable Score Indicator was "Not That Hot". Sounds good to me. Thanks, Criticker!

"What with his interest in using B movies as vehicles for intelligent political and psychological inquiries, Larry Fessenden is the type of genre craftsman easy to champion." - Nick Schager

Ending does not pay off, but there are some legitimately creepy moments.

This was a (mostly) well-made thriller that lost 20 points in the final 5 minutes. The sort of film whose conclusion makes you wish you hadn't started it in the first place.

The plot seems to take a backseat to the message here. The story is all over the place, and isn't very scary- some of the mysterious and effective bits early on aren't utilized to very good effect later on. The payoff doesn't work, and the characters aren't particularly likable. It's not a total loss, though- the scenery is beautiful to look at, the score is good, and you can't go wrong with the Perlman.

Strong atmosphere and a decent musical score weren't enough to save this movie from a story so astonishingly bad that only Al Gore could appreciate it.

I don't get this. Characters debate environmental issues and then some ghosts start killing them. Maybe if the payoff was exciting at the end, it might have worked.

Eco-Horror? Confusing build-up for 50 minutes, then a huge let-down after that.

Everything in the film is really good except for the final five minutes or so. The acting is very impressive for a horror flick, with a few minor dips from minor characters, the cinematography compliments the subject matter perfectly, and Fessenden provides an excellent film envoking fear but the last five minutes are just so unsatisfactory. Apparently it's ethereal reindeer or something that will be unleashed by global warming, so unsatisfactory after the rest of the film.

About as subtle and undersated a monster movie as I've ever seen

I spent the whole movie waiting for something to happen, and then the credits rolled and I was like, WTF, that's it?

B

A horror movie that isn't.

This is what happens when I decide to watch a film based on the RT score instead of checking Criticker first. Painfully slow horror that spends too much time bashing the viewer round the head with its not-very-clever global warming message. The horror element is so open-ended (bordering on nonsensical) that I don't think even the writers knew what they were aiming at. Alaska looks pretty though.

I'm not really sure what happened in this movie. It seems to half-heartedly suggest that ancient spirits of the animals (specifically, some caribou type creatures) that fossilized and turned into oil were released through an oil drilling project. One character describes oil-drilling as being pretty much grave-robbing, so that could be why the ghost caribou are attacking the team... but it is pretty murky as to what is actually going on.

If you expect it to make sense by the end, look elsewhere. For me, the lack of a coherent explanation behind the chain of events enchanced the atmosphere of uncertainty and dread. The more important characters are sufficiently defined and well-acted enough to care about them. The way the characters persist in their denial of their situation might the filmmakers' parable about the general reaction towards environmental issues.

Smarter than your average thriller. It has a subtle take on environmental/global warming issues so you never feel like the message is being shoved down your throat. But as a thriller itself, it doesn't totally deliver as it lacked tension and atmosphere, elements required for a slow-moving thriller such as this one to work. I know some hated the ending. But I thought it was appropriate and open to interpretation. My take on it is that the ghosts were just hallucinations caused by the sour gas.

The location is the most interesting thing about this as it tries to rip off The Thing in mood and atmosphere yet fails on all accounts. Someone also forgot to tell Ron Perlman that he's not on the set of Hellboy and to tone down his over the top acting. The big "reveal" for the mystery is also something that will make most people laugh at how completely stupid it is. This is completely forgettable.

Ron Pearlman was the only good part of this movie..the rest was a bore

A very slow, lackluster horror movie with a half-assed global warming message tacked on. Neither component works; you'd be better off just watching The Shining and then An Inconvenient Truth again. That said, I only watched it because Tami Taylor and Matt Saracen from Friday Night Lights are in it, and on that front... it delivered!

Bad story, didnt like

Few nice looking scenes but the script is absolute rubbish.