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Last Winter, The
IFC Films


5.7

based on 17 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
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FILM:

Wendigo

MPAA RATING:

Starring Ron Perlman, James LeGros, Connie Britton, Kevin Corrigan, Jamie Harrold, Pato Hoffmann, Zach Gilford, and Joanne Shenandoah

In one of the most pristine landscapes in the world, a team working to exploit Alaska's oil resources is tormented by an unseen evil. After one crew member is found dead, disorientation slowly claims the sanity of the other members of the team as each of them succumbs to an unknown fear. This creeping dread bursts open when a malevolent wind brings down a plane that approaches the station. Explosions and carnage wreak havoc on the team, and all functions fail in the camp, forcing two of the members out into the cold on a desperate bid for survival. As these two journey to find help, they find themselves utterly alone in a world that is unraveling--either they are being stalked by an invisible herd of menacing phantoms, or they are going mad. (IFC Films)

GENRE(S):	Horror \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Robert Leaver Larry Fessenden
DIRECTED BY:	Larry Fessenden
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 22, 2008 Theatrical: September 21, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	101 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Village Voice Nathan Lee

It's the imaginative background, and Fessenden's talent at insinuating it into the action, that counts--and unnerves--in this most chilling of global-warming movies.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The Last Winter won’t win many fans among those who place the saving of union jobs above the repairing of the ozone layer. But this is a horror movie with many inconvenient truths to tell about the ways in which we are willingly destroying our planet.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

It's billed as an environmental horror story, but The Last Winter bears all the hallmarks of an ever-popular genre that has always pitted science, technology and reason against emotion, awe and nature. It bears all the hallmarks of the gothic: ghosts, death, alienated sexuality, decay, secrets, madness and, of course, awe and trepidation in the face of the sublime power of nature.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

A richly drawn, ambitious character piece both socially relevant and genuinely suspenseful.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Gruesome and terrifying things happen in The Last Winter, but there's no gratuitous gore or torture, and the film's real power comes from its building sense that something really, really bad is ABOUT to happen.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

And if the film's 11th-hour CGI effects aren't entirely convincing, the notion that oil itself is haunted by the restless spirit of every once-living thing that time reduced and mingled into the earth's black blood throws off a primordial chill.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

While the slow buildup won't bowl 'em over at suburban multiplexes, the film should please Fessenden's loyal followers and win him new ones.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The Last Winter sounds like a genre-movie platypus - a little bit of this, a little piece of that - but it stops short of laying an egg. In fact, it works eerily well.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Succeeds royally at building a sense of apocalyptic dread. It isn't quite so successful at sustaining that mood, and Fessenden resorts to blurry images of totemic spirit forces and stampeding moose specters to get where he's going. And where exactly is that? To a place designed to scare the bejesus out of us planet-pillaging consumers.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Who said that an environmental horror film couldn't be didactic and spooky at the same time?

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Something wicked this way comes in the nifty horror film The Last Winter, crawling through the hallways and howling into the dread night.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Like his "Wendigo," the film has a lot of mumbo jumbo about ancient spirits revived and angered by human disrespect--the old Indian-graveyard paradigm, as clunky as ever. But the context is overpoweringly eerie.

Variety Dennis Harvey

An imperfect but compelling thriller.

The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore

The long buildup is too deliberate to please the mainstream horror crowd, and the finale might alienate more niche audiences, but in between there's a good bit to savor.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The Last Winter's heart is in the right place, but it isn't pumping any blood.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Among cautionary tales of gloom-and-doom, it may out-gore Gore, but it doesn't entertain.

San Francisco Chronicle David Wiegand

The film isn't very interesting because it isn't well made.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.7 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ed G. gave it an8:
Creepy. Haunting. Claustrophobic. Well-acted, even if Ron Perlman's character is written as a one-note villain. Beautifully shot, permeated with dread. James LeGros does fine work. Fessenden and his cinematographer turn the frozen nothingness into a living, breathing, palpable and inexorable adversary.

Joe T gave it an8:
Larry Fessenden... I like you. Fans of heady horror and/or The Thing would do well to stick their murder boners into this beast.

az g gave it a10:
This film is is more or less how I imagine the end. Ghostly apparitions and chaos unfolding as a result of human treachery and neglect. It is no hollywood shocker. Just a straight story of men and women confronting the inevitable.

Sean F. gave it a0:
The critics must have taken a payoff on this one. There's no explanation for nearly anything that happens in this film (and a great deal of it is confusing). The ending clarifies nothing, and only serves as a reminder that you've wasted over 90 minutes of valuable lifetime viewing this horrible piece of rubbish.

Jay H. gave it a7:
Great cinematography. Incredible atmosphere. Very eerie and suspenseful. Well acted. I wish it wasn't quite so mysterious, but it's a finely crafted film.

Justin gave it a5:
I was with this until the last ten minutes, then it all came apart. It was like ok, ok, ok, ok, WTF!?, movie over. Too bad.

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Last Winter, The IFC Films

Last Winter, The
IFC Films